Mozilla and Firefox have undergone a slew of changes of late, with the non-profit laying off its entire advocacy team and subsequently working with a famous design house on a branding overhaul. At the same time, Google is facing a monumental US antitrust lawsuit that could see the search giant prohibited from paying to be the default search engine on a variety of platforms. Speculation until now has predicted that if Google loses the antitrust case, it would deprive Mozilla and Firefox of a massive revenue stream, effectively ending the Firefox browser as we know it.

Perhaps in preparation for this imminent change, Mozilla has just announced a new search partnership with Ecosia, the search engine that prioritizes privacy and environmental concerns. Mozilla didn't explain what the partnership entails, but the official announcement seems to suggest that Ecosia won't become the default search engine for Firefox, although the blog post does encourage switching to Ecosia as the default search engine. Ecosia advertises that it is transparent when it comes to its earnings, and it donates all of its profits to environmental conservation efforts. It also embodies many of the privacy protections that Firefox has historically been known for. A more cynical reading of the situation might suggest that this is simply part of Mozilla trying to save face after its recent layoffs and a round of bad news.

Mozilla says that "many sites do not respect" Do Not Track requests, as they rely on voluntary compliance, adding that the feature may actually harm user privacy—likely alluding to the fact that it makes it easier for sites to fingerprint and track you. As such, as of Firefox version 135, Mozilla will disable the Do Not Track feature. As a replacement for the feature, Mozilla recommends using the more advanced "Tell websites not to sell or share my data" toggle built into Global Privacy Control, which it says is more widely respected and backed by law in some regions.

This is also just the latest in a long line of changes to both Firefox and web privacy, at large. For one, Google recently completely removed third-party cookies from its Chrome browser—a move it claims is in support of user privacy but has been widely criticized for putting Google in something of a monopoly position when it comes to tracking the data of Chrome users. Overall, the community feedback on Reddit seems to be either positive or indifferent, although one criticism of the new reliance on Global Privacy Control is that GPC doesn't block Google Analytics tracking requests, although the reasoning behind leaving Google Analytics in-tact is that many sites don't function correctly when it is blocked or disabled.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Mozilla's entire advocacy team was caught in a round of layoffs, leading to speculation that Mozilla would be giving up its advocacy entirely, shifting to a more commercial focus. Now, with the announcement of Mozilla's new branding, aside from updating the brand's look, it seems as though the Firefox company wants to reassure users of its software that it is still dedicated to its mission to "keep the internet free, open, and accessible." The new branding strategy includes a new logo, typeface family, new icons, a T. rex mascot, and new colors.

The new branding push from Mozilla sees the brand move an appearance seemingly inspired by both its history and the text-based OS interfaces of the early years of computing. For the rebranding, Mozilla partnered with design firm JKR (Jones Knowles Ritchie), and the new branding features a cutesy DOS-style flag that doubles as a T. rex, hinting to past Mozilla logos. In the announcement of the rebranding, boldly titled "Reclaim the internet: Mozilla's rebrand for the next era of tech," Mozilla emphasizes that the new look is meant to convey the company's intention throughout its whole ecosystem of products. It seems as though Mozilla is trying to remind everyone that it's work towards a more open internet extends beyond just the advocacy team it recently laid off.

Microsoft's Window Defender engineering team has finally found the time to address a long term bug within its anti-malware software - relating to performance issues with Mozilla's Firefox web browser. User feedback stretching back to five years ago indicates extremely sluggish web surfing experiences, caused by a Windows "Anti-malware Service Executable" occupying significant chunks of CPU utilization (more than 30%). The combination of Firefox and Windows Defender running in parallel would guarantee a butting of (software) heads - up until last week's bug fix. A Microsoft issued update has reduced the "MsMpEng.exe" Defender component's CPU usage by a maximum of 75%.

Microsoft and Mozilla developers have collaborated on addressing the disharmonious relationship between Defender and Firefox. A plucky member of the latter's softwareengineering team has been very transparent about the sluggish browser experience. Yannis Juglaret has provided a string of project updates via Mozilla's Bugzilla tracking system - one of his latest entries provide details about the fix: "You may read online that Defender was making too many calls to VirtualProtect, and that global CPU usage will now go down by 75% when browsing with Firefox. This is absolutely wrong! The impact of this fix is that on all computers that rely on Microsoft Defender's Real-time Protection feature (which is enabled by default in Windows), MsMpEng.exe will consume much less CPU than before when monitoring the dynamic behavior of any program through Event Tracing for Windows (ETW). Nothing less, nothing more."

