Mozilla launches Ideas platform to improve communication with its userbase
Mozilla Ideas is a new platform by Firefox maker Mozilla to improve communication with the Firefox userbase. At its core, Ideas works similarly to Uservoice and other services of its kind. Firefox users and developers may post new content on the platform, and everyone else may comment and vote on the idea.
The introduction on the main page reveals Mozilla's intentions with the platform:
This is where we grow our next generation of ideas, designs, experiments and products. You can take a look at the big problems we're working on, challenges we're exploring and bring your ideas to the conversation as we shape up and ship our next generation of software and services.
The service is powered by Crowdicity, a third-party service. An account is required to interact with the service, e.g. to post new ideas, leave comments or vote. A Firefox account is not supported, but you may sign-in with any email address or by using social media accounts.
Users may access the latest, top voted, most discussed or even random topics on the Ideas platform. Current ideas include re-adding the compact interface option, improving the master password protection, or providing a higher contrast default theme.
A click on an idea displays its description, user comments, stats, and options to subscribe to the idea or give it a thumbs up vote. Mozilla employees participate on the site, but they are not highlighted in any way.
Ideas features challenges as well. These are topics that Mozilla would like to gather ideas for. Current challenges include "stay safe and private online", "search and navigate the web", or "customizing, extensions and themes".
Users of the site may publish ideas related to a challenge, and when you select one, all active ideas that have been posted already are shown.
Closing words
Mozilla Ideas serves two main purposes: first, to improve communication with the Firefox userbase, and second, to move user posts from Mozilla's bug tracking site to the new Ideas platform. Mozilla employees are interacting on the Ideas platform, and it is likely that popular ideas will get the attention of the organization. Whether that will lead to changes on the platform remains to be seen.
Now You: What is your take on the new Ideas platform?
This has moved to https://connect.mozilla.org/ . There’s also an abandoned Discourse instance at https://discourse.mozilla.org/ where the topic was mentioned at the time: https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/usefulness-of-the-mozilla-crowdcity-ideas-site/82443
Yes, I’ll have to agree with the mostly negative comments here: To me, too, it seems like a farce. But EOD ULBoom sums it up nicely, at least for me!
As for that idea-finding – happens in a very intransparent way. Thanks, mozilla, but thanks, NO.
PS: I did sign up with a disposable email, so I don’t have any worries regarding privacy (but still it is an issue).
Communication with Firefox is kinda broken.
Firefox create a platform where they can filter whatever they want.
Like the idea of bringing back the search capability in the new tab.
Or the idea of bringing back the default (OS) theme into the application.
Those are not new things that takes time like a nice vertical tab those just to be NOT removed.
Firefox would only respond to bugs like screwing the address bar (as a failed attempt to copy the competition): “Those are not bugs, those are features”. Post your ideas in the dedicated page so you can get:
“Your idea is currently awaiting moderator review. Once approved, it will be visible to all users.”
No we have telemetry. Do we have less bugs, more stable browser and more security than before telemetry?
This Just In …….
Firefox 90
==========
Firefox 90 will PING for on-going updates on a rolling basis, every seven hours,”EVEN WHEN ITS NOT RUNNING”,using ADMINISTRATOR privileges in Windoze.The developers say this is NOT extended to other platforms, [me]”so far”, according to Security Now, the podcast hosted by LeoLaporte and Steve Gibson on the TWiT network: https://youtu.be/T6YXevqvZCM?t=2210
That’s the end of the news flash
Peter Newton UK
The arguments for ditching FF because of some bizarre idea they’re a Chrome competitor are really weird strawman constructs. If you think FF really blew it by letting Google kill them, you’re likely not aware of how many other companies Google strangled.
If FF doesn’t have features you need, fine but if appearance or speed are issues, fix them, you can. If some system extensions or Windows Tasks are just too much to turn off or delete and running Chrome wide open seems better out of spite, well…
I’ve always found it interesting that FF’s market share graphs are almost perfect mirror images of Chrome’s. No other browser follows Chrome in reverse as closely as FF. (Pointless the conjured up hare brained theories as to why…Google’s been financing FF almost since day one for the same reason MS kept Apple alive.) In Germany, FF is doing very well. Privacy, maybe? IDK.
It’s still, by far, the best for tweakers. OOB, it sucks like any other browser, just an ad server with dumb ass videos of junk no one with a brain would ever watch but all that new tab page garbage can be removed. Can in chromia, too. Just gotta learn how.
Browsers are free, use what you want. Holding a confabulated grudge against one isn’t worth the effort.
Requires sign in but firefox account is not supported? WHAT?
Switching to Firefox ESR in mass would be an interesting feedback method and I’ve already done that on 5 Laptops and one Mini Desktop PC that are running Mint 20.0/20.1 and really that’s the only solution currently even if that does not last forever!
So just make up false information when you sign up. I rarely enter my actual information when using online sites.
There is Reddit, why do we need yet another username password?!
Privacy is an illusion.
Google and others wants us to believe that.
