Wyzo is a new company with two products. The Wyzo browser is built on the Firefox core and comes with a BitTorrent plug-in called FireTorrent built in. For those not interested in a separate browser, a standalone version of FireTorrent is available for Firefox.
The primary target audience for Wyzo is people who don’t already use BitTorrent. The Wyzo team don’t anticipate that the product will be appealing to heavy BitTorrent users. Instead the company is focused on reaching out to those users that don’t know what BitTorrent is or how to install a Firefox extension by offering them a standalone browser where everything is already set up and working for them.
Downloading content with FireTorrent (both from Wyzo and Firefox) is remarkable only for its simplicity; visually it looks identical to downloading any regular file in Firefox.
The module itself is built upon technology provided by P2P Innovative and supports features such as uTorrent compatible fast peer exchange, STUNT and uPnP connection integration.
There’s a number of existing BitTorrent add-ons for Firefox including FoxTorrent which we covered in April. In downloading legal content I found nothing particularly different with FireTorrent, it’s simple to use, fairly quick with downloads and perhaps surprisingly for an Alpha release, it was stable under Vista.
The offering of an actual branded web browser though is different. There will be many people reading this thinking that building a standalone browser is a stupid idea. To those people I say: you’re not the target audience. This is a package my mother would like. It’s for an audience who doesn’t read TechCrunch and who wouldn’t know BitTyrant or Firefox add-ons to save them. It should be remembered that there is a real and actual market for standalone browsers: there’s very little in Flock that can’t be done with Firefox add-ons and yet today Flock has in excess of 250,000 users. Simplicity can be a strong selling point.
People who don’t use BitTorrent? I’d like to see how many are there
Why is everyone(Netscape, and now this one) building on Firefox core? Shows the prowess of FF, I guess.
I could see this working, as few of the people outside of my core group of friends know, let alone use, BitTorrent. There are still far more people out there who need to learn the beauty that is BitTorrent!
At least you’re downloading something perfectly legal
I think this is a very good idea especially for those who don’t want to have a standalone app cluttering their PCs. I think the auto download feature whereby the online torrent file is identifies by the add-on and the actual bit-torrent is downloaded is a good feature skipping a step in the usual torrent downloading process.
I will test the app for speed, but I still believe rapidshare or similar are better tools for legitimate file sharing!
I don’t now, nor have I ever, used BitTorrent. I just don’t get it. What am I supposed to be downloading?
Oh, and to comment specifically on this product offering, I think it’s perfectly fine to offer a plug-less version of the technology behind it. However, to call the plug-less version a “browser” is a marketing faux paux. People like their browsers and generally aren’t interested in trying a new one. Market this browser as an “application” and people would be more inclined to give it a try. It’s fine that the core is actually a browser, that makes development of the delivery mechanism easier than rolling your own custom EXE probably, but you need to make the download less threatening by setting the user expectation that this isn’t trying to replace something they already use and love. If it so happens that users DO end up loving this more than FF out of the box or IE, so much the better. But you need to get them through the door first.
Your mother also uses IE and has never heard of Firefox.
Strange logic, thinking the less savvy users have any more desire for a second browser.
Duncan:
Could you please elaborate on the “This is a package my mother would like.” scenario? (No, I’m not being sarcastic here, I am genuinely interested in this) What kind of media would your mom be interested in, and that exists on BitTorrent *and* is legal? And yes, MajorNetworkNews clearly has a point about IE vs. Firefox. Thanks.
I made a financial browser! It’s called Cheapo Groovo!
Let ask something stupid: This mean that we are allow to share music and other files with this new browser?
Mario Ruiz
http://www.oursheet.com
Yeah, the “mom” market is ridiculous. No way. BitTorrent is a pain in the butt, and maybe this fixes that problem, but most of the content you can get via BitTorrent is recent Gen X crap, not something your mom would want. If it isn’t recent, the connection usually fails or is too slow because there may only be one seed. Then when you get it downloaded, you find that that company that the record and movie labels hire has vandalized it by randomly changing packets. Does the browser explain all this to “mom”?
To the extent that mom would use it, son would be the tech support guy. No thanks.
A lot of people don’t use bittorrent, it’s too complicated for the average consumer, any mention of opening up ports on firewall and their eyes glazed over, so simplicity is critical for your average user.
hmm… I actually do agree with the “mom” market for the simple reason that my parents have always been asking me how to download movies and I’ve always told them that its too complicated to teach them (ok, I guess that’s bad… oh well…). Now, I can use this to teach them. But, again, I don’t think this is just for the mom market. This is for just anyone who isn’t tech savvy. There are lots of people out there that fit this category, not because they’re lacking anything, just because they don’t want to be tech savvy…
Aydin.
Aydin and his parent gets a visit from the MPAA in 3….. 2….. 1….
what is this boknow phone thing ? (see 12 above)
I’m definitely not a supporter of torrents and warez, but people want simplicity, and this seems to bring it. In a way I agree with comment #10 though. ^_^
Opera has built in support for torrents since version 8.5, so this is very 2005 for me.
wow, great point on Opera, I forgot about that.
So the question is, why did this junk get reviewed by TC ? Primarily connections in the background and not merit I suspect.
You have to ask yourself what is the need and what is the company getting out of it? Adware? mmmm
@19 (Victor) - good question: what is it this maker of plug ins and an alternate browser (or ‘Application,’ good point, Ryan) looking to get out of the deal?
they driving revenue? driving traffic to their site? just ’scrathing and itch’ and hoping the market and b’plan with be there?
Anyone know how they got the google search page running? If you sign up for adsense for search the resulting page looks nothing like the one on wyzo or firefox. Using adsense for search you get a results page that looks unlike the standard google results page with a url of (long X’s string is your client id):
http://www.google.com/custom?q.....XXXXXXXXXX
On wyzo or firefox it gives you the standard results page with a url of:
http://www.google.com/search?q.....lient=wyzo
Did wxzo become a google partner like firefox did?
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