No, it's really not. As a user, I'd be quite fine with the first icon in the set.
The recent changes in the latest Google re-branding, for example, were anything but well-received. Even Chrome's icon is now smaller, and in a white box, with rounded corners — because everything needs rounded corners these days — for no apparent reason other than I guess we want to feel like a phone now.
The overwhelming majority of users are not shedding tears that their favorite product hasn't updated its icon in more than 3 months.
You might be right about current users, but this kind of thing matters a lot if you're going to convince potential future users. Someone who isn't already using Firefox isn't going to have a lot of faith in trying it out if the logo looks like it was done in SodiPodi in mom's basement.
The old logo looks old and it reminds me of Windows XP software. You might think that's wrong and irrational but it doesn't matter. All the UI studies will show thats the most common feeling and feelings matter a lot for marketing
The old one was nice and reminded me of back when Firefox was in an entirely different league, far ahead of everything else: it was so extensible you could even run the worst offending pages in an IE tab.
Today Firefox is still best, bt they've been shooting themselves in both feet repeatedly IMO.
This is the same complaint that gets spat out at every non profit org. And even volunteers working for free.
"Why are you spending time and money on something I don't care for"
People complaining about charities having advertising campaigns and managers. Like they think companies do it just for fun and not that it actually works and is required.
Only in defense of all the times they did. That's the whole joke of the meme here. "Don't worry guys, we didn't change the logo for the sixth time (yet)."
I think they meant that it's preferable to use a browser made by a company who cares about combating misinformation than one made by a company (Google implied) that does not. Many inferences in this statement.
They are pointing out that some folk have noted that their logo is getting more and more stylistic and the fox bit might disappear. Some of the comments/memes about this are implying via the logo that FF is losing their way.
Good skills FF and that reminds me to get off my arse and ditch some other browsers. I moved from FF to Chrom{ium} wholesale a few (10+?) years back because "reasons" - probably compatibility. I used to use the old FF sync thing and it was a right old pain moving to the Google one but seemed the right thing to do at the time. Now I think I'll move back to FF again and keep my bookmarks etc to myself.
Then I'll migrate my firm and then my customers and my family of course. Browser sync data costs less than pence to manage (I have quite a lot of sites, storage and decent links to piss around with.)
Sorry, mind fart dump!
Using FF does not combat anything: it's a bloody web browser - no more or less. However the programmers behind FF are ostensibly quite keen on privacy and the like.
Looking at the comments in the Reddit threads they've linked, you can really see how poorly Mozilla has managed their brands as they've transitioned to making more products under the Firefox umbrella. Most people seem confused about the Firefox browser logo, Firefox the brand logo, and Mozilla the company logo, and I don't blame them.
I blame them, it's Reddit; nobody looks into anything. This seems closely paralleled by how quickly people get mad on the internet about whatever someone said and demand their resignation, when they have never interacted with them beyond seeing the image or tweet they put out in that moment.
Perhaps too close. Honestly, before this thread I didn't realize that the new logo was for a "parent brand" rather than a replacement for the browser logo, but apparently they made this change more than a year ago [1].
I'm actually inclined to like branding changes like this, but in this case I was totally confused about the brand distinction.
It completely escapes me how someone could care this much about a logo. This is more representative of a sensationalist culture, one that will be increasingly dangerous for software development going forwards.
Exactly, I can't imagine the pressure on development and design teams, where every possible change has a chance of being ridiculed by not just thousands, but hundreds of thousands of people at once.
It must be so incredibly difficult for teams to work under such severe pressure, and yes, could be debilitating for software development in the coming years.
I think it's a little unintuitive for no other reason than, to be honest, there aren't that many "Firefox" products beyond the browser now that send among others have been axed.
Additionally, I feel like it would make more sense for the overarching brand to be... Mozilla? It's Mozilla Firefox, right? And there use to be Mozilla Thunderbird, etc.
I guess Mozilla is too unattractive a brand to be the parent brand or something?
In the end I have no objection or attraction to the rebranding but I do find it somewhat weird in execution.
