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Mozilla Is Rebranding Firefox and Wants Your Feedback (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla is rebranding Firefox. The company is asking for feedback on the new look, which will try to cover the various Firefox offerings. For most people, Firefox refers to a browser, but the company wants the brand to encompass all the various apps and services that the Firefox family of internet products cover, "from easy screenshotting and file sharing to innovative ways to access the internet using voice and virtual reality." The fox with a flaming tail "doesn't offer enough design tools to represent this entire product family," Mozilla believes.
"We ruined our product and want people to give us a second look without realizing who we really are"
Oh, believe me, I would LOVE to give Mozilla some feedback about how they're doing with Firefox! Somebody might get injured though.
Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
Mozilla wastes way too much time, focus, funding, etc on rebranding and perception. Rebranding is useless if you don't actually spend time improving the product first.
Bob.
None of FF's users care. This is just designers + managers making busy work to justify their jobs.
Just the browser, please.
No one is interested in "various apps and services" or "screenshotting and file sharing" or "ways to access the internet using voice and virtual reality."
All that is just more stuff for me to disable either directly or with an extension. Save me the trouble, thank you.
They should call it Netscape Navigator.
If you want to rebrand Firefox and get all trendy-like, and make a whole line of experiences or whatever, just give up. Give Firefox over to Apache or somebody, focus on these apps and widgets that are going to lapse into total profitability -any day now-.
You clearly don't want to make a decent browser any more. You definitely don't want to make a decent mail client.
So why are you even expending effort on this browser you dislike?
oh fuck me.
Look guys, I remember when Mozilla was a bloated monolith - irc, mail, usenet, i don't even remember what else. Oh, and a browser nobody used. Then firefox came out from your summer intern (Blake Ross), by getting rid of all that crud and being a browser. And only a browser.
And, poof, Mozilla (well, FireFox) became relevant again. And then you squandered it. Why will it be different this time? Honestly, close up hop and give the money to somebody else.
Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
Since they seem to be following Chrome as of late anyway
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
....or they should just leave well enough alone!
Make America grate again!
How about Chrome II?
And then claim MSFT infringed on your trademark.
Profit!
(seriously, though, when you spend time rebranding, it's usually a sign of bad things)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
They can call the Email Client "Panda Express"
Just because you have name recognition with Firefox doesn't mean you should try to slap that name on every product you produce. Product awareness isn't transitive, confusion however is. I work for a company that did this, years later internally everyone still refers to the OG product with the now overarching brand, and externally customers are confused often not understanding what part of the brand they've bought. Obviously I won't name my employer but a public example might be how Microsoft used to stamp Windows on everything.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Mozilla is the brand for the family of products, and Firefox is the brand for the browser product. Nice and simple. Why overload it and confuse people? This makes no sense at all. Other products should have other brands so you can tell them apart.
Just go to their blog post and read it. As it says, there is no voting they just want feeback in the comments about it.
To me.. marketing types are funny (peculiar, not haha) in that they feel the world and their product revolves around marketing and perception. I think it is somewhat important for a product, but you need a good product first and foremost. It seems that Firefox has been making strides to get get back to where they need to be, although I am not sure they're there yet. I am personally willing to switch back from Pale Moon , but they're going to have to really convince me of it...and new icons aren't going to do it.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Let's see, how about a browser. You know what a browser is, don't you? It's a piece of software which allows one to view web pages and maybe play some content.
A browser does not harass you with add-ons, intrude upon your privacy, hide basic functionality such that one has to tweak settings in some obscure area, or a multitude of other issues which do nothing but slow the browser's ability to render web pages because it's become a bloated sack of yak manure.
KISS. You know what it means, right? Learn it. Live it. Do it.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
You can want until the end of time, if Firefox is a browser to most people now, it will stay a browser to most people in the future.
#DeleteFacebook
A person who says a logo contains things called "design tools" is one of those fucking goddamn marketing choads.
They have some use when cut up for chum, but otherwise they just rename things to justify their otherwise purposeless existence, and create confusion.
Eliminate them, keep the names people know.
I was trying to do something with Firefox on somebody else's computer and I just didn't have a clue how to do it.
The first thing I do on my own machines is install classic theme restorer, which isn't perfect but it gets you 90% of the way to sanity.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Use the colourful chrome icon (second row, first icon)
I dare you, Mozilla. Crowdsource the name.
I mean, all these tools help with interacting with the full landscape of Internet sites so maybe... Netscape?
1) Change the name to something more recognizeable. Some modification of the "Chrome" seems to be popular right now, so try things like "Chromantum", "Chromicisity", or "Chromabat". The closer to "Chrome", the better.
2) The color scheme using steel grey and ice-cold blue still has a tiny bit warmth to it. This should be removed, using a browser should feel like entering a walk-in freezer.
