Windows 10: Firefox Test Pilot Program Returns with Firefox Private Network Beta

Brink · Sep 10, 2019

Like a cat, the Test Pilot program has had many lives. It originally started as an Add-on before we relaunched it three years ago. Then in January, we announced that we were evolving our culture of experimentation, and as a result we closed the Test Pilot program to give us time to further explore what was next.

We learned a lot from the Test Pilot program. First, we had a loyal group of users who provided us feedback on projects that weren’t polished or ready for general consumption. Based on that input we refined and revamped various features and services, and in some cases shelved projects altogether because they didn’t meet the needs of our users. The feedback we received helped us evaluate a variety of potential Firefox features, some of which are in the Firefox browser today.

If you haven’t heard, third time’s the charm. We’re turning to our loyal and faithful users, specifically the ones who signed up for a Firefox account and opted-in to be in the know about new products testing, and are giving them a first crack to test-drive new, privacy-centric products as part of the relaunched Test Pilot program. The difference with the newly relaunched Test Pilot program is that these products and services may be outside the Firefox browser, and will be far more polished, and just one step shy of general public release.

We’ve already earmarked a couple of new products that we plan to fine-tune before their official release as part of the relaunched Test Pilot program. Because of how much we learned from our users through the Test Pilot program, and our ongoing commitment to build our products and services to meet people’s online needs, we’re kicking off our relaunch of the Test Pilot program by beta testing our project code named Firefox Private Network.

Try our first beta – Firefox Private Network

One of the key learnings from recent events is that there is growing demand for privacy features. The Firefox Private Network is an extension which provides a secure, encrypted path to the web to protect your connection and your personal information anywhere and everywhere you use your Firefox browser.

There are many ways that your personal information and data are exposed: online threats are everywhere, whether it’s through phishing emails or data breaches. You may often find yourself taking advantage of the free WiFi at the doctor’s office, airport or a cafe. There can be dozens of people using the same network — casually checking the web and getting social media updates. This leaves your personal information vulnerable to those who may be lurking, waiting to take advantage of this situation to gain access to your personal info. Using the Firefox Private Network helps protect you from hackers lurking in plain sight on public connections.

Start testing the Firefox Private Network today, it’s currently available in the US on the Firefox desktop browser. A Firefox account allows you to be one of the first to test potential new products and services, you can sign up directly from the extension.

Key features of Firefox Private Network are:

Protection when in public WiFi access points – Whether you are waiting at your doctor’s office, the airport or working from your favorite coffee shop, your connection to the internet is protected when you use the Firefox browser thanks to a secure tunnel to the web, protecting all your sensitive information like the web addresses you visit, personal and financial information.

Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are hidden so it’s harder to track you – Your IP address is like a home address for your computer. One of the reasons why you may want to keep it hidden is to keep advertising networks from tracking your browsing history. Firefox Private Network will mask your IP address providing protection from third party trackers around the web.

Toggle the switch on at any time. By clicking in the browser extension, you will find an on/off toggle that shows you whether you are currently protected, which you can turn on at anytime if you’d like additional privacy protection, or off if not needed at that moment.

Your feedback on Firefox Private Network beta is important

Over the next several months you will see a number of variations on our testing of the Firefox Private Network. This iterative process will give us much-needed feedback to explore technical and possible pricing options for the different online needs that the Firefox Private Network meets.

Your feedback will be essential in making sure that we offer a full complement of services that address the problems you face online with the right-priced service solutions. We depend on your feedback and we will send a survey to follow up. We hope you can spend a few minutes to complete it and let us know what you think. Please note this first Firefox Private Network Beta test will only be available to start in the United States for Firefox account holders using desktop devices. We’ll keep you updated on our eventual beta test roll-outs in other locales and platforms.