As someone who used to work at Mozilla, I think the move to an overarching Firefox brand makes a ton of sense. I’ve had this conversation a number of times, all around the world:
me: “oh, I work at Mozilla”
them: “who? Should I know who that is?”
me: “you know, the Firefox people”
them: “oh my gosh, I love Firefox! I use it every day.”
So the solution to that problem is to dilute the brand that resonates with people, by using it for only tangentally related products, like email relays and vpns and what not?
That way, in a couple years you say you know, the Firefox peole and they say "who?"
That has happened to some extent; there are a number of products named after Chrome. Chromecast has nothing to do with a web browser (or even Chrome OS, another Chrome-branded product).
It definitely hasn’t gotten to a point where we’re getting Chrome Maps, but the proliferation of Chrome-branded devices does indicate that Mozilla focusing more on Firefox the brand is a reasonable decision.
As someone who didn't used to work at Mozilla but does work with a lot of elderly people (both personally and on various occasions professionally) who use Firefox, they usually do call it Mozilla and scratch their heads when I call it Firefox (until it clicks for them and they realize "oh, you must mean my Mozilla!". This is in spite of it even being labelled "Firefox" on their desktops; they just see the orange and blue and think "well there's my Mozilla!".
I sometimes wonder if it's because they were Netscape users back in the day and got confused about the transition.
That's my experience too. I think it is because for long time desktop icon was labeled "Mozilla Firefox", so they remembered first part of the name and still call it Mozilla.
The older logos were much better. I don't understand this drive towards minimalism.
Google makes all it's logos a blob of their trademark colors. I first find the colors then squint to tell the maps from photos.
For reference I use Lens Launcher for Android. There's no categories, just one screen and frecency sorted icons. I feel like brands just hate me and my visual cortex.
On the other hand, I have problems finding google maps on my iPad ever since the latest icon redesign. It’s so different that my brain just filters it out when I am looking for maps.
I’ve used Apple Maps way more often just because I can’t see the google maps logo.
I like the last 2 logos. The radiant colors are really nice. Its actually a lot less minimal than most of the other icons on my desktop by having gradients but it still fits in unlike thunderbird.
That's intentional. Google wants you to recognize google, and google colors, and they want you to THINK about which google product you are about to use instead of doing it subconsciously. What are you gonna go, stop using Gmail?
I'm working on a photos replacement (just the upload and share features) for me and my wife. It literally just uses s3 and some python to move photos around, nothing fancy.
It's mostly because of Apple IMO. When macOS and iOS have all these new icons, you are kinda forced to update your logo too, otherwise your product would look old fashioned.
Why did Apple start this trend in the first place? My best guess: "politics within Apple". I still remember when Forstall was given the axe and he was against minimalism.
The story is sorta strange too: he was axed because of embarrassing bugs in the new Apple Maps. Was it inside job to make him look bad? I guess we'll never know.
It's just designers learning and overcorrecting sometimes.
Skeumorphism [1] tried to fix the confusing abstract and grey interfaces, but suffered from clutter and no-information-pixels. Minimal/Flat design attempted to remove unnecessary information but lacked affordances. Since then, these affordances have been slowly added back in. Currently, we're reconsidering skeumorphic elements without sacrificing what we've gained from the minimialst approach.
From each approach, lessons were learned and carried over.
(This is obviously simplified, but it's a better explanation than: "It's Apples fault")
I get why they put out a post like this. They also appear to be correct in calling out the misinformation, regardless whether it was caused by a misinterpreted fun meme or intention to fool/misinform.
However, with some of the decisions I've seen the company (or particularly its management) make before, this post still rubs me the wrong way. Rather pedantically sounding like a lecture on what all these people "up in arms" did wrong.
Those people were indeed wrong, at least this time. But their emotional response may very well have been primed and driven by past experiences (with more merit). Which to me makes this blog post sound rather smug and maybe even a bit arrogant. Even when it was likely sincerely written to calm people down.
