14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla has added FlyWeb, an extension advertised as a component for interacting with local Internet of Things (IoT) devices, as a system add-on to Firefox Nightly builds.
Work on this project started in 2015, before the Foundation decided to retire Firefox OS from the smartphone business and later shifted focus to the IoT market.
Another forward-thinking project from Mozilla
On its official wiki, Mozilla describes FlyWeb as an all-around component for interacting with nearby smart devices:
“ Meet FlyWeb. FlyWeb is a very simple idea at its core. Instead of phones interacting only with the cloud, they can discover and interact with electronics around them that are running empty web clients, such as TV's, projectors, game consoles, etc. The electronics come to life when connected to phones. The key here is that either the phones serve web apps to these electronics, or the electronics serve web apps to the phones. ”
While initially this might look like a suitable component for Firefox for iOS and Android, FlyWeb is also included in desktop browsers, being considered universal, and that's the point Mozilla is trying to make.Users don't need to be locked into smart IoT devices that only provide their own mobile apps, which are sometimes insecure and collect data on users.
The company has designed FlyWeb as a universal wrench that can deal with different types of IoT architectures.
FlyWeb is Mozilla's universal IoT plug-in
FlyWeb will allow users to connect to a wide range of smart devices without the need for proprietary mobile apps, but by only accessing a URL in their browser.
The component is a swipe at companies like Apple or Google that want to lock in users on their own platforms, instead of building a universal playground for all devices.
Currently, FlyWeb is offered as an unremovable system add-on, just like Hello and Pocket.