A step in the right direction.
“Hahahahaha. Oh wait. You’re serious. Let me laugh even harder. Ahahahahahaha!”
Do they now feel the winter coming? Firefox became mainstream and lost many nerds on the way there. In the past there were pretty much no alternatives, now there are. ^^
I remember that Firefox gradually removed me from it’s userbase.
– First i had a grouped colored tab (XUL) Addon for web research i don’t want to part with, so i switched to Firefox ESR.
– Then i remember syncing bookmarks with my server at home became a hustle.
– Then they decided to do DRM in their browser and they gave a shit about the userbase that didn’t want that stuff in their browsers
So long Firefox, and thanks for all the fish. ;)
I think its a great idea. Helps with priorities and i would add few things also. Haters and chromium fanboys here will search for negative things to say even if Firefox find cure for cancer.
@Not a chromium fanboy
Probably the constantly decreasing market share of Firefox is also the handiwork of “chromium fanboys”, right? Well, well, keep thinking that.
Want to make a bet that the majority of “Haters and chromium fanboys here” were Firefox users before moz://a decided to trash it a few years ago?
And not only here, anywhere you go and see criticism of firefox, that criticism most likely comes from its (ex-)users. There is a reason why the usage of this browser has been on a constant decline for the last half decade, and that reason is not that Chrom* is such an amazing browser:
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-202005-202105
I’m afraid it’s too late. I still use Firefox as my main browser, but I now install Brave on the computers of friends and family.
This is another stupid way they are wasting their money and time.
Almost 80% of the bad choices that Mozilla has made could have been avoided by just using common sense.
Years ago a Mozilla developer suggested removing the version nr from Firefox.
You do not need to spend money and time asking users about the idea to know that is a stupid idea.
More stupid ideas would follow and even be implemented. The resut is a continous drop in users.
I understand the need to replace the old addon system with something more secure.
But they made the new addon system too simple. Making things too simple and thus removing features and options is the trend in the tech industry since the rise of the smartphone.
The price is a loss of productivity and a increase in stress for tens of millions of people.
My Idea for Mozilla is to fire their current management, because that is the only way Mozilla can change.
is stop f*ing up the ui something they would listen to?
nope.
In one respect this is a good move, in another its discouraging, because they ask you to sign up.
Could it be another revenue stream ? I think to myself, why ask people to sign up and give their details, to express their views ? Well in part at least, its to mitigate abuse and vandalism on the site, but as we are all well aware, people’s data are bought and sold with little or no regard to morality these days, so it makes one wonder.
If this decision is based on genuine concern for user experience, why has it taken this long ? why did it, metaphorically speaking, need to the burn down the world, with what most are describing as the worst design update in the browsers history, before a step like this was taken ? The negative feed-back must have been appalling !
Perhaps it might be beneficial to the likes of microshit, papple, and this bunch of jerks, if they actually listened to their users, without the off putting signup request. If they stopped looking at the development budget, which ultimately decides what is implemented and what is not, and started listening to their users, introducing new options and features COULD be done on a logical, pragmatic, consultative, and cost effective basis……
BUT this requires a lot of EFFORT, and as we all know Humans are lazy bastards !
In the long run, you have two choices, make the effort, gain the audience, their confidence and their loyalty to a good quality product, or Not and DIE.
PN Internet User
@Peter Newton, you write,
“I think to myself, why ask people to sign up and give their details, to express their views ?”
What details? An email address and a password. Disposable Email Address (DEA) providers/extensions are available. As long as a registration doesn’t ask true personal details such as snail address, phone number there’s no detailed, confidential information provided. Anyway, registration or not, tracking is a fact, tools exist to lower fingerprinting.
Registration is required because unfortunately, as you state it, “to mitigate abuse and vandalism on the site”. Just sign-in with a DEA, a strong unique password, and you’re done. I don’t see any problem with that. Just avoid phone and postal address, unless required for business, so be extra cautious with that, besides the transaction itself because that’s the red line, the real one.
Read Crowdicity’s privacy policy if you want to confirm that you should never, ever sign up for something like this. I’ll provide the Cliff notes version here: when you sign up they collect your “name, user name, email, password, city, country, time zone, language, bio information, information on skills/expertise, social media account profile URLs (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+), profile image, interests, etc.
They then promise never to “sell your personal information to third parties”. Note the key word there is ‘sell’. They don’t promise not to give it to third parties and later on, sure enough, later on you will find that they intend to “pass your personal information to: (i) suppliers, such as technology services firms, in order to enable us to provide the services to you (these include our hosting provider, data analytics company, customer database provider and social media integrator…”). Of course the use of that information is part of the negotiation process to set prices with their suppliers, et. al., so yes, they are in fact selling your information. And while Crowdicity has plenty more to say about how they intend to protect your information, there is nothing about how all the rest of those third parties has warrented to protect it.
Good times! Can’t wait to sign up so I can provide Mozilla with feedback they will of course ignore.
There is other annoying stuff in there as well, of course. Check it out.
