Almost any browser is at a fundamental disadvantage in terms of users and influence (that is, unless you’re Google or Microsoft). But that hasn’t stopped Mozilla, which is reshaping its Firefox browser in a “Project Nova” overhaul, while threading the needle between AI, privacy, and additional features.
The simple questions is this: Why aren’t more people using Firefox and what could convince them to come back?
It’s a lot to take in, and the hour PCWorld’s Alaina Yee and I spent with the head of Firefox, Ajit Varma, flew by. One of the fundamental problems browser developers like Firefox have is that there’s absolutely nothing stopping users from taking a few seconds, downloading the free Firefox browser, and moving ahead.
But they don’t. Statcounter says that only 3.45 percent of American users use Firefox, and that’s down from years past.
That seems to bother Varma a bit, who is trying to prepare users for a flurry of new features he says will all be done in about two months.
“Before I joined, from the outside looking in, I thought the problem was vision,” Varma said, after a bit more than a year on the job. “When I came in, there was idea after idea. Here’s an operating system. Here’s mobile. The problem was really execution.”
So why is Varma here? To make the case that it’s time to try it out again.
“I don’t think that we’re doing a good enough job of telling our story,” Varma said. “I’d rate product development an A, but our storytelling is maybe an F.”
The Firefox “Project Nova” revamp sounds a little wild
Firefox was released in 2004 (21 years ago!), peaking with a 32 percent market share as archived by Wikipedia. Over time, the browser became an early champion of privacy, blocking pop-up ads, and helping to promote the concept of extensions. It was released as open source, unlike many of its competitors, and still uses the Gecko rendering engine that differentiates it from many of the rival browsers based upon Chromium and its Blink rendering engine.
“One of the good things about having Gecko is that, unlike a lot of the emerging AI browsers, they kind of all look the same,” Varma said. “These are all built on top of Chromium, whereas we have this flexibility to create a more modern browser.”
That “modern” browser revamp is called Project Nova, which will update the interface for the first time in about six years. Early prototypes have leaked out (including rounded corners), but it sounds like users might have the option to tweak and tweak some more. How much of this will be available in the settings? How much will be available via *gulp* AI?
It’s hard to say, and it appears that several options might still be on the board. The question I asked was about people in the wild vibe-coding browser extensions, and whether something like that would sync with Varma’s vision. But maybe AI will mean something more?
“Like every tech company, we’re really excited about the velocity increases from AI, and so we have a lot of internal prototypes that are up and running, and extensions is one of them,” Varma said. “But a lot of things we’re staring includes questions like: Can you customize your homepage? Can you add widgets? Can you change your background in whatever way you want?”
“Definitely, the idea of extensions and just customizations in general is: can you create more of like a natural language interface that lets people do everything they want?” Varma added. “For example, we announced an update that we’re doing to our design, which is called Project Nova. And a lot of people didn’t like the rounded corners modernization. Now, we can let people pick how round they want their corners. People care, so we put it in the settings.”
“There’s really no reason for anyone to say, ‘This is your browser; you can do whatever you want,’” Varma added.
What else can users expect? According to Varma:
- Bringing back Firefox compact mode
- Better tabs, better tab management, and better settings
- Privacy features, including an improved VPN and Relay email masking
- An improved new-tab experience, including widgets
- “Smart Windows,” which will be Firefox’s first foray into bringing some of “AI” intelligence to the user
Tiptoeing into AI
Mozilla’s Firefox team has the same problem as any other app developer: AI can be a tool, but one that a subset of users feel very strongly about. Last November, the team talked about “AI windows” or “smart windows,” where Firefox attempted to thread the needle. If users generally interact with AI within the browser, should the browser be redesigned to accommodate it? Put another way, if a user can select a search engine, shouldn’t they be allowed to select an LLM, too? They think so.
It’s a sensitive subject. A recent version of the browser allows users to turn on (or off) specific AI features such as translations. You can also relegate an AI LLM to a sidebar or you can toggle off all AI features entirely with a single switch. Users take this very seriously, Varma said. He recalls one user interaction:
“They said, ‘No, there’s a button that says Continue,’” Varma said. “I explained that it’s opt-in. But they insisted it was a dark pattern.” They expected a toggle or a switch to confirm their choice.
