Mozilla has just released the latest upgrade to Firefox, its popular open-source browser. We’re at version 29 now, which as software goes is pretty long in the tooth.
Over the last few years, Firefox began to show its age. When it was first unveiled, back in 2002, Mozilla’s browser was unquestionably better than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which at the time enjoyed a near monopoly share of the browser market. But as Firefox became more popular, its designers stuffed it with too many features.
I was a Firefox devotee until about the end of the last decade, when it finally became too ungainly to bear. Google’s Chrome, lithe and quick as a frightened gazelle, offered a more hassle-free path to the web.
But when I first opened Firefox 29, which became available earlier this week, I felt a surge of nostalgia. It instantly reminded me of what I liked best about the open-source browser in its heyday.
For one thing, it’s beautiful. Like Chrome, Mozilla’s redesigned web browser is aesthetically spare, but it isn’t anodyne. With curved tabs and a set of thoughtfully designed, slightly amusing icons, Firefox’s new design suggests an air of friendly accessibility. Opening it up is like running into an old friend who had gone astray; he’s cleaned up, gotten his act together, and now he’s ready to escort you on a journey across the web.
Should you join him? That’s where things get dicier. While there’s a lot to like about how the new Firefox looks, I can’t see much about how it works that should compel you to switch from Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari or whatever else you happen to be using now.
In the few days I’ve been using Firefox 29, I’ve found it to be quite speedy and free of bugs. I appreciated a new feature that allows you to customize the browser’s menu bar, and I’m fond of Mozilla’s new synchronization system, which works similar to that of Chrome and IE: After you create a user account, your bookmarks and settings show up on every computer where you’ve logged in to Firefox.
But what else is there? The more I used the new Firefox, the more I began to wonder if desktop web browsers had hit a kind of innovation plateau. As a result of the intense competition among browser makers — a fight incited by Mozilla, then joined by Apple, Google and, lately, by Microsoft, whose share of the browser market has plummeted in the last decade — desktop web browsers have improved vastly over the past few years. They’re now ferociously fast, they can load and keep open hundreds of tabs, they’re extremely stable and they’re capable of handling highly complex websites.
But that’s true of all major browsers today, even Internet Explorer. They are all good, and there really isn’t a standout in the bunch. Indeed, choosing “the best” browser often comes down to subjective preference, such as whether you’re more fond of Apple or Google or whether you feel at more home with Internet Explorer’s design scheme or with Firefox’s.
These are not terrible parameters by which to choose software. If you’re happy using a certain browser and don’t want to change, don’t let anyone persuade you otherwise (unless there’s some kind of security flaw in the one you’re using, in which case you should install a patch).
But the fact that all browsers are very good does make any single one difficult to recommend. Personally, even though I’m happy with the new Firefox, I’m sticking with Chrome, because I’m used to it. But if I encounter any momentary problem with Chrome, I’ll open a new Firefox window and use it happily. You’d have a fine time doing just what I do, or just the opposite. There’s no profit or penalty to either choice.
When I asked Johnathan Nightingale, Mozilla’s vice president of Firefox, about this apparent stalemate, he pointed to Mozilla’s philosophical stance. Mozilla’s mission is to push the “open web” — the idea of the web as the primary means of distributing software and services online.
The open web might have won on desktop computers, but on smartphones and tablets, the web has given way to apps. Apple’s and Google’s app stores have become the primary way that people get new mobile software. Apps, Mr. Nightingale said, are far more restrictive to developers and consumers than the Web is. They require that developers write more code to get their software to run on multiple devices, and they put Apple and Google in charge of deciding what software we all get to see and run.
Running Firefox on your desktop computer isn’t going to directly help in the fight for an open mobile web. Mozilla makes mobile software, like an Android version of Firefox as well as an entire mobile operating system based on Firefox, but the success of those products would seem to be independent of the success of Firefox on your desktop.
Except for this: If you run Firefox on your big computer, Mozilla can claim you as a user and a source of revenue (the firm gets paid largely through the money it makes from its Google search box). In other words, if you run Firefox, you’re supporting the larger project for an open web. So if that’s important to you and if you’re concerned about the long-term dominance of mobile apps, then you should use the new Firefox.
Otherwise, use whichever browser you like. They’re all great.