Mozilla, the maker of popular web-browser Firefox, has announced that it is now offering virtual private network (VPN) services. Available for right now as a beta product, the company is promising that it will soon release the software as a fully-fledged application. Firefox Private Network's Mozilla VPN is designed to help users gain more control and safety over their internet traffic while offering protection for a whole device. if you wish to try it out, you would need to join a waitlist. There you can get the VPN app while it is still in beta for iOS, Android, Windows, and Chromebook devices. Support for macOS and Linux is coming soon. The service costs $4.99 a month, while if you own a Firefox browser, you can get it free of charge as an extension.

Microsoft's latest Edge browser based on the open-source Chromium browser is now the 2nd most popular browser in the world. Having launched just three months ago, it already has increased its userbase around the world to become more popular than even some long-lasting alternatives such as Mozilla Firefox, which is now the 3rd most popular option, showing that Firefox's userbase is decreasing in favor of the new Edge browser by Microsoft. The number one is still Google's Chrome which owns the majority of users at 68.5%, while Edge is at 7.59%. Firefox is present with a 7.19% market share, placing it just below Edge. It is impressive to see a new browser gain big userbase in such a short time, as alternative browsers often take years to gain even 2% of the market. You can check out the whole browser market share chart below.

The Vive Cosmos was not the only major announcement coming out of HTC's Vive business unit at CES this year. While that has massive mainstream appeal, the company was quick to let us know that it was still to early to comment further than what has already been covered in the aforelinked news post. Instead, they invited us to their suite to take a closer look at the Vive Pro Eye- one of the few things that really stood out for us at the trade show.

The Vive Pro Eye is, as the name would suggest, a new SKU with integrated eye tracking in the Vive Pro HMD. Working together with Tobii, the Vive Pro Eye allows for a more natural control mechanism within VR via eye controls, which in turn means a revamped menu navigation system is possible. This allows for increased accessibility to end users with disability, more optimization on VR performance, and detailed analysis of VR experiences for both the client and the businesses alike. Read past the break for a breakdown of our experience with the Vive Pro Eye, and the various demos on hand to showcase the feature.

The name of the product may sound ironic given the intended application, but the Mozilla Firefox Reality web browser is the first of its kind to be built dedicated to virtual reality (and also augmented-, and mixed-reality for that matter) portals. Mozilla had originally announced earlier this year this was in the making, and today we see availability at the usual VR suspects- Viveport, Oculus, and Daydream app stores. The Mixed Reality Team at Mozilla felt that VR took advantage of the so-called 3D immersive web, and that using existing 2D-centric browsers meant not being able to, in their words, "enjoy it".

This meant that Mozilla built Firefox Reality with a new approach to navigation, user input, searches and more. Features built into the browser include searching with one's voice, for example, taking advantage of microphones either integrated in headsets or as part of audio peripherals used in conjunction. Mozilla says they spent thousands of hours testing and collecting feedback from users to get to the release version of the browser, and this comes also in the form of a new home screen that adds interactive, immersive experiences right from the get go as seen below. More to follow past the break.

Mozilla today released the Firefox Quantum web-browser for PCs. Technically version 57.0 of Firefox, Quantum comes with an overhauled user-interface, a more evolved multi-process sandbox than Google Chrome, and is geared for both performance and lower memory footprint. Mozilla claims that web-rendering performance has been doubled over the previous version (Firefox 56.0), making it play in a league above Google Chrome. It's also designed to have up to 30% smaller memory footprint than Chrome.

Firefox Quantum takes advantage of the very latest CPU instruction sets, and GPU features, to accelerate web-rendering, with a focus on keeping the interface as smooth as possible, without losing out on the quality of rendering. It also adds WebVR and and WASM support in-built, broadening its feature-set for browser-based gaming. Grab Firefox from the link below.DOWNLOAD: Mozilla Firefox Quantum

Cryptojacking is a new phenomenon, which was popularized by ThePirateBay embedding its website with a Javascript-based crypto-currency miner. It quickly sprung up the debate on whether crypto-currency miners hidden into web-pages could become the revenue model of the future, replacing online advertising or paid subscriptions. Some commentators argue that it's fine as long as users are made sufficiently aware that a website is embedding a miner, and is presented with a choice between ads and the miner. Others were steadfast against the idea as heavy Internet browsing (across multiple tabs), could bring down computers to a crawl, and have a more than tangible impact on electricity bills.

According to an ArsTechnica report, there could be at least 2,500 websites out there, with embedded crypto-currency miners that are hidden from the users. Willem de Groot, an independent cybersecurity researcher told the publication that he estimates JS miners may have proliferated to 2,496 websites, and its adoption is on the rise. Some dishonest websites embed miners as a revenue source in addition to ads and sponsored content. At the heart of the controversy is Coinhive. This company sells easy-to-integrate crypto-currency miners that can be embedded into websites as a revenue source. The company is on a marketing overdrive, writing to siteops and bloggers to spread their miners.

