14 DAY TRIAL // Firefox has always been about choice and customization. One of the greatest appeals of the browser was the possibility to alter the look and feel and add new functionality with user-created extensions. One component of the customization process has been the option to use different themes to change how the browser looked, but for the most part, users ignored those perhaps also because of their small numbers. Now, Mozilla is having another go with Personas, which plays on one of Firefox's other strengths, its simplicity. The theming engine that is still part of Mozilla Labs already sports tens of thousands of designs and now it's adding 40 Halloween-themed designs ahead of the holiday.
This coincides with the launch of a new holiday-specific Gallery section that should really become popular as the holiday season approaches. Now, though, with Halloween a few days away, Mozilla is giving Firefox users the possibility to get their browser dressed up for the holiday with over 40 designs to choose from. These are all coming from the community, which has sprung up around the Personas project and more designs are sure to surface these days.
Unfortunately, while relying on the community has its advantages it also means the quality varies. Still, there are plenty of great designs to choose from. And, if the Halloween designs are not to your liking, there are now over 30,000 Personas designs to choose from, attesting to the popularity of the extension. Personas has proven quite successful, a good sign for Mozilla that has big plans for the extension.
For now, Personas is still a project over at Mozilla Labs, where the organization tests new technologies and components, but it has matured enough that it will be making a big step soon and will be integrated into Firefox in the upcoming 3.6 release. Considering that the project is only several months old, it is obvious that it got something right. From a technological point of view, Personas isn't overly complicated, but the hardest part was building a community around it and getting users and designers interested. It's safe to say that Mozilla has done this and, as the feature gets rolled out to a significantly higher number of people, the quality and the number of themes should also go up.
While you wait for the Firefox 3.6 integration, you can download Personas for Firefox here.