Mozilla did their biggest Reddit AMA yet on Thursday, June 13, with eight members of the Firefox leadership team. With 400 total comments on the post, they covered a lot of ground, and you may have missed it. Grab a snack and settle in for an overview of the most interesting topics that were discussed.
2024 Priorities
The planned topic for the AMA was “Priorities for Firefox in 2024”, so that’s a good place to start. Thankfully, the team didn’t end there, so there’s plenty of exciting stuff ahead 😊.
Expected Release Dates
Sheila Mooney (Senior Director, Technical Program Management) let us know that Mozilla is targeting the end of the year for the release of the new tab grouping and profile management features.
Byron Jourdan (Senior Director, Product Management) told us that we can expect to see vertical tabs towards the end of the year.
What Took So Long (to work on Tab Groups)?
u/BubiBalboa wondered what took “so long to start working on better tab management features such as tab groups/tab stacking”.
While I am not particularly sold on the Chromium feature, I myself had wondered about this, as we hadn’t seen any indication that this was being investigated since it landed in Chrome.
Byron revealed that Mozilla had worked on some alternate approaches that didn’t pan out like they had wanted.
Community and Marketing
Best Ways for People to Get Involved
While enthusiasts can be a demanding bunch, some Redditors wanted to know in what ways they could help Firefox (besides simply using it).
Feedback
Redditors want to know how to best influence the development of Firefox. Bethel Kidane (Senior Product Marketing Manager) directed people to Mozilla Connect, pointing out that community manager Jon frequently shares feedback with appropriate teams.
Feedback Loops for Community ↔️ UX
A perennial topic on r/firefox are reactions to UX changes in Firefox. Changes to existing features are sometimes controversial, and users often wish that there was more of a feedback loop between testers and team members.
Aaron Benson (Director, User Experience) said that this suggestion needs more discussion.
Redditors also want to know whether the UX team looks at competing browsers for inspiration.
Aaron said that the team does “competitor analysis as part of UX explorations and research studies”, and that the best way to make feature requests is via Mozilla Connect (Bugzilla being better for bugs).
I think that the answers here help to explain why feedback to Bugzilla is often ineffectual – it seems that design feedback may not be in scope by the time something is released in Nightly, since Product and UX folks are using tools that either didn’t exist just a few years ago (Connect) or are closed to the community (Jira).
Reporting Broken Sites
Andrew Overholt (VP, Engineering, Platform) said that reporting broken sites is very helpful.
I’ll additionally note that web compatibility issues are very easy to report via Firefox, a screenshot feature is built in (making it a seamless workflow), and best of all - no account login is required (you can watch issues using your GitHub login if you like).
There was additional interesting discussion about the volume of web compatibility reports (and how reports are triaged), along with some thoughts around how fixes are tackled - developers are trying “to fix classes of problems so multiple sites get fixed”.
While unlikely to appeal to most, Dennis Schubert pointed out that the code for web compatibility site interventions is online, and he generously offered to help anyone who wants to give it a try.
Spread the Word
The team offered a few ways to spread the word - including branded merch (EU) and fun background pictures.
Future Community Engagement
u/BubiBalboa asked whether we can expect to see Mozilla engage more actively with the subreddit in the future.
Ian Carmichael (Senior Vice President, Firefox) posted that they didn’t want to “change the dynamic of one of the healthiest independent firefox communities” and doesn’t intend to make Reddit an officially supported channel.
Bethel said that we can expect to see more engagement, and that Mozilla “will get better”.
On Videos Highlighting New Features
u/BubiBalboa suggested that Mozilla “create videos explaining the monthly release notes and new features”.
I think as we have witnessed the rise of video-based communities like YouTube and TikTok, it is easy to see the relevance of content shared there. It is also obvious that Mozilla is aware of the value of these channels, as they have posted videos about internet culture and privacy.
Two years ago, Mozilla had posted some feature specific “Firefox Tips” – I hadn’t seen Watch more basketball with Firefox Multi Picture-in-Picture, but this would be perfect marketing for many sports fans (as my brother can readily attest - he uses this feature daily across multiple sports) - sadly, the video only has 5,000 views.
Byron said more videos sounded like a great idea and that this could possibly be tied to the “What’s New” pages that accompany each release. He also teased the idea of explainer videos in the style of “show and tell” presentations at all hands meetings, where developers, designers, and product managers that worked on the feature show off their work.
