Firefox is no longer the Internet Explorer/Edge alternative that it used to be for most people. Instead, Google was able to power through the browser market with Chrome thanks in part to Android as well as the Google home page. Mozilla hasn’t been slouching though, the company’s web browser still has a lot of fans but they have to look for ways to earn additional income to grow. One way Mozilla has done this in the past by getting paid by search engines to be the default option in Firefox and a new way looks to be a paid subscription service for its user base.
This is an interesting move from Mozilla as we don’t see this from companies like Google or Microsoft. At least not in a way that is leveraged so heavily within the company’s browser. This information about the Mozilla’s new paid subscription service comes to us thanks to an interview from Mozilla CEO Chris Beard with t3n. Sadly, we weren’t given much information about the paid service in the actual interview, but we did learn that they plan to launch it sometime within the month of October.
Now, we’ve seen a number of new things Mozilla has launched as of late. Beyond the improvements they’ve made to Firefox, Mozilla has been hard at work launching completely new services for the company. Firefox Lockbox is its own in-house password manager, Firefox Send is its in-house file sharing service, and Firefox Reality is its VR web browser for platforms including Oculus, Vive, and Daydream. Mozilla even began testing a VPN subscription service last fall thanks to a partnership with ProtonVPN.
So it’s easy to see how Mozilla could come up with a number of premium tier versions of these apps and services for its upcoming subscription plan. Sadly, this is nothing more than an educated guess on my part. So far, the only solid piece of information about the services of this subscription plan is Chris Beard telling us it would include a VPN service and some sort of cloud storage.
Firefox has a new logo but not for the browser
As well as the Firefox browser, Mozilla now also has its file-sharing Firefox Send service, its Firefox Monitor breach alert service, and a password manager dubbed Firefox Lockbox.
For this collection of Firefox-branded products, Mozilla has taken the wraps off a new logo for its Firefox parent brand.
The end of an 18-month process has produced a common colour scheme and five abstract logos.
Mozilla creative director Tim Murray said, the Firefox you've always known as a browser is stretching to cover a family of products and services united by putting you and your privacy first. Firefox is a browser AND an encrypted service to send huge files. It's an easy way to protect your passwords on every device AND an early warning if your email has been part of a data breach. Safe, private, eye-opening. That's just the beginning of the new Firefox family.
Earlier this week, Mozilla CEO Chris Beard said the company would soon launch a VPN service under the Firefox moniker, as well as a storage service.
The company previously teamed up with ProtonVPN in an effort to diversify its revenue, the vast majority of which has traditionally been made from selling its default search engine setting.
After switching to Yahoo in the United States for a number of years, Google returned as the default in November 2017.
Earlier this year, a former Mozilla executive accused Google of intentionally and systematically sabotaging Firefox over the past decade in order to boost Chrome's adoption.
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