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Back before the web was mobile and social, when people accessed the web only through PCs, a non-profit called Mozilla decided to take on Microsoft’s domineering web browser, Internet Explorer.Mozilla didn’t like the fact that a private corporation owned the world’s most-used web browser so it decided to build its own and offer it for free. Today, that browser, Firefox, is a main challenger to Internet Explorer and beats it in Europe. The giant was slain and the web was kind of free again.
In 2012, however, there are new things about the web that annoy Mozilla. The web is now social (dominated by Facebook and Twitter) and it’s mobile (dominated by Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating system and their apps).
Mozilla doesn’t like the walled gardens of Facebook or Google+ and it certainly doesn’t like the walled gardens created by Apple with its app store or Android with its market place.
Mozilla wants to launch its own app store, one that will revolutionise the app development sector. It wants its apps to run equally well on an iPhone, an Android phone or a Windows Phone. It also has plans to develop a smartphone that would not have a closed operating system like iOS or Android.
Boot to Gecko
Mozilla’s phone will be a web phone and will run software like JavaScript and HTML5 directly on the phone’s hardware, thus eliminating the need for an intermediate operating system like iOS or Android. It’s a revolutionary idea and one, Mozilla says, that’s not very far away from development.
It is rumoured that Mozilla is talking to manufacturers and wireless networks who could build and support the Mozilla phone. The project is codenamed ‘Boot to Gecko’ and the industry grapevine suggests Mozilla could launch the phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (possibly in 2012).
Mozilla’s attempt to bring down the walls erected by Apple, Google, Facebook et al is admirable and goes right back to its roots when it took on Microsoft’s dominance.
“Our mission has not changed, it’s just that our world has moved on,” says Jay Sullivan, Mozilla’s vice president of products. “Instead of your choice for a particular device narrowing your options, we’d like to see the user have control over their online life.”
Mozilla says it is also building its own credential system, called ‘BrowserID’, that would allow users to register and login to a social network without sharing large amounts of their personal data.
