Firefox's New Vision Statement: 'Discover, Experience and Connect on Your Own Terms'

Mozilla is undergoing a lot of changes, with the switch to a rapid release cycle comes a whole new philosophy at the organization. Not only the way the browser is built changes, but the long term plans have to adjust as well.

And considering the whole enterprise Firefox controversy, it's probably a good a time as any for Firefox to get a new vision statement, which is what Mozilla's VP of product Jay Sullivan asked for in a mailing list post.

Work is already underway in creating the Firefox Vision Statement, which is still in draft form, and so far, the most concise is "Discover, experience and connect on your own terms."

The idea is to give everyone working of Firefox as well as the outside world a clear image of what the web browser is focusing on at least for the next two years or so.

Those that have been following Mozilla more closely will find no big surprises in the new vision statement, which is considered a work in progress.

"Mozilla is uniquely positioned to deliver experiences that put the needs of the user first, above profits and above exploiting their personal data. Mozilla is the only organization in the world that can credibly deliver a browser that meets this opportunity. The world needs us, and expects us, to lead the way," Mozilla writes.

"The product vision statement for Firefox comes in two forms. The complete statement is: Discover, experience and connect with apps, websites and people on your own terms, everywhere," Mozilla adds.

Discover

In today's web, the "discovery" role of a browser has been largely taken over by search engines, social sites and even advertising. As such, Mozilla believes that Firefox's role should be of an intermediary between all of these apps and websites and the user.

"It will transition from a 'tool for navigation' to a more active participant in understanding user intent, and be an 'honest broker' that helps make discoveries without regard to commercial interests," Mozilla said.

Experience

Another major role for Firefox is in the way users experience the web. To ensure that users get the most out of the web, Firefox must provide a very solid and complete platform and this means support for the latest open, web technologies, from HMTL5 to real-time communications to WebGL.

But the web is not just websites anymore, applications are becoming just as important and Firefox needs to be able not only to run them but also to make it easy for users to manage them.

Connect

This part is trickier. On the one hand, Firefox handles the way people connect with each other, social interactions. As it stands today, these interactions are largely directed by the websites that enable them, Facebook, Twitter and so on and the user has little power over this. This is something Mozilla has long sought to change.

Of course, users also connect with websites and apps and Firefox has to be able to manage this exchange as well to make sure that the users' rights and privacy is respected.

On your own terms

This is probably the most important part of the new vision statement, while most other browsers enable users to do all of the above, Mozilla wants to be completely on the users' side. Since it's an independent organization with little commercial interest, it's probably the browser maker most apt to do this. [via Cnet]