Mozilla Announces Layoffs, Renews Focus on Firefox

Mozilla, makers of the Firefox web browser, is the latest tech company to announce layoffs.

The non-profit says it is scaling back development on a number of projects and, as a result, 60 employees (roughly 5% of its total workforce) will lose their jobs.

Among projects TechCrunch reports Mozilla has earmarked for cutbacks is its Online Footprint Scrubber — a paid-for feature announced barely a week ago!

Mozilla VPN, Relay and other privacy products are also being scaled back, with the company of the opinion those products don’t offer much differentiation with competitors, and are struggling as a result.

The Mozilla.social Mastodon instance will also see reduced investment here-out — though users of it needn’t panic: the instance isn’t being shut down just undergoing what Mozilla calls a “strategic correction” with a “much smaller team”.

It’s not all gloom: Mozilla has said it plans to focus on its core offering: the Firefox web browser, both on desktop and on mobile (where opportunity for growth is most pronounced).

This pivot in priorities make sense.

Mozilla Firefox remains the company’s tent-pole offering, the thing for which it’s best known, and its biggest source of revenue.

Despite Firefox’s declining marketshare on desktop the browser is in use health. It’s fast and feature enough to hold its own against its rivals (and their marketing budges).

The most recent release, Firefox 122, improved the browser’s privacy-focused web page translation feature.

In a memo sent to employees Mozilla says it wants to bring “trustworthy AI into Firefox”. To help it do this sooner it’s merging its Pocket, content, and AI/Ml teams.

While news of a renewed emphasis on Firefox is sure to be welcomed, job losses are not.

Scores of wonderful, talented people work at Mozilla and their loss doesn’t just affect the browser or its users but the wider open-source community to which they contribute.