5 ms·

This is an example of something that is neat on the surface but completely blows up in practice, after even a few moments of consideration. First, what do you

This is an example of something that is neat on the surface but completely blows up in practice, after even a few moments of consideration. First, what do you ask for in a query? Will some web sites choose to say “mozilla” and others “moz://a”, thereby splitting search traffic between the references? Just typing something like “moz://a” (even in a comment post such as this) might cause some sites or scrub-analyzers to assume that the text represents a valid URL of type "moz" and try to make it clickable and resolve to that URL type. Bonus points for the first malware to figure out how to hijack the "moz" URL type. What is their web site? Not "moz://a" but "https://www.mozilla.org" https://www.mozilla.org". Can anyone even type "moz://a" or "https://moz://a" https://moz://a"? Can’t wait for this to cause problems.

SparkyMcUnicorn 10y ago
I'm one of the people that are confused and tried moz://a in chrome and firefox.
- djsumdog 10y ago
  I feel like this should have been an easter-egg before they went live.
  - cpeterso 10y ago
    Easter egg coming soon, maybe? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=moz%3A%2F%2Fa https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=moz%3A%2F%2Fa
    - toyg 10y ago
      easter egg that won't work in any other browser, hence making it harder for people to find mozilla and switch. I just can't even
- Esau 10y ago
  When it saw it, I thought that perhaps they should change the configuration url from "about:" to "moz:". Also, the new logo reminded me of Curl.
Vinnl 10y ago
> after even a few moments of consideration While your general point might be right, this is an unfair implication. They've gave it plenty of consideration, considered with many, many people, and did so all in the open: https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/ https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/
- TylerE 10y ago
  Just because 100 people agree to jump off a bridge, it doesn't mean it's a good idea!
  - aleksi 10y ago
    https://xkcd.com/1170/ https://xkcd.com/1170/
- my_ghola 10y ago
  Did anybody point it out? I'm looking at https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/route-one-protocol-2-0/ https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/route-one-protocol-2-0/ and see nothing about url confusion. There is concerns about the protocol being hidden in browsers these days, so non-technical people won't know what it references. On the other hand, if people don't know what it references then there's no way people will be confused by it.
icc97 10y ago
I think there is the fundamental problem with this logo. Either people don't know about Mozilla in which case they probably don't care or don't understand the ://. Or if they do know about Mozilla and having :// just looks lame. We had a designer that proposed to use '|<' as the letter 'K' in our logo. Cause y'know we were a technology company... and y'know we write code... We didn't use that designer.
- etjossem 10y ago
  This reminds me of when PayPal ran all those billboard ads for Braintree in the Bay Area. I can just imagine the meeting where the team decided how they were going to look: Product: "We need to engage more with our developer customers." Marketing: "What do developers have strong positive emotions about?" Product: "Our customer interviews suggest they like writing code." Design: "We'll do the billboards entirely in monospace." Marketing: "Brilliant." It probably sounded like a good idea at the time, but monospace looks ugly and doesn't read very well to humans, especially from a distance. It's just a necessary evil to make sure indentation works properly. Actual developers instantly realize how silly it is to make it the prevailing visual feature on a billboard. Especially when the copy doesn't even line up vertically. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0qaKcUCAAA-enL.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0qaKcUCAAA-enL.jpg
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    I don't even think that's monospace.
    - imron 10y ago
      It's not. The letters on subsequent lines don't match up.
      - EduardoBautista 10y ago
Jordrok 10y ago
Incidentally, the first search result for "moz://a" from every search provider I tried was https://moz.com/ https://moz.com/, with https://www.mozilla.org https://www.mozilla.org nowhere in sight. Yeah...not sure this is a great idea.
- hundchenkatze 10y ago
  The best part is moz.com provides SEO/marketing services.
type0 10y ago
It is unfortunate marketing bs but I hope they would do something creative with this so called moz: protocol https://github.com/mozilla/moz-handler/ https://github.com/mozilla/moz-handler/
tedmielczarek 10y ago
The blog post was pretty clear that the text is actually "mozilla", it's just that the Zilla font has a ligature for "ill" that will display it as "://".

SparkyMcUnicorn 10y ago

I'm one of the people that are confused and tried moz://a in chrome and firefox.

djsumdog 10y ago
I feel like this should have been an easter-egg before they went live.
- cpeterso 10y ago
  Easter egg coming soon, maybe? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=moz%3A%2F%2Fa https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=moz%3A%2F%2Fa
  - toyg 10y ago
    easter egg that won't work in any other browser, hence making it harder for people to find mozilla and switch. I just can't even
Esau 10y ago
When it saw it, I thought that perhaps they should change the configuration url from "about:" to "moz:". Also, the new logo reminded me of Curl.

Vinnl 10y ago

> after even a few moments of consideration While your general point might be right, this is an unfair implication. They've gave it plenty of consideration, considered with many, many people, and did so all in the open: https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/ https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/

TylerE 10y ago
Just because 100 people agree to jump off a bridge, it doesn't mean it's a good idea!
- aleksi 10y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1170/ https://xkcd.com/1170/
my_ghola 10y ago
Did anybody point it out? I'm looking at https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/route-one-protocol-2-0/ https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/route-one-protocol-2-0/ and see nothing about url confusion. There is concerns about the protocol being hidden in browsers these days, so non-technical people won't know what it references. On the other hand, if people don't know what it references then there's no way people will be confused by it.

icc97 10y ago

I think there is the fundamental problem with this logo. Either people don't know about Mozilla in which case they probably don't care or don't understand the ://. Or if they do know about Mozilla and having :// just looks lame. We had a designer that proposed to use '|<' as the letter 'K' in our logo. Cause y'know we were a technology company... and y'know we write code... We didn't use that designer.

etjossem 10y ago
This reminds me of when PayPal ran all those billboard ads for Braintree in the Bay Area. I can just imagine the meeting where the team decided how they were going to look: Product: "We need to engage more with our developer customers." Marketing: "What do developers have strong positive emotions about?" Product: "Our customer interviews suggest they like writing code." Design: "We'll do the billboards entirely in monospace." Marketing: "Brilliant." It probably sounded like a good idea at the time, but monospace looks ugly and doesn't read very well to humans, especially from a distance. It's just a necessary evil to make sure indentation works properly. Actual developers instantly realize how silly it is to make it the prevailing visual feature on a billboard. Especially when the copy doesn't even line up vertically. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0qaKcUCAAA-enL.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0qaKcUCAAA-enL.jpg
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- paulddraper 10y ago
  I don't even think that's monospace.
  - imron 10y ago
    It's not. The letters on subsequent lines don't match up.
    - EduardoBautista 10y ago

Jordrok 10y ago

Incidentally, the first search result for "moz://a" from every search provider I tried was https://moz.com/ https://moz.com/, with https://www.mozilla.org https://www.mozilla.org nowhere in sight. Yeah...not sure this is a great idea.

hundchenkatze 10y ago
The best part is moz.com provides SEO/marketing services.

type0 10y ago

It is unfortunate marketing bs but I hope they would do something creative with this so called moz: protocol https://github.com/mozilla/moz-handler/ https://github.com/mozilla/moz-handler/

tedmielczarek 10y ago

The blog post was pretty clear that the text is actually "mozilla", it's just that the Zilla font has a ligature for "ill" that will display it as "://".