Join us for an AMA with the Firefox leadership team on November 14, [18:00-20:00 UTC]

[Jon]

Nov 14 UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who has submitted questions so far—keep them coming, the event starts in a few hours. In the meantime, meet the team of Mozilla employees that will be answering them.

Clockwise starting from the top left in the image, we are:

• Mike Conca, Director of Product, Platform
• Vicky Chin, VP, Engineering, Desktop, Mobile, and Pocket 
• Raja Jacob, Senior Director, Firefox User Experience 
• Devin Sandoz, Senior Director, Product Marketing, Firefox
• Bobby Holley, CTO, Firefox
• Carolyn O’Hara, Sr. Director, New Tab & Content Discovery
• Andrew Overholt, VP, Engineering, Platform 
• Tapan Kamdar, Sr. Director, Product Management, Search & AI

See you in the comments! 

_______________________________________________

Hi everyone,

The internet has changed a lot since 2004 when Firefox began as a community project. Today, Firefox remains at the forefront of championing privacy, open innovation and choice. And while the last 20 years have been transformative, the best is yet to come.

We’re thrilled to announce that the Firefox leadership team at Mozilla is joining us to host a very special AMA here on Mozilla Connect to celebrate Firefox’s 20th anniversary, and answer any questions you may have about what’s next for Firefox. 

As part of our anniversary celebrations, we’ve created a website page reflecting on what we’ve created together so far with videos highlighting Firefox’s evolution since 2004 and your favorite features. You’ll also find fan art and a hat tip to our incredible contributor community, who support Firefox users every step of the way.

This AMA is the continuation of a conversation we started on Reddit in June. We appreciate how actively engaged this community has been in helping us improve Mozilla products. This time around, we want to hear what’s most important to you about Firefox’s future. 

In the spirit of our birthday celebrations, we’ll also be gifting select participants in this thread with anniversary swag. Keep an eye on your Connect inbox (post-AMA) for a message from Mozilla staff.      

We are opening this thread up to replies starting today, November 8, and we’ll be joining you live with the Firefox leadership team on Thursday, November 14 from 18:00 - 20:00 UTC (time converter) to answer as many of your questions as we can. 

As always, we ask that you adhere to our Community Guidelines when posting. We also encourage you to show support for others by voting up your favorite comments using the thumbs up feature. 

See you on November 14th!

Event Details

Where: Right here! Questions and answers in the comment section ⬇️ 

When: Thursday, Nov 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC

Topic(s): Firefox 20th anniversary - reflecting on the past and looking ahead to the future

[joezulu]

cannot find how to stop renewal.

I have spent an hour looking for icon/link

[ThePillenwerfer]

If by "Renewal" you mean up-dates you won't find it because there isn't one.

For all their talk of "Freedom" Mozilla don't want us to exercise the freedom to decline up-dates.

[Cerulean]

Hey Joe, would you be up for sharing more on what you're looking for? I'm trying to understand what you might mean by stop renewal.

Perhaps it might be helpful to read some info from Firefox support on changing Firefox update settings. If that link wasn't helpful, please feel free to send me a message privately so we can keep this thread on-topic and related to the AMA 🙂

[cosmic_infinity]

Can we pewse have the og firefox logo back for a while? OwO

[mabrok]

lll

[ws]

I broadly agree with @ThePillenwerfer above that I like Firefox pretty much as it is.  I also have appreciated the investment in Thunderbird over the last 18-24 months.  I see these as the core products of Mozilla; I haven't found genuine value in the others.  For example, why buy VPN service from Mozilla when I can buy it directly from Mullvad?

I think a bigger issue long-term is Mozilla's structure and funding.  If I were leading Mozilla, I would make the case for a rechartering of the foundation so that it could receive tax-deductible donations into designated accounts for funding (and only funding) Firefox and Thunderbird development, respectively.  They could also create other, similarly-designated accounts for other projects/products.  Yes, restricting the use of the funds in those accounts to specific purposes reduces the control Mozilla Foundation leadership has over those funds, but that's exactly the point.  Firefox and Thunderbird development are arguably the most important things Mozilla does ... so important, I would argue, that it should be considered a service to the public (i.e., charitable).  Other FOSS software projects have similar fundraising arrangements.  Yes, it might take some back and forth with the IRS, but I think it could (and should) be done.  I know 501(c)3 orgs that operate completely around a "designated account" model, and others that fund FOSS development.  Marrying the two seems like a no-brainer here.

Personally, I would also rename the corporations (Mozilla Corporation and MZLA Technologies Corporation) to Firefox Corporation and Thunderbird Corporation - and create similar corporations for other products.  This keeps them legally and administratively distinct; if Firefox or Thunderbird want to integrate fee-generating services into their software offerings, they would keep whatever funds they generate.  But the ability to supplement those fees with donation-funded revenue would open the door to grants and other charitable funding.

