Mozilla To Launch "Build Your Own Browser"

angry tapir sends in a piece from Down Under which begins "Mozilla is readying a program that will allow companies to build their own customized browsers based on the next version of Firefox, which will be out in a few weeks. ... Through the Build Your Own Browser program, which will start sometime soon after Firefox 3.5 is released at the end of June, companies can use a Web application provided by Mozilla to specify certain customizations for the browser, such as bookmarks to certain sites or corporate intranets or portals. ... The bulk of enterprises still use Internet Explorer if they mandate a browser for company use, because Microsoft provides provisioning and installation software for IE that makes it easy for enterprises to control browser settings and install across all corporate desktops, said Forrester analyst Sheri McLeish. Mozilla has not historically done this, but something like the Build Your Own Browser program is a good start to encourage enterprises to use Firefox over IE."

Comments

Not for us

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, I work for a Fortune 100 company and we use IE because all the crappy "enterprise" software we run requires stupid ActiveX or JavaScript or whatever that only runs on IE6. Good luck to FireFox, but customizations ain't got nothing to do with it where I work.

Re:Not for us

[jonaskoelker]

You can add some interesting features like web page scrapers, etc.

... security holes, 90's UI paradigms, Active X controls, proprietary extensions, ...

Yeah, I can see the appeal ;-)

Re:Not for us

[HeronBlademaster]

ieTab doesn't work in Linux because there's no IE to load in the tab in Linux. That's all ieTab does...

ActiveX

[Green Light]

Enterprises support IE because it runs ActiveX controls. Until FF does this, it will not appear in desktop builds for the majority of Corporate America.

Re:ActiveX

[Jason Earl]

Other than the fact that relying on ActiveX ties to you to Internet Explorer. In many cases it even ties you to an obsolete and insecure version of Internet Explorer. Microsoft has essentially pulled the plug on ActiveX. It wants you to move to new technologies (and when you do migrate it will pull the plug on those technologies and force you to migrate again).

I would be that, in most enterprises, if you added up the costs of continuing to support IE6 it would become clear that relying on ActiveX was a very poor bargain. The advantages of using ActiveX over other competing technologies was relatively small, and the cost of choosing ActiveX has been quite high.

Re:ActiveX

[silanea]

Oh, of course established companies never release flawed software, right? Their ActiveX control does not have to be malicious in itself, it is sufficient if it tears holes into your defense for others to abuse. ActiveX needs to die a very quick death already. And can we please club that idea that a browser, JavaScript and a bit of fairy-dust can fully replace any local application regardless of specific implications out of people's heads?

And in the Linux world ...

[pseudonomous]

I wonder if this will spawn a trend where every single distro ships with thier own branded firefox version. Meaning that in distro reviews, we'll have the mandatory screenshot of the login screen art, the defualt desktop background, and the firefox branding. Great.

I would welcome this for Arch, though, we have to rebuild firefox from source or we're stuck with the ugly "built from source code" icons.

Spinning an outstanding deficiency

[phoebe]

So instead of offering one browser that can be configured by Group Policy in an Enterprise IT deployment they offer a web service to generate hard-coded branded browser installers? Sounds like a lot of work to avoid implementing what IT managers really want.

Re:Spinning an outstanding deficiency

[Nimey]

Great, but that's not an official package from Mozilla, and hence it can't be trusted by us more paranoid types.

Can someone at Mozilla tell us why you haven't started distributing your own MSI and ADM files yet?

You might not be focusing on the right target...

[Bill_Royle]

The problem isn't that companies can't deploy Firefox - it's that most vendors are IE-centric. It's easy to put together a default Firefox profile with the requisite bookmarks and customizations, but tougher to get the same "experience" when it comes to things like Sharepoint and SAP, among others. Once you can get some of those vendors (ok, maybe not MS) to play more nicely, the rest will take care of itself.

I'm not saying it's all Mozilla's fault - in fact most of it isn't. But some corporate evangelism would go a long way towards getting traction within the enterprise.

Striking while the iron is hot

[carlzum]

Firefox has earned a lot of goodwill among the general population, but it's probably nearing a plateau in terms of brand recognition and new users. MS is starting to close the gap in features and security perception, so now is the time for FF to make some inroads in the enterprise software market. Users migrated to FF because they were dissatisfied with IE. If Modzilla solves shortcomings in IE for businesses and organizations they'll make some traction. If everyone's generally happy with IE, I don't see any new features that will compel them to invest in the change.

I do see a lot of companies using login scripts to control IE settings, and Active Directory's group policies tend to be an all-or-none (no plug-ins or all plug-ins, can't change homepage or can change it to anything, etc.) so there may be a few things Mozilla can improve on.