Mozilla is announcing that the latest version of its Firefox browser, Firefox 57, is just too good for just another numbered release. The improvements under the hood are so great, they say, and the performance improvements over previous Firefox releases are so grand, that only one name would have been enough to convey this message. That's why the latest Firefox release has been christened "Firefox Quantum".

Mozilla are saying their new Firefox Quantum browser delivers 2x the score in Speedometer as their previous Firefox 56. The new, refined browser didn't appear overnight, though; it's seen numerous improvements under the hood through the application of the Goldilocks principle to browser design, straddling an approach between increased performance and acceptable memory usage. Multi-process and optimized memory footprint are part of the secret sauce, but a new, super-charged CSS engine written in Rust goes a long way. Prioritization of the open tab also helps this increased speed, while (Mozilla says) reducing memory utilization by 30% when compared to Chrome.

Despite some genuine increases in performance and reliability, Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) is turning into a relic. Once an unbeatable web-browser that attracted anti-competition lawsuits the world over, its market-share (usage) has dropped below 10 percent, according to W3Schools. With Windows 10, Microsoft plans to completely rebrand the bundled web-browser.

Codenamed "Project Spartan," the browser will feature a new UI, and a different branding from MSIE. It will also shed useless code, and will have a smaller memory footprint, much in the same way Firefox was a toned, peppy rebrand of Mozilla/Netscape Navigator. You could even expect a new icon. Microsoft could undertake a massive marketing campaign for the new browser, of a scale similar to Google's, for its Chrome browser. Microsoft could even delink the browser from Windows Update, to facilitate faster security and bug fixes. The browser could debut with beta releases of Windows 10, and its first stable version could come out with Windows 10 RTM.

VIA announced an official partnership with Mozilla for support and development of Firefox OS for new device form factors. Firefox OS running on APC Paper and Rock has been released with complete, buildable source codes available to developers on GitHub. In order to continue to encourage community support, free APCs will be rewarded to developers that fix a known issue. A full list of issues is available here.

"Firefox OS puts the power of the Web to the people. This partnership with APC presents an exciting opportunity to help redefine user experiences on desktops around the world," said Dr. Li Gong, Senior Vice President of mobile devices and, President of Asia Operations. "Mozilla will keep working on new features and enhancements of Firefox OS, and also provide knowledge sharing and technical support for Firefox OS and Marketplace."

"We are excited to announce this partnership with Mozilla and their enthusiastic support to speed development of Firefox OS on APC," said Richard Brown, VP of International Marketing, VIA Technologies Inc. "Mozilla's mission to promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the web, aligns with our vision for APC, creating the perfect combination to deliver the best of the web to desktops everywhere. We couldn't be more excited about the future."

Mozilla has now made available a fresh beta build of the Firefox desktop browser. This latest release (version 18.0) brings improved tab switching performance, a new HTML scaling algorithm (for better image quality), support for Apple Retina Displays (on OS X 10.7+), for WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication), and for W3C touch events, plus tweaks and a few fixes.

The Firefox 18.0 Beta(1) is available here for Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

A nice little game Microsoft's Internet Explorer team and Mozilla play is gifting each other cake each time the other launches a new version of their browser. Mozilla sent Microsoft the latest one, to congratulate it on MSIE 10 launch (along with a much bigger one, of Windows 8). In its tweet, the MSIE team thanked Mozilla for the cake, and said it's looking forward to a version of Firefox optimized for Windows 8. It is rumored that Mozilla does/has in the past sent recipes along with their cake (keeping it open-source all the way). Microsoft launched its slickest, fastest version of Internet Explorer with Windows 8, a version for Windows 7 is slated for November.

Not wasting much time following the Firefox 12 launch, Mozilla has now made available the public beta version of its next browser release. The Firefox 13 beta features an updated default home page (providing quicker access to bookmarks, history and settings), a tweaked new tab experience (users are presented with their most visited pages), smooth scrolling, the SPDY protocol which is enabled from the get-go, experimental support for ECMAScript 6 Map and Set objects, and a few more dev-oriented goodies.

Firefox 13 Beta is available here for Windows, Max OS X and Linux.

Open source supporter Mozilla has today announced the arrival of its latest Firefox release, Firefox 12. This build brings a stealthier update system on Windows (it removes the user account control dialog pop-up), multiple security fixes, better WebGL performance on Mac OS X, automatic downloads for URLs pasted into the download manager window, support for the text-align-last CSS property and for the ECMAScript 6 Map and Set objects, and a few more tweaks and improvements.

Firefox 12 is available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux and can be downloaded via this page.

It looks like Mozilla has given in to the pressure of incorporating H.264 CODEC into its Firefox web-browser, and could incorporate it in future versions of the browser. The CODEC allows online videos utilizing H.264 format to run. Mozilla has been avoiding H.264 support since it is proprietary, riddled with patents, and requires Mozilla to purchase a license for millions of Dollars from MPEG-LA.

