Mozilla plans mobile Firefox, plus 'public resource' usage data

Anonymous, of course - but isn't it always?

By John Leyden • Get more from this author

Posted in Applications, 19th September 2008 19:15 GMT

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Mozilla's chief has set goals for the development of the open source project over the next two years, including the release of a mobile version of Firefox by 2010.

A mobile version of Firefox would compete with versions of Opera and Internet Explorer and would adopt the same desktop feel as its desktop cousin - if the goal of demonstrating that "'mobile' is part of one, unified, open web" is anything to go by.

Mitchell Baker, chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, emphasizes increasing the market share of Firefox as Mozilla's chief goal, but she also stresses "helping people exercise better ownership and control over their data" as a target.

Related to this is a desire to make "anonymous, aggregate 'usage data' more of a public resource", which might sound like a page from the Guardian's benign Free Our Data campaign. On the other hand, given the problems in anonymising data, it might be that Moz fancies the idea of selling users' browsing history to the extent that it has now written it into its otherwise bland mission statement.

Other goals include a set of fluffy-sounding measures designed to "deepen Mozilla’s role as a centerpiece of the internet". A summary of the goals can be found in Baker's Lizard Wrangler blog here, while a rationale for why a hippy organisation like Mozilla needs a mission statement in the first place can be found here. ®

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