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Mozilla To Launch "Build Your Own Browser"

Posted by kdawson on from the have-it-your-way dept.

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."

40 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Opera did this too by nacturation · · Score: 5, Informative

    At least they used to. Starting with Opera 7 you could import a set of bookmarks, setup the home page, etc. and then distribute your own customized version of Opera. Good to see Firefox starting to consider this as well.

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    1. Re:Opera did this too by paganizer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Out of curiosity, when chronologically was this? I know I was building customized Internet Explorer 4 browsers using an NT 4 IEAK back in '98.
      I'm sort of vaguely remembering a comparable feature involving Netscape about then, also?
      By the way. I still think IE4 didn't suck in comparison to the competition when it came out. As a matter of fact, I would say that about Microsoft in general up until mid/late 2000. They got really squirrelly about then.
      Evil and monopolistic, sure. but in a useful way.

      --
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    2. Re:Opera did this too by nacturation · · Score: 4, Informative

      Out of curiosity, when chronologically was this?

      Actually, it was back in Opera 5 days. The URL http://composer.opera.com/ seems to date back to June 30, 2001:

      http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://composer.opera.com

      Checking the main Opera site as of that date shows Opera 5.12 was released for Windows.

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    3. Re:Opera did this too by Phroggy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And more appealing for other people. Corporate management can be weird.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    4. Re:Opera did this too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      IE was the better browser for a while, which is why it won...

      IE won over Netscape 4 because IE was the default option and Microsoft abused their desktop monopoly to bundle IE and Microsoft prevented OEMs from offering a different default browser.

      Remember that there's a bit of hindsight affecting peoples take on it too... at the time was the battle of CSS versus Javascript Style Sheets at the W3C and CSS won, so it's only natural that Netscape 4 looks worse upon hindsight. At the time Netscape 4 and IE were about the same (read: full of bugs). IE4 didn't understand floats at all well and while it supported position:absolute it didn't understand right/bottom coordinates(!), whereas Netscape 4 had a (seemingly) different rendering engine once you made JavaScript changes to the page and setting things back to the same values would often result in different positioning.

      Weird shit, but please don't act like market forces, default browsers, and OEM constraints weren't the major factor in IE winning for a few years.

      Currently I'd say that while IE has the majority they aren't winning in that no one has to develop just for them to the detriment of other browesrs.

    5. Re:Opera did this too by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If I am selling widgets for $40 and my competition is giving away feature comparable widgets for free who are customers going to go to for their widgets?

      Not you, obviously. Much like when I want a drink of water I grab it from the drinking fountain, not the guy hawking water bottles at a few bucks a pop.

      That is why Microsoft was convicted of abusing its monopoly power.

      Microsoft weren't the only company giving away widgets.

      Netscape, by trying to charge for a web browser, were very much out of the ordinary. They gambled that they'd be able to tie their web browser to their web server in a compelling package and therefore be able to charge big $$$ for both. They lost.

  2. Not for us by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Not for us by Photo_Nut · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      There's even more to it than that. The WebBrowser COM/.NET control is the IE control. Even if you manage to supplant IE as the browser of choice, all code which embeds the COM or .NET wrapped COM control depends on it. So for example, the Windows Shell and the help system, and Windows Update, Windows Media Player, third party apps integrating the system WebBrowser such as WinAmp, etc.

      The Internet Explorer browser itself is really just a light weight set of UIs wrapped around the standard WebBrowser COM/ActiveX control. It's actually pretty fun to write .NET code that interacts with the WebBrowser. You can add some interesting features like web page scrapers, etc.

    2. Re:Not for us by supernova_hq · · Score: 5, Informative

      Blaming enterprise software for your inability to install FireFox is nothing but a cop-out. The solution to this problem is so simple, I can't believe people even see it as a problem anymore.

      Install Firefox, then install ieTab. ieTab can be set to do nothing until you browse to a any of a list of domains. Once you enter a domain, ieTab takes over and runs that tab inside a native IE browser. IE is seamlessly embedded inside the tab, and the user won't even notice.

      The best part is that once a lot of companies do this, the enterprise software companies can start developing their software to standards, since most companies will already be using FireFox. Using IE for every website, just because of one domain (usually local network) requiring IE is just stupid

      This whole "We can't use FireFox because of enterprise app X" is bullshit. People need to learn how to properly manage corporate computer systems without coming up with these pathetic excuses for not doing their jobs properly.

    3. Re:Not for us by jonaskoelker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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 ;-)

    4. Re:Not for us by HeronBlademaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    5. Re:Not for us by wintermute000 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Er, IE tab doesn't always work seamlessly esp. if said stupid enterprise software relies on a lot of popups, it starts behaving funny. Have you tested it against all the crappy .net custom apps out there?