I'm not getting that tone at all. For me it's coming off as "Here's a funny little viral moment we were a surprise part of. Also, it's kind of an interesting case study in misinformation spread online."
>Today we’re introducing the Firefox parent brand — an icon representing the entire family of products.
I don't know, it's a bit funny but it really looks like only tail fo the fox has been left ) which makes you worry about the life of the fox. Perhaps it's only my perception.
People buy too much in to online drama. Mozilla makes some random or stupid blog posts which have nothing to do with firefox really and people lose their minds and spam "Thats it, I'm using chrome now"
I'm talking about years of slow weird changes, just a blog post. Is the straw on the camel. Im still a FF user, I dislike chrome but like I mentioned FF/Mozilla makes it hard to stay that way.
I don't like how they make sigificant changes to the UI and deploy the changes with security updates. The toolbar was the last major change where it looks drastically different and functions different (and the fact that for one release you could undo it, the next release you could undo it but in a different manner and much more difficult, and finally I dont think you can undo it at all). The new password manager is another example of significant functionality changes. A browser is a tool, I dont want to relearn how to use my screwdriver because a new version came out.
Don't get me wrong, Im a huge firefox fan, I want them to win more market share, I've used it exclusively for 10+ years. But some of the changes are unnecessary and I should have to pin my security of being forced to use it.
Firefox pros: the browser works, has good support for add-ons and some features not found in Chrome such as containers. Can generally be assumed to be privacy-friendly to some degree
Cons: some cringe-worthy decisions such as that Mr. Robot thing, the sort of waste of donations in the OP link, and occasional minor performance issues compared to Chrome. The biggest problem seems to be the continued survival of the project over time
Chrome pros: I don't use Chrome but as far as I can tell it benefits from being the default browser that devs optimize for and reportedly has good developer tools.
cons: essentially a monopolistic data-gathering tool for one of the shadiest ad companies on Earth. Slowly introducing user-unfriendly features, even in Chromium
As far as I can tell the rational choice would be Firefox (or some derivative browser) barring some specific technical need for Chrome. The downsides of Chrome just seem so much more egregious than the occasional Mozilla silliness.
> This experience also gave us our own mini-case study on how misinformation spreads online.
Word! People love to hate on Firefox (and Mozilla), but it’s good to see misinformation tackled in a concise way without insulting or attacking anyone (which is how I perceived the article).
It's weird to see something like this pop up with such intensity years after the rebranding actually happened. I remember the "Mother, I joined the oversimplification trend" meme from back then, but the rest looks new to me.
About the Firefox brand: Moving an application to a brand is not new for Mozilla, which itself used to be the name of an application. After a while it feels alright to me for Firefox to be some kind of service provider, company or team ("Message from Firefox" sounds okay now). It just devalues the brand for the browser a little.
I wonder whether they'll have to come up with a new sub-brand for that ... (but who am I kidding, they'll probably discontinue it before that happens because they finally fully cannibalized it).
I think I'd feel like a complete idiot if I donated money to the Mozilla Foundation and they used it on dumb stuff like this. Fortunately, I only did so to Bram Moolenaar and he gives it away to some random place so it's just as useless.
> Remain Calm: The fix is still in the Firefox logo
"...well, the Firefox browser logo, but not the other 'Firefox' logos, because we reused that brand elsewhere with other products. We can't imagine why people can't distinguish between the assortment of things that are all 'Firefox' now."
I think the current logo looks great and having the fox in profile rather than looking away makes for a surprisingly large improvement in how the logo feels.
I know most pundits hate changes to logos, but for once I am quite pleased.
104 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 183 ms ] threadThe recent changes in the latest Google re-branding, for example, were anything but well-received. Even Chrome's icon is now smaller, and in a white box, with rounded corners — because everything needs rounded corners these days — for no apparent reason other than I guess we want to feel like a phone now.
The overwhelming majority of users are not shedding tears that their favorite product hasn't updated its icon in more than 3 months.
3 techies made disgruntled noises in their apartments behind drawn blinds and the rest of the world moved on.
