The Future of Firefox

The Future of FirefoxTristan Nitot, President & Founder,

Mozilla Europe

Mozilla is doomed!

JWZ, March 1999

November 2001

March 2005

Some help from the audience?

Source: xitimonitor.com, Oct ‘07

Firefox 3

Firefox 3

• Based on Gecko 1.9

• Reflow refactoring

• Cairo Graphics Library

• Improvements in memory management

• Passes Acid2

• Beta 1 really soon

Firefox 3: engine update

• Better memory management

• Snappier

• Better standards support, passes Acid 2

• Full page zoom

• Advanced font rendering

• Native form controls

FX3: UI changes

• Visual refresh still to come

• Toolbar rearrange

• Page info redesign

• New download manager

• Visual drag&drop & multiple selections

“The awesome bar”

• Goal: reinvent bookmarks

• Merging history, bookmarks and adding tagging

Mozilla 2: issues we’re trying to solve

• More performance, smaller footprint (running on less powerful platforms)

• Easier to maintain and contribute

• More security

Tools

• DeCOMtamination (rewriting tools to massively update the codebase)

• Tamarin JIT Compiler JS2 engine

Firefox Mobile

• Plans announced October 9th, 2007

• Based on Mozilla 2 (e.g. will take some time, and Firefox 3 will *not* run on your mobile)

• Hired Christian Sejersen (ex-Openwave) and Brad Lassey (FT R&D)

• Leveraging the Firefox brand and XUL technology

Ways to Get Involved

• Use Firefox

• Spread the wordspreadfirefox.com

• Give us feedback

• Write an Add-ondeveloper.mozilla.org

• Become a contributor

[email protected] you very much!

Ideas were shamelessly stolen:from at least the following people:

The Firefox CommunityMike SchroepferChris BeardMike BeltznerDave CampPaul ColtonMike ConnorAsa DotzlerDavid EavesBrendan EichAlex FaaborgMark FinkleJay GoldmanBen GoodgerJohn LillyLarry LessigDeb RichardsonMike ShaverMartin Weinberger

images courtesy of stock.xchng

Thunderbird Future

• Hired David Ascher (formerly with ActiveState)

• Allocated $3MM for creating a Mozilla Foundation 100% subsidiary (codenamed ‘Mailco’)

• Build the community around the future of personal communication

• Medium term: more extensions, built-in Calendaring and task management?