Mozilla introduced the Do Not Track header last year to give users more control over online tracking by third parties. Since launching Do Not Track, we have seen increased industry support and user adoption of the feature. Today, we are hosting a Do Not Track event at Internet Week New York and are happy to announce new adoption statistics and industry support.

We’re excited that Twitter now supports Do Not Track and global user adoption rates continue to increase, which signifies a big step forward for Do Not Track and the Web.

Current adoption rates of Do Not Track are 8.6% for desktop users and 19% for mobile users and we see the biggest adoption rates in The Netherlands, France and the United States.*

We conducted a survey of more than 10,000 Firefox users representing 140 countries and we found some interesting results. The survey showed that 49% of users surveyed believe their privacy is respected more when Do Not Track is enabled, as opposed to only 12% who feel that way without the setting. We will share more details and specific survey results soon.

It’s reported that Windows RT (the name Microsoft has given to Windows running on the ARM processor)  will have two environments, a Windows Classic environment and a Metro environment for apps. However, Windows on ARM prohibits any browser except for Internet Explorer from running in the privileged “Windows Classic” environment. In practice, this means that only Internet Explorer will be able to perform many of the advanced computing functions vital to modern browsers in terms of speed, stability, and security to which users have grown accustomed. Given that IE can run in Windows on ARM, there is no technical reason to conclude other browsers can’t do the same.

Why does this matter to users? Quite simply because Windows on ARM -as currently designed- restricts user choice, reduces competition and chills innovation.  By allowing only IE to perform the advanced functions of a modern Web browser, third-party browsers are effectively excluded from the platform. This matters for users of today’s tablets and tomorrow’s PCs. While ARM chipsets may be primarily built into phones and tablets today, in the future ARM will be significant on the PC hardware platform as well. These environments currently have intense browser competition that benefits both users and developers. When you expand the view of the PC to cover a much wider range of form factors and designs as Microsoft and others forecast, it’s easy to imagine Windows running on ARM in laptops, tablets, phones, and a whole range of devices. That means users will only have one browser choice whenever there’s a Windows ARM environment.

We encourage Microsoft to remain firm on its user choice principles. Excluding 3rd party browsers contradicts Microsoft’s own published Principles that users and developers have relied upon for years. These principles represented a Microsoft market approach that was both notable and went above and beyond their DOJ antitrust settlement obligations.

Because Windows on ARM relies upon so many traditional Windows assets, including brand, code, footprint, and experience, the decision to exclude other browsers may also have antitrust implications. If Windows on ARM is simply another version of Windows on new hardware, it also runs afoul of the EC browser choice commitments and seems to represent the very behavior the DOJ-Microsoft settlement sought to prohibit.

The prospect that the next generation of Windows on ARM devices would limit users to one browser is untenable and represents a first step toward a new platform lock-in. It doesn’t have to be this way.  In announcing the Windows Principles, Microsoft’s General Counsel, Brad Smith, stated “As creators of an operating system used so widely around the world, we recognize that we have a special responsibility, both to advance innovation and to help preserve competition in the information technology industry.”  We encourage Microsoft to remain firm on its user choice principles and reject the temptation to pursue a closed path. The world doesn’t need another closed proprietary environment and Microsoft has the chance to be so much more.

- Harvey Anderson, Mozilla General Counsel

We put a lot of work into making the Firefox update experience easier. Firefox simplifies the update process for Windows users by removing the user account control dialog (UAC) pop-up while maintaining the security of your system. Once a user gives explicit permission to Firefox on their first installation, they will not be prompted again for subsequent releases.

Firefox also includes more than 85 improvements to built-in developer tools. For example, developers no longer need to reload the page to see messages in the Web Console, and Scratchpad adds Find and Jump to Line commands to the editor. Our improvements touched on every one of the built-in tools.

For more information:

• Download Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux
• Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux technical release notes

Firefox includes new developer tools that represent the structure of websites in a new way and make it easier to live-edit CSS code. The first is a powerful visual layout tool unique to Firefox, Page Inspector 3D View. Nicknamed Tilt, it is a brand new WebGL-based website visualization tool that highlights the structure of a page better than a flat view, so anyone can immediately understand the relationship of the code to the page output. While developer tools like “view source” have always been useful to learn about how to develop a page, the 3D View more clearly illustrates how the parts of a website are structured. After selecting “3D” View in Page Inspector, just hover your mouse over the elements to get more information about each piece you select.

