HTML5 ARTICLE

November 06, 2014

Mozilla Announces New Browser Designed for Developers


In a recent blog post, Mozilla (NewsAlert) teased a new browser that will be dedicated to developers, gathering together many disparate and often incompatible tools in order to put their interests front and center with a complete Web development package. Although details are scant, the organization says the new offering will be unveiled quite soon on Nov. 10.

“When building for the Web, developers tend to use a myriad of different tools which often don’t work well together,” the blog post reads. “This means you end up switching between different tools, platforms and browsers which can slow you down and make you less productive.”

As an open source organization that regularly offers a live stream of its weekly project meetings and is known for releasing details for new designs and features well advance, Mozilla’s secrecy around this project is quite unusual. Alongside a short teaser video Mozilla only announced the inclusion of two important development tools, leaving the rest to be a surprise.

One of the announced tools, WebIDE, lets developers to create, edit and test web applications within a browser as well as install and test apps on Firefox OS devices and simulators. On the other hand, the Firefox Tools Adaptor connects the Firefox Developer Tools to other major browser engines and enables the debugging of apps across multiple platforms with a single tool.

A dedicated developer browser makes perfect sense for the organization after Mozilla invested copious time and money into its developer tools and the Firefox OS project for mobile devices. However, the addition of these tools made the original built-in ones less efficient and somewhat unwieldy, and the focus has always been more on public users more than the development company (as it should be if there is only one version of the browser).

“At Mozilla we know that developers are the cornerstone of the Web, that's why we actively push standards and continue to build great tools to make it easier for you to create awesome Web content and apps,” the organization said.

Nov. 10 is set to be a big day for the development community, with the launch of this new browser falling on the same day as Firefox’s 10th anniversary. The centralization of a wide variety of tools into a complete package is sure to benefit the advancement of the web as well as Mozilla’s success in the field.




Edited by Maurice Nagle





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