Sign up now for a Firefox account and join the fight to keep the internet open and accessible to all.
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Source: Firefox’s Test Pilot Program Returns with Firefox Private Network Beta - The Mozilla Blog

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Brink · Sep 10, 2019

Mozilla closing Firefox Test Pilot program

For the last three years Firefox has invested heavily in innovation, and our users have been an essential part of this journey. Through the Test Pilot Program, Firefox users have been able to help us test and evaluate a variety of potential Firefox features. Building on the success of this program, we’re proud to announce today that we’re evolving our approach to experimentation even further.

Lessons Learned from Test Pilot

Test Pilot was designed to harness the energy of our most passionate users. We gave them early prototypes and product explorations that weren’t ready for wide release. In return, they gave us feedback and patience as these projects evolved into the highly polished features within our products today. Through this program we have been able to iterate quickly, try daring new things, and build products that our users have been excited to embrace.

Graduated Features

Since the beginning of the Test Pilot program, we’ve built or helped build a number of popular Firefox features. Activity Stream, which now features prominently on the Firefox homepage, was in the first round of Test Pilot experiments. Activity Stream brought new life to an otherwise barren page and made it easier to recall and discover new content on the web. The Test Pilot team continued to draw the attention of the press and users alike with experiments like Containers that paved the way for our highly successful Facebook Container. Send made private, encrypted, file sharing as easy as clicking a button. Lockbox helped you take your Firefox passwords to iOS devices (and soon to Android). Page Shot started as a simple way to capture and share screenshots in Firefox. We shipped the feature now known as Screenshots and have since added our new approach to anti-tracking that first gained traction as a Test Pilot experiment.

So what’s next?

Test Pilot performed better than we could have ever imagined. As a result of this program we’re now in a stronger position where we are using the knowledge that we gained from small groups, evangelizing the benefits of rapid iteration, taking bold (but safe) risks, and putting the user front and center.

We’re applying these valuable lessons not only to continued product innovation, but also to how we test and ideate across the Firefox organization. So today, we are announcing that we will be moving to a new structure that will demonstrate our ability to innovate in exciting ways and as a result we are closing the Test Pilot program as we’ve known it.

More user input, more testing

Migrating to a new model doesn’t mean we’re doing fewer experiments. In fact, we’ll be doing even more! The innovation processes that led to products like Firefox Monitor are no longer the responsibility of a handful of individuals but rather the entire organization. Everyone is responsible for maintaining the Culture of Experimentation Firefox has developed through this process. These techniques and tools have become a part of our very DNA and identity. That is something to celebrate. As such, we won’t be uninstalling any experiments you’re using today, in fact, many of the Test Pilot experiments and features will find their way to Addons.Mozilla.Org, while others like Send and Lockbox will continue to take in more input from you as they evolve into stand alone products.

We couldn’t do it without you

We want to thank Firefox users for their input and support of product features and functionality testing through the Test Pilot Program. We look forward to continuing to work closely with our users who are the reason we build Firefox in the first place. In the coming months look out for news on how you can get involved in the next stage of our experimentation.

In the meantime, the Firefox team will continue to focus on the next release and what we’ll be developing in the coming year, while other Mozillians chug away at developing equally exciting and user-centric product solutions and services. You can get a sneak peak at some of these innovations at Mozilla Labs, which touches everything from voice capability to IoT to AR/VR.

And so we say goodbye and thank you to Test Pilot for helping us usher in a bright future of innovation at Mozilla.
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Source: Evolving Firefox's Culture of Experimentation: A Thank You from the Test Pilot Program - The Mozilla Blog

Brink · Sep 10, 2019

Firefox Test Pilot team is introducing Price Wise and Email Tabs

Over the last few years, the Test Pilot team has developed innovative features for Firefox desktop and mobile, collaborating directly with Firefox users to improve the browser – from reminders to return to a tab on your desktop to a simple and secure way to keep track of your passwords.

Today, just in time for the holiday shopping season, the Firefox Test Pilot team is introducing Price Wise and Email Tabs — the latest experimental features designed to give users more choice and transparency when shopping online. These game-changing desktop tools are sure to make shopping a breeze with more options to save, share, track and shop. We’ve also made a few updates to the Test Pilot program itself to make it even easier to become a part of the growing Firefox users testing new features.

