Mozilla, the company that operates the popular Firefox web browser, is reportedly planning a redesign that aims to revamp the portal to make it more accessible to users and more of a threat to its competition.
Ten years ago, Firefox was widely considered to be the
fastest Internet browser on the market and vastly superior to Microsoft's clunky Internet Explorer, according to tech site dBTechno. Then Google unveiled its Chrome browser, which soon overtook Firefox.
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Now, Mozilla is preparing to debut its redesigned browser, which is said to be called Australis. The new web access portal is reportedly in its
last stages of testing and will probably be released in October, Mozilla's Vice President of Firefox engineering Jonathan Nightingale told TechCrunch.com.
The goal of Australis is to redefine what "browsing" online means.
"Maybe we shouldn't even call it a browser anymore," Nightingale said. "'Browser' is really an antiquated word. People don’t really browse all that much anymore."
The new design is cleaner and more intuitive, Nightingale said, and gives users more tools to customize the look and feel of the browser.
But some people complained that Australis is too much of a Google Chrome wannabe.
"So Firefox is basically turning into Chrome and pretends to innovate," one person commented on TechCrunch.com. "Which isn't a surprise since Google has been pouring a lot of money into the Mozilla foundation over the years."
"The new Firefox is just an extension of Chrome," another posted. "Google is paying the bills and running the show at Firefox headquarters."
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