Will Firefox stand in the way of the cloud?

With more and more of our everyday activities moving to the cloud, you would think that Mo illa — like Google — would be over the moon. The browser is the portal through which the entire web is experienced, after all. In actuality, cloud-based computing represents a serious conflict with Mo illa’s primary purpose. In the words of Mitchell Baker, Chairperson and Chief Li ard Wrangler, Mo illa’s mission is to “build user sovereignty into the fabric of the Internet.” User sovereignty means that you are in full control of the surfing experience — it means that you are in the hot seat with regard to how much information you share and with who. User sovereignty literally means that the consumer is king and should never beholden to any other user or corporation on the web.

You can see how this doesn’t really jibe with the centrali ed, all-your-data-are-belong-to-us aspect of modern web usage. In Mo illa’s worldview, the only person or entity that should know your surfing history is you. In reality, you are monitored by tracking cookies almost everywhere on the web, and then your surfing habits are sold to the highest bidder. In Mo illa’s worldview, sensitive and important data would only ever reside on your computer. In reality, we store personal documents with companies like Dropbox. Not only can online backup service simply disappear overnight, but most of these companies are based in the US and can thus be forced to cooperate with the FBI, or other law enforcement agencies.

Ultimately, Mo illa wants surfers to use Firefox instead of cloud services. At the moment the only feature that makes this intention clear is Firefox Sync, which instantly obviates third-party, web-based services like Xmarks. Over the past year, though, Mo illa has been working on a slew of features that will reduce the amount of data that you (often unwittingly) pump into the cloud. Contacts will bring your address book into Firefox. So that you don’t have to use web-based home pages like iGoogle, Mo illa is bringing that functionality into Firefox with customi ed home and new tab pages, so your surfing habits never have to leave the browser. Instead of godawful sharing widgets that plague every site on the web, Mo illa will make sharing an integral part of the browser’s UI with Firefox Share – not only is it easier, but it prevents numerous intermediaries from tracking and selling your data.

Going even further, Mo illa is now working on WebAPI — a programming interface that effectively allows Firefox to communicate directly with the hardware attached to your computer. Much like Mo illa’s in-browser offerings will lessen your reliance on commercial megacorps, WebAPI hopes to do the same on the hardware side. The end result of WebAPI is Boot 2 Gecko (B2G), an Android-based OS that boots a computer straight into Firefox — much in the same way as Google’s Chrome OS, but again retaining user sovereignty.

Divergence is dangerous

There are obstacles to overcome, however. Mo illa’s approach is almost completely disparate from Microsoft and Google. It’s an odd one: all three browsers (and their mobile offspring) have spent the last two years beating each other over the head with HTML5 support, JavaScript performance, and hardware acceleration — and for the most part, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Chrome are all so similar that they’re only separated by a handful of add-ons, personal preference, and user loyalty.

Over the next year, though, the browsers will diverge and differentiate. Mo illa will drift towards a richer, more integrated, user-first approach. Google has no option but to embrace web-based, cloud-oriented, Big Data services and eschew in-browser functionality. Somewhere in the middle is Microsoft, which can’t afford to ignore the web but has a multi-billion-dollar Windows franchise to protect. In short, all three browsers are on their way to providing very different experiences of the web.

Seven years ago when you chose Firefox 1.0 over Internet Explorer, you were making a statement and embracing the open source movement. Next year, if you choose Firefox, you might experience the web in a very different way from IE- and Chrome-toting compatriots. Whether that’s a good thing or not remains to be seen.

 

Will Firefox stand in the way of the cloud?