Price Wise – Track prices across major retailers and get notified when the price drops

Online comparison shopping is more popular than ever, but it’s often hard to know when to buy to get the best deal. With Firefox Price Wise, you can add products to your Price Watcher list and get a desktop notification automatically every time the price drops. Users can even click through directly from their list to purchase as soon as the price changes, making online shopping more affordable and efficient. The feature is currently only available in the U.S., and works with products from five major retailers: Best Buy, eBay, Amazon, Walmart, and The Home Depot. This list of retailers were among the top 10 visited by Firefox users and we’re working to expand to more retailers in the future.

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Email Tabs – Save and share content seamlessly as you browse the web

While there are many tools to help users share and save links when browsing, research shows that most of us still rely on email to get the job done – a manual process that requires multiple steps and services. We think there’s a better way. With Email Tabs, you can select and send links to one or many open tabs all within Firefox in a few short steps, making it easier than ever to share your holiday gift list, Thanksgiving recipes or just about anything else.

To start, click the Email Tabs icon at the top the browser, select the tabs you want and decide how much of the content you want to send – just the links, a screenshot preview or full text – then hit send and it’ll automatically be sent to your Gmail inbox.

Decide how you want to send whether its links, screenshot preview or full text

How about saving the links for future reference? Email Tabs also lets you copy multiple tabs to Clipboard for outside sharing. The feature only works with Gmail right now, but we’re working on adding more clients in the near future. This will be seamless if you’re logged into Gmail already, if not you can always log in once you’re prompted.

Copy one or multiple tabs to Clipboard

And of course, the best part of Price Wise and Email Tabs? With Firefox private browsing and content blocking features, you can shop online with extra protection against tracking this holiday season.

Improved Test Pilot for Users to Shape Firefox

We appreciate the thousands of Firefox users who have participated in the Test Pilot program since we started this journey. It’s their voice and impact that have motivated and inspired us to continue to develop features and services. Thanks to their support, we’re happy to share that several of our experiments are ready for graduation.

Send, which lets you upload and encrypt large files (up to 1GB) to share online, will be updated and unveiled later this year. Our Summer experiments, Firefox Color, which allows you to customize several different elements of your browser, including background texture, text, icons, the toolbar and highlights, and Side View, which allows you to view two different browser tabs in the same tab, within the same browser window, will graduate as standalone extensions.

We’re always working to improve our Test Pilot program to encourage Firefox users to participate and provide feedback on the latest Firefox features. With this version of Test Pilot, we’ve simplified the steps to make it easier for users to participate than before. To learn more about our revamped Test Pilot program and to help us test and evaluate a variety of potential Firefox tools, visit testpilot.firefox.com.
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Source: Firefox Ups the Ante with Latest Test Pilot Experiment: Price Wise and Email Tabs - The Mozilla Blog

See also:

Let Price Wise track prices for you this holiday shopping season | The Firefox Frontier

Sharing links via email just got easier thanks to Email Tabs | The Firefox Frontier

zekrahminator · Sep 10, 2019

Firefox 2.0 Beta 2 released for developer testing.

Mozilla released the Beta 2 of Firefox 2.0 today for developer testing, and would like to emphasize that it is for testing. The developer team says that "Current users of Firefox 1.x should not use Firefox 2 Beta 2 and expect all of their extensions and plugins to work properly." Firefox 2.0 should be released in early 2007, with a few more beta versions likely in Autumn and Winter. According to the developer team, some features of the new firefox are...

Enhanced visual effects.

Built in Phishing protection.

Improved tabbed browsing.

The ability to restore closed tabs.

New Windows installer to resolve some long standing issues.

The Firefox 2.0 Beta 2 should be available on the main site soon.

Source: Desktop Linux

Windows 10: Firefox Test Pilot Program Returns with Firefox Private Network Beta

Firefox Test Pilot Program Returns with Firefox Private Network Beta

Firefox Test Pilot Program Returns with Firefox Private Network Beta

Firefox Test Pilot Program Returns with Firefox Private Network Beta

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