Firefox developer Mozilla announces Mastodon entry – that’s behind it

It has taken a long time, but now things should suddenly go fast: the organization that develops the relatively popular Firefox browser wants to launch its own Mastodon server (an “instance”) at the beginning of 2023.

According to the Mozilla Foundation in its blog, there should be a publicly accessible instance in the Fediverse on mozilla.social, which is not yet active.

Why is that important?

The Mozilla Foundation’s announcement shows that larger players have also recognized the potential of the free internet and are jumping on the giant bandwagon. The decentralized social media service has grown tremendously since Elon Musk took over Twitter (in November). However, with the number of users, the need for server performance also increases. And that’s where organizations like Mozilla come in handy.

The American non-profit organization, which is funded by Google, among others, writes:

Mozilla refers to “a quarter of a century of experience” in developing data protection-friendly software. Besides the Fire browser, most people are probably most familiar with the Thunderbird email program.

Addressing Twitter and other dominant tech companies (from Silicon Valley) it says:

An open, decentralized social media offering that puts people’s needs first is not only possible, but necessary. And Mastodon, as a “mature, stable project”, is the ideal starting point.

Mastodon also took note of the Mozilla announcement with satisfaction. A user said:

Another user mentions that Mozilla isn’t the first web browser company to want to run its own instance of Mastodon. Vivaldi (from Norway) founded Vivaldi Social a few weeks ago.

The world’s most used web browser is Google Chrome. This is followed by Apple’s Safari (thanks to the pre-installation on the iPhone) and Microsoft’s Edge. Mozilla Firefox ranks 4th.

Sources