3) The preferences pages still have a few lines and borders that give the options an organized feeling. Mozilla should transition to a completely non-delimited look, so that everything looks like it's just placed on a white page.
4) Also on the preferences, get rid of the group headers. Since all the options are labeled, the headers are useless anyway.
5) There is still too much contrast between screen elements. For example, the slider on the right hand side of the screen can still be distinguished from its rail - the slider should be made lighter and/or the rail should be darker, to reduce annoying contrast.
6) More animations, such as the "cylon stare" when loading a tab, or the "burst of shadow" that happens when you open a new tab. These don't take any time to implement, don't need debugging or maintenance, and add greatly to the browsing experience.
7) Be sure to change the programming interface with each new update. Users only use any one extension about 30% of all sessions (on average), so this matches well with what users want.
8) Never, ever incorporate popular extensions into the core product for efficiency. Blocking ads and better security should be the end users task to learn about, decide, and implement. If you *must* implement something like the "do not track" button, be sure to be extremely careful not to piss off advertizers: implement it by default "off", so that users can choose.
9) Don't bother implementing an easy way to use encryption in the E-mail reader - no one wants that.
10) When all else fails, copy the competition (Chrome). There's no such thing as "product distinction" in the browser marketplace, one browser is the same as another. Don't bother trying anything that could make you better than Google.
11) And finally, always cater to the average user. Never implement anything that would appeal to advanced users, never try anything new and innovative, and never "play to the choir". Keep it simple, and keep your average users happy.
I don't know why buy my mom can't help but call it FoxFire. I've given up trying to correct her. Rebrand it to FoxFire so at least she'll start being right.
When you have to "go to the people" for your brand. "What is a good brand for us because people don't understand what it is I'm doing". That's a sure sign that YOU have no idea what your business is doing.
WTF are you doing? You've spent the last few years destroying Firefox to "make it better" by removing popular and time tested features (because they're too hard to maintain) then adding features no one wants or asked for (but now you want to ask them about branding) while baking ads into the browser all the while claiming you're "saving the internet"
You're a ship without a rudder and obviously have no tech vision of your own. THERE'S YOUR PROBLEM.
Yeesh, can you imagine Steve Jobs asking "What is a good vision for my company"?
that's what my wife used to call it when i used it
Hire Brandon Eich to head the renaming project.
Or how about "Mozilla, Sweeeeeeeet"
Branding!? How about distributing a "fully loaded" FireFox with Ghostery, NoScript, and all the other usual suspects? You could even bring back the STATUS BAR that you destroyed recently, so people can see URLs again before clicking them.
The headline reads feedback and I read again facebook
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Jeebus HB Crickey! Do NOT do what you are about to do! ... twice, ... before you bring this up again. You won't do that, but no matter, do read the book first! .... *Shudder*) and they want to dilute / decomission it - I can't effing believe it. Are these guys on crack? Someone please give the marketing crew over at mozilla a leave of absence with some downtime to clear their head ,,, please!
I insist *EVERYONE* on the Mozilla "marketing" and branding team read "The 22 immutable laws of marketing" front to back
The Firefox brand, after the "Firebird" desaster done by the same team (yeah, remember that one?) has become a globally recognised brand that is - and this is the most important aspect - associated with giving big iNet corps the finger while still being hipster and *not* in the smelly nerd camp. This is a once in a lifetime brand - DO NOT FUCK THIS UP!
The first and just about only global FOSS branding that isn't an utter total piece of shite (GNU anyone?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Trade the army of marketingoids for some coders and accountants that can keep the project running.
Feel free scrawl the marketing-speak on the toilet stalls because that's the only time I'm in the mood to hear it.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
But some spyware android app is using the name now. But we want extensions and power user features. Stop removing them. There is going to be a lot of pain in September when 52ESR is finally stopped supported and Windows XP and XUL users get thrown out in the cold.
I didn't read the article but it's bad because firefox! Why, if I were in charge, it'd be the most perefectest browser ever!!!!11
There's nothing wrong with the current FF logo.
-- Simon said: Die!
No. Just don't do it.
After all, nobody can think of anything good to add to the browser, and yuo have to do _something_ to keep busy...
Because Mozilla has been a rudderless ship for years due to piss-poor management.
Anyone remember the early phoenix/firebird/firefox plugin that would change the name of the browser every time you brought it up? I really miss that.
It was about the same time as the Abe Vigoda Is Not Dead plugin. Good times.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
> For most people, Firefox refers to a browser, but the company wants the brand to encompass all the various apps and services that the Firefox family of internet products cover [...]