But Varma also acknowledged that the concept of a browser is somewhat outdated.
“When you look at the term browser, it’s very antiquated in the sense that there’s static content, and when I click on the content, I get to the next link,” Varma said. “With apps, it became more bidirectional. There’s more rich engagement with AI.”
“Instead of being a browser, it’s becoming a generative system, but it’s not doing it in a negative way that prevents the person’s incentive from creating the content in the first place,” Varma said.
The difference between Firefox and other apps is that Mozilla has no incentive to prioritize a particular app or service. A choice screen could deliver a variety of models — probably curated by Mozilla, Varma said — or nothing at all. (Perplexity AI just appeared.) Varma dismissed Edge as “a Copilot app,” and Chrome as “a Gemini app.”
“I think that’s what happens when companies feel like they’ve won, and then they have this new goal. That’s when they start making changes that aren’t in the user’s best interest,” Varma said. “We don’t have any other goal at Firefox [beyond], other than to build the best browser and preserve an open Internet.”
Mozilla does use AI tools to build Firefox, Varma acknowledged. “We are using [AI] tools, but we do have a stance that every piece of code in Firefox has to be touched [reviewed] by a human,” he said.
Paid Firefox is happening
Mozilla and content creators share a very vague similarity: some of their income comes from search engines.
In 2024, the last year Mozilla publicly published income statements, the company made $585 million (about 86 percent) of its revenue from Google as the primary search engine. But if user activity moves away from search to AI-driven LLMs, what then? Varma said that they’re keeping their options open — providing a choice for users also equates to choices for the company itself.
“We don’t yet know how we will monetize,” Varma said. “Maybe we’ll have a subscription. Maybe we’ll do a distribution deal. We’re keeping our options open because we still want our products to be consumer-led.”
Varma also said that the on-again, off-again relationship with businesses is apparently on again, with an enterprise version of the browser in place. If that sounds familiar, that’s because Mozilla was talking about this back in 2011.
“We are working on an enterprise version of Firefox,” Varma said. “It’s actually one of the things that I am very excited about. We’ll always have a free version, but the enterprise version is for companies and governments in parts of the world that are worried about their dependency on big tech. A lot of this is around the banner of digital sovereignty, and they’re asking if we can provide small-tech or open-source solutions. And so this is one thing where we can offer similar solutions, but then, you know, there are services that people are willing to pay for, like businesses and stuff.”
Mozilla also has some history in an upsell model. Version 149 of the browser added a free VPN with a usage limit, but Mozilla VPN protects multiple devices, not just your browser. It’s $4.99 per month. Varma said that the browser-based VPN service requires logging in with a Mozilla Firefox ID, and that ID is tied to the amount of data the VPN consumes, or 50 gigabytes max. Otherwise, the company doesn’t track your browsing history.
“The instant that the traffic is served, it [the data] is no longer retained,” Varma said.
In the coming months, you’ll see more VPN endpoints in the countries Mozilla serves, Varma said, though the company is working with partners. It’s not clear how many entry and exit points per country Mozilla will build out, but Varma said that the company is not trying to do “sketchy” things like put multiple endpoints in a datacenter and position them as separate locations.
Firefox first, Firefox forever
Finally, Varma pledged that more of the integrations you’ll see in the browser will make sense. Historically, products at Firefox were “siloed,” or designed in their own little environment. Now, products like the Relay email masking service will be extended beyond five masks. Monitor, which helped scrub personal information from data sites, survived the 2024 layoffs, and redirected some development efforts away from privacy and into Firefox proper. Monitor will be integrated into the Password Manager, Varma said.
Still, the point remains unchanged: Firefox first.
“That was a mistake on the Firefox side that we’re now fixing, and that actually — VPN being the first example — all that will be very well integrated within the next three months,” Varma said.
Additional reporting by Alaina Yee.
