Mozilla Labs is debuting new personas today – extensions that add lightweight themed skins to your Firefox browser – enabling you to personalize your user experience according to your mood without interrupting your browsing sessions. The Personas for Firefox add-on was first introduced in late 2007, but has now expanded to include hundreds of artist-created designs in a variety of categories, according to a blog post announcing the new sets.
I like custom skins / themes and the fact that Mozilla is taking steps to make it easier for people to adjust the look and feel of their browser according to their mood, but somehow the announcement made me cringe a little (much like this Labs experiment did). I would rather see Mozilla focus on improving the speed and usability of its browser than offering its users ways to add eye candy, particularly now that the browser wars are heating up again. Firefox needs more innovation, not decoration. But then that’s just me. Some people love eye candy more than speed.
This answers my question about why Firefox is headed down the toilet.
I still prefer Firefox to IE. But for marginal reasons and no longer for speed or stability. It is consistent with what the FF team seems to be focusing on.
That’s really cool. Good job Blizzard.
Yeah..That Awesome. I am surely gonna try out few..But will it give much more pressure on the PC memory?
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
Hmm.. those jazzy themes are always been a disturbance and does not any value to your browsing.
I am a FF fan but would like to stick to the default theme.
Having themes available doesn’t require you to use them, so it shouldn’t slow you down. I see that some of the themes are just “plain”, just change the solid color behind the tool bars.
I probably won’t use these themes, but I will say that the whole reason I use Firefox is for the easy customization. I use about 30 add-ons or extensions, whatever they’re calling them today. Of course, the ones I use are for usability and security.
never under-estimate people’s desire to customize their stuff
that said, Personas has come a long way since 2007. the way they set it up to auto preview on the website is very slick.
I loved ff till the last release. Now it crashes once a day. And instead of resolving these technical issues we have new skins??
Great job ff team!
“I would rather see Mozilla focus on improving the speed and usability of its browser than offering its users ways to add eye candy…”
They are allowed to do both aren’t they Robyn?
I agree. I see where she’s coming from, but I believe speed and stability are already being worked on with the next release. I don’t see why adding more customization to the existing browser would be cringe worthy.
man, it is annoying to have to look at that gross Lambright dude on the side sitting in his cluttered redneck living room. he reminds me of RJ Garbowicz. Slimy.
Damn, I’m a Chrome user now.
So you like half a dozen processes all checking in with the mother ship at Google?
Pretty cool feature
I’m not a huge fan of personalization, but FF’s execution with Personas is terrific. Awesome designs, and really clean experience!
NO WAY.
I am a minimalist. The first thing I did with FF when I started was get rid of the Bookmarks Toolbar. I want to see as much of the page I am looking at as I can.
Why waste space with dumb pictures you don’t need? Why make FF even slower as plenty of posters above have already mentioned?
Work on speed, reliability and functionality. How about Chrome’s idea of sandboxing every tab (brilliant concept!)?
You might want to try an extension called Fullerscreen
https://addons....efox/addon/4650
This extension enhances the Full Screen mode into a really full screen mode, hiding the remaining toolbars and statusbar and making them visible again when the mouse pointer hits an edge of the screen.
Boo White Sox – go Cubs!
hmm, is there a porn skin? it would be cool if they had a custom skin for cunnilingus.
cool i just downloaded minefield
‘announcement made me cringe a little (much like this Labs experiment did). I would rather see Mozilla focus on improving the speed and usability of its browser’
The new tabs page is focusing on the usability of the browser. Mozilla has a lot of resources, so it can do more than just focus on speed.
I agree with your statement:
“I would rather see Mozilla focus on improving the speed and usability of its browser than offering its users ways to add eye candy, particularly now that the browser wars are heating up again.”
Even thought this seem like a creative idea on Mozilla’s part, no one is going to want to go on their site if it’s going to take them a year and a day to download a browser.
cool, so do you think there will be a skin for porn? i can’t wait.
This looks really slick
“Firefox needs more innovation, not decoration. But then that’s just me.” — That’s for me too. Personas was “fico” when it came out, but now i don’t think it’s going to be determinant in the browser war.
As someone who works for Firefox all the time, the comments here are really interesting to me.
There’s an interesting assumption that because the Labs group is working on new ways of lightweight customization for the subset of the Firefox audience who’s interested, the platform and product development teams aren’t working on speed, performance and correctness issues with the core product. That’s obviously not the case, as evidenced by the Firefox 3.5 nighties that are produced every day, and which all perform a little bit better, are a little bit more secure, and a little bit faster.
The “browser wars” (which aren’t wars, really, but innovation and software development methodology races) won’t be won by a single issue like lightweight customization of the theme, no, but they will be won by organizations who can iterate on several fronts at once.
Thanks for the info! Never even heard of mozilla labs before.
what the hell are you talking about!
This is racist.
fuck you!
Being directly involved in the branded browser concept, I can see where Mozilla is going with this and why they are eager to pursue. An excellent article was posted today on the home page somewhat as a response to this write up. Today’s article was titled “There’s more than one way to skin a FireFox.” Good Stuff about Brand Thunder related to this same topic, this concept is taking off and mastered by the Brand Thunder team, and doesn’t slow down the browser!
I just downloaded it. Koolzzzzz
Very cool!
i know!
personas are good allthough the one i want isnt there
Thanks for sharing buddy ! really helpful ! Cheers !
I use Firefox is for the easy customization. I use about 30 add-ons or extensions, whatever they’re calling them today. Of course, the ones I use are for usability and security.
I know that
@Jared O’Toole You must be kidding arn’t you?