Remain Calm: The fox is still in the Firefox logo
blog.mozilla.org
blog.mozilla.org
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d9/Servo_l...
In case it isn’t clear, I’m serious.
wow
much logo
many Rust
such browserThey got rid of the fox!!
Google makes all it's logos a blob of their trademark colors. I first find the colors then squint to tell the maps from photos.
For reference I use Lens Launcher for Android. There's no categories, just one screen and frecency sorted icons. I feel like brands just hate me and my visual cortex.
I’ve used Apple Maps way more often just because I can’t see the google maps logo.
Yes.
Why did Apple start this trend in the first place? My best guess: "politics within Apple". I still remember when Forstall was given the axe and he was against minimalism.
The story is sorta strange too: he was axed because of embarrassing bugs in the new Apple Maps. Was it inside job to make him look bad? I guess we'll never know.
Skeumorphism [1] tried to fix the confusing abstract and grey interfaces, but suffered from clutter and no-information-pixels. Minimal/Flat design attempted to remove unnecessary information but lacked affordances. Since then, these affordances have been slowly added back in. Currently, we're reconsidering skeumorphic elements without sacrificing what we've gained from the minimialst approach.
From each approach, lessons were learned and carried over.
(This is obviously simplified, but it's a better explanation than: "It's Apples fault")
[1]: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/50144a1784ae6db4b...
Additionally, I feel like it would make more sense for the overarching brand to be... Mozilla? It's Mozilla Firefox, right? And there use to be Mozilla Thunderbird, etc.
I guess Mozilla is too unattractive a brand to be the parent brand or something?
In the end I have no objection or attraction to the rebranding but I do find it somewhat weird in execution.
me: “oh, I work at Mozilla”
them: “who? Should I know who that is?”
me: “you know, the Firefox people”
them: “oh my gosh, I love Firefox! I use it every day.”
People outside of tech know Firefox, not Mozilla.
I sometimes wonder if it's because they were Netscape users back in the day and got confused about the transition.
That way, in a couple years you say you know, the Firefox peole and they say "who?"
It’s Google Maps, not Alphabet Maps. Isn’t that a similar situation?
And it doesn’t dilute the Google brand, if anything I’d argue it strengthens it and makes it even more well known.
Mozilla created Firefox.
It’s like if Google decided to rebrand Google Maps to Chrome Maps if Chrome ended up having better brand recognition.
It definitely hasn’t gotten to a point where we’re getting Chrome Maps, but the proliferation of Chrome-branded devices does indicate that Mozilla focusing more on Firefox the brand is a reasonable decision.
At one point it basically did, since Chrome was (IIRC) the first thing to support casting to Chromecasts.
"...well, the Firefox browser logo, but not the other 'Firefox' logos, because we reused that brand elsewhere with other products. We can't imagine why people can't distinguish between the assortment of things that are all 'Firefox' now."
The uniformity strikes me as very globalization, but I wonder if we will ever trend over to each company really standing out.
Similar trend to how car colours were very vibrant and different in 60s to today's grey, black, and white.
About the Firefox brand: Moving an application to a brand is not new for Mozilla, which itself used to be the name of an application. After a while it feels alright to me for Firefox to be some kind of service provider, company or team ("Message from Firefox" sounds okay now). It just devalues the brand for the browser a little.
I wonder whether they'll have to come up with a new sub-brand for that ... (but who am I kidding, they'll probably discontinue it before that happens because they finally fully cannibalized it).
Word! People love to hate on Firefox (and Mozilla), but it’s good to see misinformation tackled in a concise way without insulting or attacking anyone (which is how I perceived the article).
Stay strong, Firefox browser logo! :)
Stray strong, Firefox Nightly browser logo! ;)
Feels condescending because it’s obvious.
Tempest in a teapot if you ask me.
I'm not sure I understand what they may be referencing here. How does using Firefox relate to combating misinformation?
From that page: "We are committed to an internet that promotes civil discourse, human dignity, and individual expression."
Free speech is not a goal, much less freedom to spread misinformation.
To the extent it matters I don't know, but I would assume they'd never enhance Firefox or launch any products that enable unsavory speech.