> The overwhelming majority of users are not shedding tears that their favorite product hasn't updated its icon in more than 3 months.
And the overwhelming majority of users will not shed a tear if their favorite product changes their icon once a week.
You might be right about current users, but this kind of thing matters a lot if you're going to convince potential future users. Someone who isn't already using Firefox isn't going to have a lot of faith in trying it out if the logo looks like it was done in SodiPodi in mom's basement.
Today Firefox is still best, bt they've been shooting themselves in both feet repeatedly IMO.
"Why are you spending time and money on something I don't care for"
People complaining about charities having advertising campaigns and managers. Like they think companies do it just for fun and not that it actually works and is required.
I'm not sure I understand what they may be referencing here. How does using Firefox relate to combating misinformation?
From that page: "We are committed to an internet that promotes civil discourse, human dignity, and individual expression."
Free speech is not a goal, much less freedom to spread misinformation.
To the extent it matters I don't know, but I would assume they'd never enhance Firefox or launch any products that enable unsavory speech.
Shame, the internet was built on radical free speech. "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around" used to be the ethos.
One can equally say that the Internet was built on netiquette (eg. 'RFC 1855 - Netiquette Guidelines': https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855 ).
They are pointing out that some folk have noted that their logo is getting more and more stylistic and the fox bit might disappear. Some of the comments/memes about this are implying via the logo that FF is losing their way.
Good skills FF and that reminds me to get off my arse and ditch some other browsers. I moved from FF to Chrom{ium} wholesale a few (10+?) years back because "reasons" - probably compatibility. I used to use the old FF sync thing and it was a right old pain moving to the Google one but seemed the right thing to do at the time. Now I think I'll move back to FF again and keep my bookmarks etc to myself.
Then I'll migrate my firm and then my customers and my family of course. Browser sync data costs less than pence to manage (I have quite a lot of sites, storage and decent links to piss around with.)
Sorry, mind fart dump!
Using FF does not combat anything: it's a bloody web browser - no more or less. However the programmers behind FF are ostensibly quite keen on privacy and the like.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/nightly/firstrun/
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d9/Servo_l...
In case it isn’t clear, I’m serious.
They got rid of the fox!!
Preferably a girl fox, but a fox- a real girl fox, with photoshopped real fire. Exactly.
Ok, the fox can be ambiguous. But it needs to commit to it.
I'm actually inclined to like branding changes like this, but in this case I was totally confused about the brand distinction.
[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/files/2019/06/FX_Design_... (from https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/firefox-the-evolution-of...)
It must be so incredibly difficult for teams to work under such severe pressure, and yes, could be debilitating for software development in the coming years.
Additionally, I feel like it would make more sense for the overarching brand to be... Mozilla? It's Mozilla Firefox, right? And there use to be Mozilla Thunderbird, etc.
I guess Mozilla is too unattractive a brand to be the parent brand or something?
In the end I have no objection or attraction to the rebranding but I do find it somewhat weird in execution.
me: “oh, I work at Mozilla”
them: “who? Should I know who that is?”
me: “you know, the Firefox people”
them: “oh my gosh, I love Firefox! I use it every day.”
People outside of tech know Firefox, not Mozilla.
That way, in a couple years you say you know, the Firefox peole and they say "who?"
It’s Google Maps, not Alphabet Maps. Isn’t that a similar situation?
And it doesn’t dilute the Google brand, if anything I’d argue it strengthens it and makes it even more well known.
Mozilla created Firefox.
It’s like if Google decided to rebrand Google Maps to Chrome Maps if Chrome ended up having better brand recognition.
It definitely hasn’t gotten to a point where we’re getting Chrome Maps, but the proliferation of Chrome-branded devices does indicate that Mozilla focusing more on Firefox the brand is a reasonable decision.
At one point it basically did, since Chrome was (IIRC) the first thing to support casting to Chromecasts.
I sometimes wonder if it's because they were Netscape users back in the day and got confused about the transition.