Firefox now includes the new Style Editor tool, which allows developers to edit CSS stylesheets like a text editor and see changes instantly, entirely within the browser.
It’s a quick and easy way to iterate and test designs on a website. Once changes are made, the Firefox Style Editor provides a simple way to save the file to your computer.

Firefox introduces Add-on Sync. Users now have the option to sync add-ons between computers to allow for a seamless experience across Firefox at work and at home. Users can enable this feature in the Preferences window on the Sync tab.

For more information:

• Download Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux
• Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux long, technical release notes

Today, we announced several significant milestones in the advancement toward these goals. The first, was Telefónica’s support for the creation of open Web devices based on our Boot to Gecko project. Also supporting the project are industry leaders, Adobe and Qualcomm. Together, we are committed to driving forward the adoption of HTML5 as a viable platform option for the mobile industry.

In a joint press conference, Telefónica revealed their intention to work with us to deliver the very first open Web devices in 2012. These devices, architected entirely on the Web and built based on an HTML5 stack with powerful Web APIs, will mean significant advances in speed and cost reduction for mobile devices in
the future. Attendees at the press conference were able to see a sneak preview of what is possible with HTML5 open Web technologies powering entire mobile device functions and experiences.

Mozilla is delighted to also announce Deutsche Telekom’s support of an open Web platform. Specifically, Deutsche Telekom’s Innovation Labs will join the Boot to Gecko project with dedicated development resources, and is evaluating further steps based on our common experience.

This week Mozilla is previewing open Web apps and Mozilla Marketplace, enabling the creation and distribution of apps powered by open Web standards like HTML5, CSS and JavasScript. We are also previewing Persona, the first identity system truly of the Web, including Browser ID. Each offering represents the latest tools available to developers and users to take control of their online lives.

Since the beginning, it has been our mission as an organization to develop and bring about a completely open and standards-based Web as a platform for innovation. Mozilla’s latest innovations are being proposed to the W3C for standardization, helping us move the needle to advance the Web and make it a more people-centric experience for all.

As the Mozilla community has always known – the Web is the platform.

Editor’s Note: Brendan Eich, Mozilla CTO, posted on his blog about Mozilla and the mobile Web API evolution. This is reposted below:

Ragavan Srinivasan’s post about the forthcoming Mozilla Marketplace for Open Web Apps inspired me to write about Mozilla’s surging Web and Device API standards work.

A bit of background. Mozilla has always contributed to web standards, going back to the start of the project. We co-founded the WHAT-WG to kick off HTML5. As readers of this blog know, we are a leader in JS standardization. We have some of the top CSS and layout experts in the world.

In the last eight months, our efforts to extend the web standards to include new APIs needed to build compelling apps and OS components on mobile devices have really caught fire. B2G and Open Web Apps are the fuel for this fire.

So I thought I would compile a list of emerging APIs to which we’ve contributed. In citing Mozillans I do not mean to minimize the efforts of standardization colleagues at Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Opera, the W3C and elsewhere. Standards are a multi-vendor effort (although excluding WebGL [see UPDATE below] one shiny name is conspicuously absent from this list).

The Mozilla contributions are worth noting both to acknowledge the individuals involved, and to highlight how Mozilla is championing device APIs for the web without having a native application stack blessed with such APIs on offer. We see the Web as quickly evolving to match native stacks. We have no other agenda than improving the Web to improve its users’ lives, including Web developers’ lives — especially mobile users and developers.

As always, standards in progress are subject to change, yet require prototype implementation and user-testing. Mozilla remains committed to playing fairly by not forging de-facto standards out of prototypes, rather proposing before disposing and in the end tracking whatever is standardized.

Here is the list, starting with some 2011-era work:

• Geolocation, with Google contributing the editor and Firefox (thanks to Jay Sullivan leading the charge) implementing early.
• WebGL (UPDATE: Chris Marrin of Apple edited) and typed arrays.
• Gamepad API. Co-editor: Ted Mielczarek. Mozillans are also contributing to Pointer Lock.
• Screen Orientation. Editor: Mounir Lamouri.
• navigator.getUserMedia. Co-editor: Anant Narayanan
• Battery Status (in Last Call). From the Acknowledgements:
  

  Big thanks to the Mozilla WebAPI team for their invaluable feedback based on prototype implementations.