      Heck at work the all bling new BMC Remedy system they brought in, the web facing frontend doesn't work properly in firefox. Thats a serious $$$ app. IEtab? I refer you to my popup issues.

      Also IETab is not a fully supported product, if something doesn't work well with it, tough.

      "This whole "We can't use FireFox because of enterprise app X" is bullshit. People need to learn how to properly manage corporate computer systems without coming up with these pathetic excuses for not doing their jobs properly."

      With that kind of attitude, I take it you don't run large enterprise environments (no, medium business with some branches or shops and one or two big sites doesn't count, where you get to be the grand wizard techie who overrules all).

      Technical arguments aside there are plenty of practical reasons. Just resistance to change, lack of tangible benefits, lack of support (you already pay MS for support so thats 'free'), user inertia / retraining (yes every call to the helpdesk where they explain clicking on the orange icon not the blue E icon costs $$$). We're techies and we like our own browsers and love sh1tting on MS but that's not how management looks at it. What is the bottom line gain YOU CAN DEMONSTRATE to the company? zero, and don't start talking about security, the you can demonstrate bit is the most important bit.

    6. Re:Not for us by pbhj · · Score: 2, Interesting

      IMO, IEtab for Linux is actually a great idea. Currently people use IEs4linux or just plain WINE or a virtualisation environment - having an IEtab for linux that can seamlessly hook into a virtualised / WINE version of IE could be useful for those migrating from a Microsoft OS to a Linux distro or those doing testing with IE.

      Bonus marks if it virtualises IE6/IE7/IE8 and allows compatibility modes too and only shows as a tab in FF none of the virtualisation env being revealed.

      Currently I use dual-boot and virtualbox (for web design compat. testing), which I'd need to keep on with but an IEtab4linux could aid brief testing.

  3. ActiveX by Green+Light · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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    1. Re:ActiveX by linebackn · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

      Actually, what SHOULD happen is that companies need to stop using those old ActiveX controls. Otherwise eventually companies are going to find themselves in a situation where they run one browser and the rest of the world runs something else!

    2. Re:ActiveX by afabbro · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

      Actually, what SHOULD happen is that companies need to stop using those old ActiveX controls. Otherwise eventually companies are going to find themselves in a situation where they run one browser and the rest of the world runs something else!

      I don't think they'd care. For most companies, the browser is just a UI into various enterprise apps. E.g., instead of having to install a Peoplesoft Win32 executable client, Peoplesoft has a built-in web server and users access PeopleSoft through the intranet. This is extremely common - in fact, it may be the most common way for users to interact with enterprise apps these days. For most desktops, what the rest of the world runs is immaterial - it's whether the browser talks to application X, Y, and Z hosted internally.

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    3. Re:ActiveX by QuantumG · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ya kidding right? The intranet/internet distinction is DEAD. Malware runs on the client, the client is on the intranet, end of story.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    4. Re:ActiveX by Jason+Earl · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    5. Re:ActiveX by Phroggy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Microsoft will stop releasing security patches for Windows XP in five years. If your business relies on something that only works in IE6, you have until 2014 to figure out a new solution, or continue running an unsupported operating system with no security updates available.

      However, you may have difficulty before then, if new PCs start shipping with hardware that isn't supported by WinXP. Of course this assumes you have an existing site license that covers the use of WinXP on new PCs; Microsoft has stopped selling WinXP, so when OEMs and retailers run out of copies, you won't be able to buy it - and the option to downgrade from Vista to XP will end in less than two months.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    6. Re:ActiveX by KingMotley · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, in every web based application I've developed, the driving reason was so to avoid the installation problems and support. It's easy to tell users to go to this or that URL to use a new application, a heck of a lot easier than rolling out apps everywhere. Independance from a specific operating system or browser has NEVER EVER come up.

    7. Re:ActiveX by silanea · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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?

      --
      Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
    8. Re:ActiveX by jalefkowit · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

      People make this argument -- "enterprises" won't use Firefox until it has feature X, or Y, or Z -- a lot, and it's just wrong.

      "Enterprises" are lagging indicators because their IT staff are generally guided primarily by risk aversion. Even if Firefox was 100% bug-compatible with IE, they wouldn't switch, because IE runs their crappy, poorly written "enterprise applications" well enough today. Why take a chance by switching?

      No, the way new technologies get into the enterprise isn't by chasing features, it's by being so insanely useful that the users start demanding it, no matter what the IT people want.

      Example: the PC didn't make its way into big business back in the 70s because Apple re-engineered the Apple II to play nicely with VAXes; it made its way in because users bought them on their own dime, brought them into work, dumped 'em on their desks and told the IT staff "I need this to get my work done. Deal with it."