Google makes all it's logos a blob of their trademark colors. I first find the colors then squint to tell the maps from photos.
For reference I use Lens Launcher for Android. There's no categories, just one screen and frecency sorted icons. I feel like brands just hate me and my visual cortex.
I’ve used Apple Maps way more often just because I can’t see the google maps logo.
Yes.
Why did Apple start this trend in the first place? My best guess: "politics within Apple". I still remember when Forstall was given the axe and he was against minimalism.
The story is sorta strange too: he was axed because of embarrassing bugs in the new Apple Maps. Was it inside job to make him look bad? I guess we'll never know.
Skeumorphism [1] tried to fix the confusing abstract and grey interfaces, but suffered from clutter and no-information-pixels. Minimal/Flat design attempted to remove unnecessary information but lacked affordances. Since then, these affordances have been slowly added back in. Currently, we're reconsidering skeumorphic elements without sacrificing what we've gained from the minimialst approach.
From each approach, lessons were learned and carried over.
(This is obviously simplified, but it's a better explanation than: "It's Apples fault")
[1]: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/50144a1784ae6db4b...
However, with some of the decisions I've seen the company (or particularly its management) make before, this post still rubs me the wrong way. Rather pedantically sounding like a lecture on what all these people "up in arms" did wrong.
Those people were indeed wrong, at least this time. But their emotional response may very well have been primed and driven by past experiences (with more merit). Which to me makes this blog post sound rather smug and maybe even a bit arrogant. Even when it was likely sincerely written to calm people down.
I don't know, it's a bit funny but it really looks like only tail fo the fox has been left ) which makes you worry about the life of the fox. Perhaps it's only my perception.
Because for me, Firefox keeps getting faster, more secure, and better at preserving privacy every release.
Don't get me wrong, Im a huge firefox fan, I want them to win more market share, I've used it exclusively for 10+ years. But some of the changes are unnecessary and I should have to pin my security of being forced to use it.
Firefox pros: the browser works, has good support for add-ons and some features not found in Chrome such as containers. Can generally be assumed to be privacy-friendly to some degree
Cons: some cringe-worthy decisions such as that Mr. Robot thing, the sort of waste of donations in the OP link, and occasional minor performance issues compared to Chrome. The biggest problem seems to be the continued survival of the project over time
Chrome pros: I don't use Chrome but as far as I can tell it benefits from being the default browser that devs optimize for and reportedly has good developer tools.
cons: essentially a monopolistic data-gathering tool for one of the shadiest ad companies on Earth. Slowly introducing user-unfriendly features, even in Chromium
As far as I can tell the rational choice would be Firefox (or some derivative browser) barring some specific technical need for Chrome. The downsides of Chrome just seem so much more egregious than the occasional Mozilla silliness.
Word! People love to hate on Firefox (and Mozilla), but it’s good to see misinformation tackled in a concise way without insulting or attacking anyone (which is how I perceived the article).
Stay strong, Firefox browser logo! :)
Stray strong, Firefox Nightly browser logo! ;)
Feels condescending because it’s obvious.
Tempest in a teapot if you ask me.
About the Firefox brand: Moving an application to a brand is not new for Mozilla, which itself used to be the name of an application. After a while it feels alright to me for Firefox to be some kind of service provider, company or team ("Message from Firefox" sounds okay now). It just devalues the brand for the browser a little.
I wonder whether they'll have to come up with a new sub-brand for that ... (but who am I kidding, they'll probably discontinue it before that happens because they finally fully cannibalized it).
"...well, the Firefox browser logo, but not the other 'Firefox' logos, because we reused that brand elsewhere with other products. We can't imagine why people can't distinguish between the assortment of things that are all 'Firefox' now."
The uniformity strikes me as very globalization, but I wonder if we will ever trend over to each company really standing out.
Similar trend to how car colours were very vibrant and different in 60s to today's grey, black, and white.
I know most pundits hate changes to logos, but for once I am quite pleased.
https://mashable.com/article/climate-change-cold-weather-ext...