Shame, the internet was built on radical free speech. "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around" used to be the ethos.
One can equally say that the Internet was built on netiquette (eg. 'RFC 1855 - Netiquette Guidelines': https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855 ).
They are pointing out that some folk have noted that their logo is getting more and more stylistic and the fox bit might disappear. Some of the comments/memes about this are implying via the logo that FF is losing their way.
Good skills FF and that reminds me to get off my arse and ditch some other browsers. I moved from FF to Chrom{ium} wholesale a few (10+?) years back because "reasons" - probably compatibility. I used to use the old FF sync thing and it was a right old pain moving to the Google one but seemed the right thing to do at the time. Now I think I'll move back to FF again and keep my bookmarks etc to myself.
Then I'll migrate my firm and then my customers and my family of course. Browser sync data costs less than pence to manage (I have quite a lot of sites, storage and decent links to piss around with.)
Sorry, mind fart dump!
Using FF does not combat anything: it's a bloody web browser - no more or less. However the programmers behind FF are ostensibly quite keen on privacy and the like.
https://mashable.com/article/climate-change-cold-weather-ext...
However, with some of the decisions I've seen the company (or particularly its management) make before, this post still rubs me the wrong way. Rather pedantically sounding like a lecture on what all these people "up in arms" did wrong.
Those people were indeed wrong, at least this time. But their emotional response may very well have been primed and driven by past experiences (with more merit). Which to me makes this blog post sound rather smug and maybe even a bit arrogant. Even when it was likely sincerely written to calm people down.
I know most pundits hate changes to logos, but for once I am quite pleased.
Because for me, Firefox keeps getting faster, more secure, and better at preserving privacy every release.
Don't get me wrong, Im a huge firefox fan, I want them to win more market share, I've used it exclusively for 10+ years. But some of the changes are unnecessary and I should have to pin my security of being forced to use it.
Firefox pros: the browser works, has good support for add-ons and some features not found in Chrome such as containers. Can generally be assumed to be privacy-friendly to some degree
Cons: some cringe-worthy decisions such as that Mr. Robot thing, the sort of waste of donations in the OP link, and occasional minor performance issues compared to Chrome. The biggest problem seems to be the continued survival of the project over time
Chrome pros: I don't use Chrome but as far as I can tell it benefits from being the default browser that devs optimize for and reportedly has good developer tools.
cons: essentially a monopolistic data-gathering tool for one of the shadiest ad companies on Earth. Slowly introducing user-unfriendly features, even in Chromium
As far as I can tell the rational choice would be Firefox (or some derivative browser) barring some specific technical need for Chrome. The downsides of Chrome just seem so much more egregious than the occasional Mozilla silliness.
I don't know, it's a bit funny but it really looks like only tail fo the fox has been left ) which makes you worry about the life of the fox. Perhaps it's only my perception.
I'm actually inclined to like branding changes like this, but in this case I was totally confused about the brand distinction.
[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/files/2019/06/FX_Design_... (from https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/firefox-the-evolution-of...)
"Why are you spending time and money on something I don't care for"
People complaining about charities having advertising campaigns and managers. Like they think companies do it just for fun and not that it actually works and is required.
The recent changes in the latest Google re-branding, for example, were anything but well-received. Even Chrome's icon is now smaller, and in a white box, with rounded corners — because everything needs rounded corners these days — for no apparent reason other than I guess we want to feel like a phone now.
The overwhelming majority of users are not shedding tears that their favorite product hasn't updated its icon in more than 3 months.
You might be right about current users, but this kind of thing matters a lot if you're going to convince potential future users. Someone who isn't already using Firefox isn't going to have a lot of faith in trying it out if the logo looks like it was done in SodiPodi in mom's basement.
Today Firefox is still best, bt they've been shooting themselves in both feet repeatedly IMO.
3 techies made disgruntled noises in their apartments behind drawn blinds and the rest of the world moved on.
> The overwhelming majority of users are not shedding tears that their favorite product hasn't updated its icon in more than 3 months.
And the overwhelming majority of users will not shed a tear if their favorite product changes their icon once a week.
It must be so incredibly difficult for teams to work under such severe pressure, and yes, could be debilitating for software development in the coming years.