OkCupid Satisfied With Mozilla CEO's Resignation

By Kurt Wagner at Mashable: 


Count OkCupid among those celebrating the resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich on Thursday.

The dating site protested Mozilla on Monday by discouraging users to visit its site via Firefox, in an attempt to bring awareness to Eich's 2008 political donation in support of Proposition 8. The ballot measure, which outlawed gay marriage in California, passed but was later ruled unconstitutional. OkCupid's stunt attracted media attention, and added to displeasure around the web about Eich's political views and the company's decision to promote him to CEO in late March.

On Thursday, Mozilla announced in a blog post that Eich was stepping down, apologizing to users for failing to act in a more timely manner. "We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act," wrote Mozilla Chairwoman Mitchell Baker. "We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better."

The news was appreciated at OkCupid. The company released the following statement through a spokesperson:

“We are pleased that OkCupid’s boycott has brought tremendous awareness to the critical matter of equal rights for all individuals and partnerships; today’s decision reaffirms Mozilla’s commitment to that cause. We are satisfied that Mozilla will be taking a number of further affirmative steps to support the equality of all relationships.”

On Monday, OkCupid greeted Firefox users trying to visit its site with a message encouraging them to try other browsers like Chrome, Internet Explorer, or Safari. The pop-up did not specifically call for Eich's resignation, but it certainly didn't mince words, either. The message said: "Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure."

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Mozilla Partners with Panasonic to Bring Firefox OS to TV

At CES 2014 in Las Vegas, Mozilla announced its plans for Firefox OS this year. Having launched Firefox OS for smartphones in 2013, the company has now partnered with Panasonic to bring its operating system to TVs, and also detailed the progress that has been made around the tablet and desktop versions.

“We are very excited to partner with Panasonic to bring Firefox OS to more people on more platforms,” Dr. Li Gong, Senior Vice President of Mobile Devices and President of Asia Operations at Mozilla, said in a statement. “This new platform enables developers and service providers to create a wide range of applications and services to deliver a new user experience. We see a strong alignment between the visions of Mozilla and Panasonic, and by combing our collective expertise and know-how, we will create amazing products together.”



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Firefox Adds a Share Button to the Browsing Experience

Mozilla has redesigned Firefox to bring social media elements to the forefront of the free web browser.

The latest version, Firefox 23, includes a “share” button at the top navigation bar. This button makes it possible to ”post an interesting article to your profile, share a recipe with your friends or send an idea for a gift in a private message or email, all without leaving the Web page you are visiting,” according to the announcement. The share button connects to Facebook Messenger for Firefox and Cliqz and will eventually integrate with other social media services and apps.

The company started incorporating social media into the web browser last year with a Facebook integration and soon added Cliqz, Mixi and msnNOW.

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Firefox Facebook Integration Lets You Chat With Friends From Your Browser

By Emily Price at Mashable: 
 
Now you can chat with your Facebook friends from directly within Firefox.

With a new Firefox feature, Facebook Messenger shows up on the side of your browser window. The integration allows you to see which of your Facebook friends are online, and chat just as you might from Facebook’s website without having it open in your browser window. The idea is that you can keep up with what’s happening on the social network without having to constantly switch between tabs in order to do so.

In addition to keeping up with chats, the feature also lets you see instant notifications when new comments are made on your posts and when you’re tagged in photos.

In beta for some time now, the release is the first implementation of Mozilla’s new Social API. While Facebook is the first to take advantage of the functionality, the API opens the opportunity up for other social networks, such as Twitter and LinkedIn, to take advantage of the feature as well.

This is just the beginning; Mozilla plans to add support for more features in the future, as well as support for multiple providers.

You can give Firefox’s Facebook integration a try now by downloading the latest version of Firefox and then turning the feature on from Facebook.

Reddit, Tumblr and Firefox vs Stop Online Privacy Act

Reddit, Tumblr and Firefox took a stand against a proposed U.S. law by drawing broad black lines on their websites. The proposed law is being described as “censorship” by Internet companies and “piracy protection” by entertainment companies.

The broad black lines made a symbolic stroke as the Internet advocacy organizations declared Wednesday, American Censorship Day. The day marks a time when large web companies dedicate their efforts to encourage users to publically speak out against the Stop Online Piracy Act (Protect IP Act). The bill gives the U.S. Justice Department more authority to pursue websites that host copyright material such as YouTube and Tumblr. Both sites carry user-generated content that easily could have copyright violations.
Tumblr was pretty aggressive in their overall campaign on American Censorship Day. The platform blacked out all user-generated content the moment you first logged on. Once you clicked on the gray lines a message appeared, informing you: “Congress is holding hearings today and will soon pass a bill empowering corporations to censor the Internet unless you tell them no”. You were then given an option to leave your phone number, so you could be connected to your elected representative.
If you left your phone number, a recording of Tumblr CEO David Karp called you back with key points on the issue and then said, “thank you for doing your part to protect the Internet” and then dialed the phone number for your representative.
Other social networks participated in the protest as well. Mozilla and Reddit censored their logos. Users simply clicked through to instructions for getting in touch with their representatives.
Other Internet companies did more traditional methods of protest against censorship – delivering letters and running a full-page ad in the New York Times.
The protest campaigns were being heard on Capitol Hill. A Reddit user posted “I have a friend who works for a congressperson. Her comments: “Our phones have been ringing about this all day. Just got back to my desk and see the news coverage. Whatever group spurred this phone campaign did a good job. BTW – I appreciate you asking folks to be polite. People do usually tend to yell at us.”

By Kenna McHugh at SocialTimes

Mozilla and Google Chrome Teams are working together to make Web Apps play together much more nicely

The developers of two of the most influential open-source Web browsers are working together on a feature that should make Web apps play together much more nicely. As we covered on ReadWriteHack yesterday, Google's Chromium engineers announced that they're working with Mozilla on a framework called Web Intents, the brainchild of Google developer Paul Kinlan. Firefox announced its project last month.

Mozilla building an open-source OS for smartphones and tablets

The browser wars have been around for almost as long as the Internet has, but while some mainstream desktop browsers like Safari and Internet Explorer have their own mobile versions backed up by a mobile platform, Firefox is on its own with no operating system behind it. Mozilla, the corporation developing it, however has envisioned a “complete, stand-alone operating system for the Web” named Boot to Gecko, abbreviated as B2G. The platform is specifically made for mobile devices.