And, no, I'm sorry, but more advertising and AI just aren't going to cut it.  I'll just use Brave, Vivaldi, or a Firefox clone if you guys really want to go down that road.  Focus on your core products ... forget the fads and other distractions.

[lackey]

Question 1: In 2022, Mozilla stopped accepting cryptocurrency after critics pointed out the environmental destruction it caused. Today, large corporations are causing similarly disastrous levels of environmental harm with AI and data center proliferation. Will Mozilla address the environmental harm of AI in Firefox, which currently supports chatbots by several of these unethical organizations out of the box?

Question 2: in the race to stand out, many niche browsers have adopted ad blocking technology. Firefox is one of the few remaining browsers that has not reduced its adblocking functionality with strict limitations or adoption of Manifest V3. Will Mozilla consider taking a bold pro-adblock stance to to cement its role as a browser for people, not profit?

Question 3: Recently, Mozilla purchased the company FakeSpot. Today, FakeSpot has a privacy policy that explicitly says you will sell browsing history, geolocation, and compiled profiles to third party ad companies. The Mozilla Corporation's website claims all Mozilla products align with the principles of the Mozilla Manifesto. Does the Mozilla FakeSpot privacy policy line up with Mozilla's manifesto?

[Cerulean]

1) I'd love to know if there are any plans to develop a more robust content filtering and adblocking extension as an official Firefox extension; one that is free of manifest v2 and v3 dependencies/controversy.

Perhaps a collaboration with Raymond Hill who develops uBlock Origin?

I feel like a deeply embedded set of content filtering/management tools would send a powerful message that Firefox is designed for user agency.

This feels like a wonderful way to further differentiate Firefox from it's so-called 'Brave' competitor and other Chromium-based browsers, who may end up becoming more vulnerable to the demise of manifest v2 and the compromises that v3 entails (I'm aware that Firefox isn't immune from these changes either, but the technical details are too much for this little entity to handle 🦊 - community, I'd be grateful for your input! 🧡)

2) Please share in practical English more about how you envision Anonym's role in Firefox's future.

The blog post by Mozilla Foundation President Mark Surman and the blog post by Mozilla Corporation CEO Laura Chambers both relate to Anonym and contain lots of lovely aspirational prose.

However, these blog posts offer precious little in the way of practical, actionable or snackable content for readers - be they Firefox users or not. I feel like the technology overview blog post would fly over the heads of many a reader - be they Firefox users or not. It's great that there's a Mozilla Connect thread about this topic. But - unlike Jon's desired goal for 'discussion' - there appears to be little in the way of discussion or meaningful input from Mozilla staff into the thread at all. Other than Jon's summary of posts made 18 days after the thread was created.

Certainly doesn't seem like there's any interest from Mozilla or Firefox employees to connect with the community and get involved in that thread.

I'm not sure how that is supposed to make prospective users and Firefox loyalists like myself feel.

I feel like a significant proportion of the Firefox userbase are concerned about current digital advertising standards, the rampant large-scale data breaches that have occured in recent years and the dystopian data monopoly that Googledontbeevil has on the world.

I also feel like a significant proportion of the userbase are concerned that Mozilla is moving to integrate Anonym's advertising technology into Firefox without having much - or any - idea of what that will mean for:

• in-product advertising
• how Mozilla plans to leverage Firefox users (both with accounts and without) or product activity to further its advertising strategy
• how any of this adtech will actually benefit Firefox users (both with accounts and without) and improve the Firefox user experience.

I ask these questions because I'm concerned about the health and future of Firefox.

Mozilla has undoubtedly spent lots of money betting on all kinds of things, from productivity , to the metaverse and fediverse, to LLM and AI tech.

These earlier bets seem to have done much to materially advance Mozilla or Firefox in any way.

Why should Firefox users trust that this adtech acqusition will be any different?

You know how difficult it is to convince digitally entrenched users to switch to another product or service. A browser choice is no different.

Aspirational blog posts aren't enough to make users (and prospective users) trust Firefox and Mozilla. We need actionable, practical information.

If you've read this far, thank you for taking the time to do so. Shoutout to the team who set up Mozilla Connect using Khoros. The platform has a very pleasant UX and lovely typography that's easy to read. Thank you!

[Jon]

Jumping in here real quick to say thanks for all the great questions!

The AMA is TODAY [18:00-20:00 UTC], so feel free to keep those questions coming before we kick things off.

See ya soon 🙌

[Future]

Can anyone share how long does it take for these mobile android features to release

• Tab strips
• Tab grouping
• Profiles
• Advance media notifications
• Pdf edit