• Media Capture. Fabrice Desré prototype-implemented in Gecko.
• Network API. Editor: Mounir Lamouri.
• Web Telephony. Ben Turner, Jonas Sicking, Philipp von Weitershausen.
• Web SMS. Mounir Lamouri, Jonas Sicking.
• Vibration. From the Acknowledgements:
  

  The group is deeply indebted to Mounir Lamouri, Jonas Sicking, and the Mozilla WebAPI team in general for providing the WebVibrator prototype as an initial input.

• File API. Editors: Arun Ranganathan, Jonas Sicking.
• IndexedDB. Editors includes Jonas Sicking.

I did not list most of the HTML5 and Web API work aimed at Desktop Firefox, to focus on the new mobile-oriented additions. There’s more to say, including about bundled-permission follies and how to weave permission-granting (with memorization) into interactions, but not here.

One last note. The CSS vendor prefix brouhaha had, among many salutary effects, the benefit of shining light on an important requirement of competitive mobile web development: CSS style properties such as -webkit-animation-*, however you spell them, must have fast and beautiful implementations across devices for developers to find them usable: 60Hz, artifact-free rendering under touch control. This requires such work as off-main-thread compositing and GL layers.

This is a high technical bar, but we are in the process of meeting it in the latest Firefox for Android and B2G builds, thanks to hard work from many people, especially Patrick Walton, Robert O’Callahan, Chris Jones, and Andreas Gal. Onward!

/be

The Mozilla Labs Apps project aims to establish a people-centric Apps ecosystem that provides freedom, choice and opportunity for users and developers. We are doing this by adding key capabilities to the Web platform in the form of new Mozilla-proposed APIs and by establishing the Mozilla Marketplace as the first operating system- and device-independent market for apps based on open Web technologies like HTML5, JavaScript and CSS.

Firefox adds a number of new built-in developer tools that let developers change the look and feel of websites in real-time. With Page Inspector, developers can peek into a page’s structure and layout without having to leave Firefox. This means they can quickly navigate between page elements and view the HTML document structure for the page. Style Inspector makes editing the style of websites even easier. Now developers have quick access to CSS properties and can view or change values for their website within Firefox. Scratchpad now uses the Eclipse Orion code editor to provide syntax highlighting and other features that make it easier and simpler to write JavaScript.

Firefox introduces the Mozilla Full-Screen API for websites and Web applications, allowing developers to build Web experiences that leverage the entire screen. Full-Screen API enables developers to create full screen games, immersive video experiences and rich presentation sharing. We’re excited to enable gaming experiences on the Web that rival the experience of a console, and are happy to see this feature being adopted by other browsers.

Firefox adds support for features that make it easier to build 3D Web experiences with open technologies. Mozilla pioneered WebGL and introduced it in Firefox. WebGL is a Web standard that allows websites and Web apps to display hardware-accelerated 3D graphics without third-party software. Firefox now supports Anti-Aliasing for WebGL, allowing developers to create objects that blend together and move smoothly. Firefox also supports CSS 3D Transforms, which lets developers animate and transform two dimensional elements into 3D using HTML5 without the need for third-party plugins.

We have also significantly improved Firefox Add-on compatibility and simplified the update process for all users because we are dedicated to delivering the best Firefox experience.

For more information:

• Download Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux
• Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux long, technical release notes
  
• Firefox for Android long, technical release notes

Online life is evolving faster than ever and it’s imperative that Mozilla delivers improvements to the Web and to Firefox more quickly to reflect this. Providing updates to Firefox more frequently allows us to secure users against emerging threats and provide the platform for innovation that today’s rich and compelling Web experiences demand. However, this created challenges for organizations that have to deliver lots of mission-critical applications through Firefox, so we worked closely with the Mozilla Enterprise User Working Group to develop the Mozilla Firefox ESR plan.

Mozilla is committed to providing the best Web experience for people everywhere, and our goal for the Firefox ESR is to make it simpler for companies, public institutions, organizations, and institutions that manage their desktops to deploy Firefox in those environments. Over the last few months we received great feedback on the initial proposal from the Mozilla community and strongly believe that the ESR meets that goal.

Implementation specifics will be posted within a week to the mozilla.dev.planning newsgroup and the EWG mailing list. If you’re interested in the ESR or discussions around deploying Firefox in a managed environment, we’d encourage you to join the Mozilla Enterprise Working Group and participate in its discussions and monthly conference calls. To join this group, please see the Enterprise wiki page for additional information.