While not mentioned during the AMA, Firefox users (and aspiring developers) who are interested in more in-depth Firefox videos ought to check out Mike Conley’s “The Joy of Coding”, where Mike streams himself working on Firefox bugs and features. Mike is very engaging and fun to watch… but as I was advised by other developers - it is easy to be fooled when watching experts - it isn’t necessarily as easy as it looks on video 😱.
u/CalQL8or shared a specific example of the style of video that they find valuable - a ~17 minute video detailing 12 new features in Microsoft OneNote. Bethel then discussed whether longer or shorter videos were preferable, with shorter videos being more reusable across platforms.
State of Firefox
Rebasing Firefox on Chromium
u/elsjpq asked how well a Firefox browser based on Chromium could “achieve [the] mission of the Firefox project”.
Ian said “It really wouldn’t work that well. It would leave the future evolution of the web to two huge tech companies (Apple and Google) whose corporate incentives are very different from our own.”
Challenges Facing Firefox
Various community members raised concerns about Firefox’s competition, relative marketshare and state of the project.
In responses, Mozilla stated that it wants to build a great browser, both for its own health, and for the future of the web. Bobby Holley (CTO, Firefox) pointed out the importance of people continuing to demand open standards.
Team members worry about web compatibility issues in Firefox, but feel that the state of the project is headed in the right direction.
Staffing levels on Firefox have been stable since 2020. We’re no longer betting on any moonshot projects – just lots of high-value features ahead on our roadmap. Firefox mobile usage is growing at a healthy pace, and desktop usage, while still declining, is improving and starting to stabilize. The next few years are really critical, and the market for an independent browser remains challenging, but we’re cautiously optimistic.
Team Health
u/Ther0 jokingly (I think!) asked whether the UX team is okay.
Apparently, they have food and water, and get some outside time everyday… and they even get coffee.
Firefox Features and Technology
Progressive Web Apps for Desktops
u/markouka asked about installable PWAs for desktops, pointing out that it is one of the most requested features on Mozilla Connect.
Bobby responded that the desktop PWA prototype that Mozilla built a few years ago got “some pretty negative feedback” in user testing and they didn’t have the bandwidth to take another crack at it.
Bobby teased “Taskbar Tabs” which is another attempt at the concept. A UX team member informed me that this is Windows-only.
More Language Support in Firefox Translate
u/PitifulEcho6103 asked whether any additional language support was planned in the near future.
Andrew responded that additional languages are being worked on, with upcoming work focusing on Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
Web Based Password Manager
u/slash9492 asked for a web based portal to access logins stored on Firefox Sync.
Aaron replied that the design team is actively “doing a lot of design exploration in this space”.
Relatedly, I had opened a feature request for a Chrome/WebExtension to accomplish a similar task. I believe that both requests would make Sync more attractive, especially when compared to products like Bitwarden and Google Password Manager.
Fission on Android
Andrew confirmed that bringing Fission (site isolation) to Firefox on Android is actively being worked on.
HDR Support for Windows
u/Melodias3 asked about HDR support for video playback on Windows. Bobby couldn’t give an ETA for release but noted that it is being worked on.
Gecko Firefox for iOS
u/Veddu asked about whether we’d be seeing an iOS Gecko based Firefox port in the EU.
Bobby made clear that a port is still in an exploratory phase (and some code is being landed in order to make that investigation easier). Bobby repeats the concerns that “Apple’s proposals fail to give consumers viable choices by making it as painful as possible for others to provide competitive alternatives to Safari”.
Web Platform Support for JPEG XL
u/IDUnavailable asked about Firefox support for JPEG XL.
This resulted in a discussion where removal of the XBM image format came up, and where Bobby mentioned that he was the one who removed it from Firefox fifteen years ago 💀.
Mozilla remains neutral on the format as of this AMA.
Extensions Toolbar Button
u/drfusterenstein asked about being able to hide the extensions toolbar button that was added to Firefox as part of support for Manifest V3 extensions.
Vicky Chin (VP, Engineering, Desktop, Mobile, and Pocket) posted that Mozilla is “looking at adding the ability to hide the extensions button while ensuring that users can still see when extensions are asking for access and be able to grant it if necessary, even when they are not pinned to the toolbar”, which surprises me a bit. Clearly the team isn’t shying away from tough challenges.
Windows 7/8 Support
u/friendofdonkeys asked about continued support for people still using the EOL Windows 7 OS.
I was surprised to learn that support will be extended for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 for an indefinite period of time past the end of support for Firefox ESR 115.
I was personally impressed by the team’s candor and hope that they continue to engage with the community.
Make sure to grab the background pictures shared by Bethel - I used one in a video conference last week!
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