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  4. And in the Linux world ... by pseudonomous · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  5. Nice idea... but I already know how this will end by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Even more than before, ISPs will push "their" own flavor of a browser that comes bundled with those godforsaken coasters that unsuspecting victims dump into their machines, only to end up with an IE (or FF from now on, too) that blatantly advertises the ISP, rehijacks the "favorite browser" position every time you rip it from him and stuff all kind of browser addons into it that you strangely cannot get rid of anymore due to miraculously missing deinstall routines.

    I like the idea. No really, I do. But this is what it will be (ab)used for.

    --
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  6. Spinning an outstanding deficiency by phoebe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Spinning an outstanding deficiency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah. It's not like the IT department is actually concerned with that "group policy" and "fine-grained control of all instances of the browser on the network" crap.

      They're worried if they're able to slap their company's LOGO onto the browser! Way to set your priorities straight, Mozilla.

    2. Re:Spinning an outstanding deficiency by zonky · · Score: 3, Informative

      Firefox Community Edition already supports group policy. http://www.frontmotion.com/Firefox/fmfirefox.htm

    3. Re:Spinning an outstanding deficiency by prandal · · Score: 3, Informative

      There's FirefoxADM: http://ick2.wordpress.com/

      This stuff really needs to be in the core of Firefox for it to gain corporate users.

    4. Re:Spinning an outstanding deficiency by deadsquid · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The intent is to get to a place where we can do just that. The challenge is creating MSI's that can do that without relying on the registry for configuration changes (Firefox keeps all of its configuration directives - with the exception of some plugin registrations - in the appdir and user profile). It's a solvable problem that requires some concerted effort, and I'm always interested in hearing what kinds of configuration options the provisioning groups within an enterprise are looking for.

      --
      Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant
    5. Re:Spinning an outstanding deficiency by Nimey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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?

      --
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      E pluribus sanguinem
  7. You might not be focusing on the right target... by Bill_Royle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  8. I do this already by andytrevino · · Score: 3, Interesting

    At UW-Milwaukee's dorms, I used FFDeploy to do just this: create a silent Firefox installer for student and faculty machines with some built-in bookmark buttons for our student service websites, e-mail system and so on.

    Doing this saves time and installs FF with a nice student-friendly UI right off the bat -- very useful in converting otherwise IE-centric students who don't care what browser they're using to Firefox.

  9. Striking while the iron is hot by carlzum · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  10. Re:You might not be focusing on the right target.. by Bill_Royle · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Good point - but then you're hitching the proverbial wagon to not just one vendor now, but two. While you could approach the problem this way, wouldn't it be a lot more efficient to just work with the web app vendor to build in compatibility?

    Clearly it can be done - I'm betting that Hong Jen Yee would be up for a nice paycheck for this kind of work.

  11. Fine, but... by c_g_hills · · Score: 3, Informative

    What would be more useful to enterprises who want to distribute Firefox is an MSI package and a group policy template - like the version distributed by FrontMotion (Firefox Community Edition).

  12. Re:You might not be focusing on the right target.. by Techman83 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Depends on the vendor. If the business demands MS Exchange, then OWA in "Light Mode" is all you get in FF. It becomes very hard to justify a browser change if it's going to cost $$$ making a system supplied by $vendor that has a major business investment in it or even changing vendors when what comes with Windows "works" (term used very loosely there).

    I prefer the "Best of Both Worlds" approach. Free to deploy our browser of choice and no fighting with vendors that will state that IEx is a requirement so bad luck.

    It will also make pathways towards using more cross platform software, anything that can break the dependencies is a "Good Thing".

    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i cat
    Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
  13. Why don't Distros do this? by Lord+Bitman · · Score: 2

    Maybe I'm missing something, but I've yet to see a "burn install CD with current configuration" button, or similar.

    --
    -- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
  14. You can demonstrate that. by GameboyRMH · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What is the bottom line gain YOU CAN DEMONSTRATE to the company? zero, and don't start talking about security, the you can demonstrate bit is the most important bit.

    You may be able to demonstrate a security flaw, depending on what it is and your skill level...if push comes to shove, round up some virus samples and put together a "crash dummy" PC/VM for demonstration purposes...

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  15. Re:SSL CA certs! by GaryOlson · · Score: 3, Informative

    OK, for those who don't read the discussion, let's repeat the obvious
    The latest version of FirefoxADMrelease notes specifically list the feature Added: Ability to replace certificates for all user profiles.

    --
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  16. Re:Flash by geminidomino · · Score: 3, Funny

    Thank you very much for proving us women absolutely correct when we complain about the abusive, sexist hostility we receive on male-dominated sites like this.

    Oh please. Everyone gets abused here.

    If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

    (Oh, the irony!)