Which they will continue to ignore, just like Microsoft feedback hub. Its only a front to make it look like they are actually listening to user feedback.
I agree with the other comments. Mozilla have ignored their loyal userbase for years. They ignored us when they killed the old addon system (which was the best thing about Firefox). Since then they have tried as hard as they can to turn Firefox into a Chrome clone.
This is just another corporate attempt at pretending they listen.
At least with Waterfox we still have some of what used to make Firefox great.
In the end, they realized that they could not attract all users by selling privacy. The biggest problem is the slow opening of sites compared to Chromium and higher CPU and memory consumption compared to Chromium.
Instead of asking people for blank reports on Reddit to fix this problem. They have to admit that the problem is with the gecko engine.
Your Google hostility in the comments is causing Firefox to lag behind. Proton was a good step. Stop listening to this retarded and boomer crew. Firefox is fine. Focus on performance and speed. You are already a good browser for privacy.
Firefox is on a downward spiral. When it ceases to exist, I will be throwing a party.
Why don’t use a Mozilla account to vote, instead of some third party unbeknownst to mankind service? Do they really think people are so stu… oh, wait…
I agree that the current leadership of Mozilla has shown little or no interest in addressing the concerns of its users. Actually, hiring a third party service that requires a membership (I can’t wait to read their privacy policy) is a perfect example of that. Of course, anyone who has any concern at all for their own privacy is not going become a member. So that means that Mozilla has in essence decided that they only want feedback from that section of their user basis who are: 1) involved, knowledgable,and interested enough to go out of their way to provide feedback; and 2) clueless enough to trust Crowdicity with their personal data. That subset of users will be small, and unrepresentative at best.
For entertainment purposes, here is the Crowdicity privacy policy: https://crowdicity.com/privacy
Mozilla trolling its original userbase while getting fat paychecks from google, well played.
Looking at the first few complaints, return compact interface option, ditch gigantic chromium design with tiny fonts, etc., easier privacy settings, seems like complaints many users have are being registered.
Now, if they’ll do something about it. It’s nice to understand about:config but so silly for having to learn all that stuff just to get a browser that isn’t in your face obnoxious.
Aaand “Compact Interface Option” is already the highest-voted idea by far.
“Closed as rejected incoming in 3, 2, 1…”
WONTFIX WONTFIX WONTFIX
Hah, third-party scripts galore and requires an account. You do realize that the type of people whoe use Firefox are the same type that disable browser analytics, right Mozilla? Now you expect people to sign up for this? Nah, I’ll sick to gHacks comments for complaining about your browser, tyvm.
Too late. First they force awful crap like Firefox Proton and now want feedback. There is no feedback for common sense and not being a jerk by forcing regressive changes.
Self-inflated egotism. The people running Mozilla have been actively hostile towards constructive criticism when reporting bugs. It is simply reinforcement of psychological self-bias.
If Mozilla was truly interested in what their users thought Pale Moon and Waterfox Classic wouldn’t have to exist.
They probably consider criticism a form of hate speech and ban the people who have valid criticisms. I wouldn’t be surprised if they brainwash their remaining 3 and a half users and fanboys to act aggressively and hostile towards people with complaints. In the end all in all to praise Mozilla as the rebels of the free web and Firefox as their tool of war against oppression. Ironic when they are doing the same thing they’re claiming to be fighting against… the irony in the hypocrisy … xD
Excellent! Now we have a place to prominently display all the ideas Mozilla won’t listen to!
Especially my ideas?
Mozilla will probably consider the ideas with a lot of support but you have to remember that there are a lot of users who put up with what is offered without ever voting.
Most modern browser have many useless features and features that some users take steps to remove. I would prefer a basic browser with official Mozilla extension to add additional features people think they need. That’s not going to happen. I would do the same with Windows and programs. Why have an overload of features on you computer that you never use.
Back to the ideas platform. Time will tell but I don’t hold a lot of hope for something only ever used by a noisy minority. FWIW I won’t even look at it.
What a joke!!!
Mozilla hasn’t listened to user feedback in years…
This is a complete Façade.
The sites welcomes us to ‘Ideas.Mozilla.Org’ : IMO, sounds familiar, IMO :=)
Great. Some of us happen to complain about our society and never vote. At IMO we’ll vote and more: propose and debate. Welcomed.
>The service is powered by Crowdicity, a third-party service. An account is required to interact with the service
What are you doing?
Such a requirement is certainly not a good way to to improve communication with the userbase.
Pretty much. Asking people to register is a barrier and asking them to do that with a third party just makes that barrier higher.
If you want feedback from people who don’t care about their personal data or simply don’t value it then it’s a fine way of doing it, for people who are even semi IT literate it’s a rather big turn off.
> Pretty much. Asking people to register is a barrier and asking them to do that with a third party just makes that barrier higher.
> If you want feedback from people who don’t care about their personal data or simply don’t value it then it’s a fine way of doing it, for people who are even semi IT literate it’s a rather big turn off.
^^^ THIS!