Mozilla has been trying to push for standards alternative to H.264, such as WebM, and the VP8 format. It had originally planned its push for an H.264-free web at a time when it was a much stronger player in the web-browser market, which now sees a strong presence of Google Chrome, which already features H.264. H.264 is superior to its alternatives, in being lighter on the system's resources (hence, lighter on the battery).

Throughout 2011, Firefox users have seen their browser's major version number go up very 6 weeks or so, something that was unheard of, in the years before, when it could take years for a major version number increase. Mozilla was obviously inflating version numbers for better market placement with other browsers that have crossed version 9x (such as Chrome, MSIE, and Opera). With Firefox already at version 11, Mozilla wants to slow down with the version number game, which caused "update fatigue" among users. Apart from keeping track of their browser's version number, users that have important add-ons installed, stay away from updates because major version number changes break the add-ons.

Mozilla wants to counter update fatigue with a two pronged approach. Firstly, it will change the way browser version numbers affect add-on compatibility. With Firefox 11, any add-on that's compatible with Firefox 4+ will just run, without compatibility issues. Add-ons disabled by older versions of the browser will now resume working. Next up, Mozilla will introduce completely silent updates, which get downloaded in the background, and don't notify you about restarting the browser to apply updates. You'll never notice when your Firefox reaches version 9001.

Over two months after launching Firefox 10, and backing it up two two security updates (10.0.1 and 10.0.2), Mozilla is almost ready with the stable version of Firefox 11, which it is reportedly launching later today. Mozilla posted what was supposedly Firefox 11 stable on its FTP, before redacting it, citing that the build is not actually stable, and that QA was still on.

Firefox 11 will introduce several new features, including performance improvements. To begin with, Firefox 11 supports the SPDY protocol, all pages are loaded on SSL with SPDY, which is both faster and more secure. Firefox' bookmarks and preferences migration assistant will now support Google Chrome, letting users migrate from Chrome to Firefox. Firefox Sync will now also synchronize addons between sync'd PCs. Lastly, Firefox 11 is said to include more feature-rich developer tools. The Android version of Firefox 11 will ship with Adobe Flash, for Android 2.3 and earlier.

Mozilla's ambitious Boot to Gecko (B2G) operating system project has finally gone to business. It provides a functional, open-source, cheaper alternative to the likes of Apple iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile, which its makers claim can reduce cost of manufacture of devices such as smartphones and tablets by 10 percent (a significant amount). B2G uses applications coded using web-standards, taking advantage of the rich feature-set of HTML5. It's only a matter of time before smartphone and tablet manufacturers of all shapes and sizes take interest in this new OS built by a credible source, Mozilla. The guys behind Firefox.

Mozilla, a nonprofit organization dedicated to putting the power of the Web in people's hands, today announced that the Mozilla Marketplace will open for developers to submit Web apps at Mobile World Congress. By building on open Web technologies like HTML5 and Mozilla-proposed APIs, the Mozilla Marketplace will enable developers to write one app that runs across devices and platforms. As part of Mozilla's mission to keep the Web open and put people in control of their Web experience, users can buy apps once and use it on any HTML5-enabled device.

Here are the first screenshots of Mozilla's first operating system (OS). It's not a PC OS, but a significant feat for an organization as collaborated as Mozilla. News of Mozilla working on its own OS first surfaced in July 2011, it was then interpreted as a "boot-to-web" OS along the lines of Google's Chrome OS. It now appears Boot-to-Gecko's primary focus is on the portable computing market, primarily tablets and smartphones, as a possible 100% royalty-free option to manufacturers. In the screenshots, the phone dialer and main menu are pictured. Boot-to-Gecko will be detailed by Mozilla's CTO at the Mobile Web Congress.

Don't worry if you just installed Firefox 10.0 cause there's a new Foxxy browser craving your attention, the Firefox 11.0 beta. This fresh build comes with an updated migration tool that can also import Chrome bookmarks, history, and cookies, and features add-on syncing capabilities, redesigned media controls for HTML5 video, and support for the CSS text-size-adjust property and the outerHTML property.

Firefox 11.0 also brings some goodies for devs like the Page Inspector 3D View, the new Style Editor tool, SPDY Support and more.

To download the Firefox 11.0 beta (for Windows, Mac OS or Linux) see this page.

Mozilla has today let loose the 10.0 version of the Firefox browser for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. This release includes several fixes, brings a hidden forward button (which appears when the user navigates back), Full Screen APIs, and features support for WebGL Anti-Aliasing, CSS3 3D-Transforms, and for the < bdi > element for bi-directional text isolation.

To download Firefox 10.0 (for any of three platforms mentioned above) visit this page.