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Stop worrying about branding and labeling and deal with functionality. Establish a menu style and STICK WITH IT. Make an API and leave it in place long enough for people to get used to it and they will support and use the product. Quit trying to emulate the car industry and producing a 'new' model every season.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Valley of the Vixens would retain the fox theme while suggesting a wider array of "services". If they want to retain the flaming tail aspect of it the Valley of the Hot Vixens. I'm sure there would be no confusing branding when a google search is done as long as it isn't from work
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I need way more TV tie-ins like they did for Mr. Robot. If I can't have those, I have to ask myself, what's the point in even using Firefox?
Always a recipe for success and greatness...
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
Ars Technica approved: m-scape
Phoenix
It sorta feels like when a big company pays millions to put their name on a stadium shortly before it becomes apparent that they really shouldn't have paid those millions.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
You are talking about this Russ Meyer movie, "Beneath the valley of the ultra-vixens", but you got the title askew:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
and you are hoping Slashdot nerds know that a vixen is a female fox.
Sly as a firefox
A triumph of style over substance, that manages to obscure the meaning every single icon.
"Help us rename this bloated pile of shit that used to be a great browser."
Sure, here are a few of my suggestions:
FireSlug
Pile-O-Worthless-Trinkets
MemoryHog
Frozen Dogshit (but with new themes!)
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I still have the box too.
*"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"*
Maybe they've thought of a way to do some sort of subscription thing, one that involves using the word "cloud" a lot.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
Mozilla should have started leaving decisions to the users a long time ago. I for one would have opted against breaking all the extensions to make the browser faster on paper.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
How about "Tetanus" for a product name?
Fix the memory leak, maybe? I know, I know, that'll never happen.
Daily read for tech news: Freezenet.ca
Can you just give me a browser that is really good?
The Unix philosophy is to have tools do one job, do it well, and integrate with other tools for more complicated jobs. That is how the commandline became a powerhouse that is bested by graphical tools only in a few select areas, and that can pack a solution to a problem that some companies want to sell you dedicated tools for into a short stackoverflow posting.
Stop focussing on the bells and whistles. Give me a good browser. Then, if I want a design tool, I'll get one. If I want a screensharing tool, I'll get one. If I want a screenshot utility, I'll get one. You get the idea.
Doesn't mean those tools can't be your tools, if they are good. But don't mix them into my browser.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
My main requests are three: Don't eat all my memory, don't eat my CPU, and block all videos. I regularly have 10+ tabs open and am missing many gigs of RAM. Rarely do I view a site where much more than a handful of megs would make any sense. Youtube is one of very few sites where I want videos.
One simple change to make is just don't let an auto loading video ever load again until I specifically allow it.
Another is to just stop all negative things. I will never ever ever ever allow any site to send me notifications. I will not be turning off adblock pretty much ever. And out side of google maps, I don't want any site to have my location.
Remember passwords. Get aggressive with password remembering.
Sound. Again I don't want sounds coming from a site unless I specifically allow.
Block the living hell out of facebook. Just stop them from ever getting any data from me. No like buttons, no sign-in with facebooks, etc.
A really cool feature that would be really nice would be the block the code that did this feature. If some news site has some "helpful" crap slide in I would love to have a way to select it and not only have it blocked but the code that ran it.
Also block sites from seeing my mouse cursor and block scrolling detection.
Basically let me take back control.
All I want from Mozilla is a functional damned web browser!
Then we could refer to it as the browser formerly known as firefox.
Between Australis and removing XUL, it has essentially nothing left to make it recognisable as Firefox.
They may as well just rebrand it "Chromefox" and be done with it.
I majored in graphic design in college (oh, so long ago). I still dabble in design every now and again. But I'm sorry, I just find a lot of the trappings of "branding" like this to be highly pretentious. The first three of the questions they're asking are fine (does it still look like Firefox, can the design language be extended to future projects, etc...) but things start getting shaky with the fourth question, "Do these systems reinforce the speed, safety, reliability, wit, and innovation that Firefox stands for?" And fall off the rails with the last one, "Do these systems suggest our position as a tech company that puts people over profit?" No. No they don't. Nor will they ever. That's not a concept that can be portrayed in a few shapes and colors. And you shouldn't even try. At the end of the day, they're just logos - a way to call up the memory of a company in a quick burst of visual flair. I wish companies/designers would stop trying to make these things more than they are.
Mozilla: If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a user's face - forever.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
How about "Brendan Eich still doesn't work here".
I know absolutely no one who isn't extremely online or some weird greybeard or /g/-poster that has anything but a marginally positive view of Firefox, same with Chrome.
The answer is to just improve the product. Quantum fixed the majority of the weird speed/rendering issues that were annoying me with Firefox. How about just continue from there? Also stop ripping out UI elements to make it look like Chrome?