Mozillans call for new moz://a logo to actually work in browsers

Mozilla, sorry Moz://a's new logo is causing problems because it doesn't work when typed into browsers' address bars. As depicted at the top of this story, or here for m.reg readers), the new logo is confusing Safari. Chrome and Firefox interpret it as a search term. Developers are sufficiently concerned about those outcomes …

[Nolveys]

...the new logo is confusing Safari. Chrome and Firefox interpret it as a search term.

They would interpret the "moz" prefix as an unknown protocol and inform the user of exactly that, if they were civilized.

[tfewster]

Re: ...the new logo is confusing Safari. Chrome and Firefox interpret it as a search term.

Presactly. Why would Firefox's rivals want to do anything else? Unless the browsers were just shills for the real business - search engines.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: ...the new logo is confusing Safari. Chrome and Firefox interpret it as a search term.

Well, it seems that is exactly what Safari does. Chrome interprets it as a search term because, well, as the reply above mine stated, some browsers are shills for the real business. TANSTAAFL.

[Mage]

Re: ...the new logo is confusing Safari. Chrome and Firefox interpret it as a search term.

Typing moz://a

Actually if the really stupid "search or load wrong website if you mistype URL" feature is disabled in Firefox you get:

The address wasn't understood

Firefox doesn't know how to open this address, because one of the following protocols (moz) isn't associated with any program or is not allowed in this context.

You might need to install other software to open this address.

Any other behaviour would be really stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: ...the new logo is confusing Safari. Chrome and Firefox interpret it as a search term.

Just in case anyone gets confused by Mage's comment, it's actually (and oddly) called keyword.enabled in about:config. Set it to false.

[julianh72]

Surely if you're an internet company ...

... and you create a new internet-themed type-able logo, you'd make an effort to make sure the internet could take your logo and direct people to your site.

I just highlighted "moz://a" in the article, right-clicked and chose "Search Google for moz://a" - The-Company-Formerly-Known-As-Mozilla comes a long-way down the search list.

(But a company called "Moz" is probably wondering why hits on their site have increased dramatically in the last day or two. Ironically, their business seems to be based on the concept of "being found" in internet searches!)

[cd]

Re: Surely if you're an internet company ...

I just highlighted "moz://a" in your comment (as well as the first part of this sentence), and chose "Search DuckDuckGo for moz://a" (more edited copy/paste, since we're signaling our amazing skills).

The Bugzilla thread about Firefox came in third. First two are a company called Moz, who are in for a windfall, looks like.

Like Apple, Mozilla is focused on the wrong things these days.

[Dan 55]

The request is stupid

So watch Firefox's UX team swing into action and spend three months development time implementing a row of dancing monkeys in HTML5 when you go to that URL.

[Steve Todd]

Re: The request is stupid

The URL is stupid because it specifies an invalid protocol that all other browsers reject. Dancing monkeys will not be seen.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: The request is stupid

Dancing monkey will not be seen?

We will FORCE them to be seen!

(But you will be able to disable them in about:config)

[Tac Eht Xilef]

Re: The request is stupid

(But you will be able to disable them in about:config)

For the time being. As it has been removed from the UI, that option will disappear in a future release as it references unsupported code and we don't want to clutter about:config with legacy cruft. If you have a specific use-case for it, you will need to write an add-on to support it.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: The request is stupid

"Dancing monkeys will not be seen."

What about dancing hamsters?

[Ken Hagan]

Up next: someone actually registers their Trojan as the handler for the "moz" protocol and puts a phishing site at "a". Several million kiddies who think they are cool with computers then fall in.

[Ken Moorhouse]

Re: Up next

Yes, this is what will happen.

[jake]

It's a fucking LOGO for gawd/ess's sake!

Did these same lackwits expect the old Sun Microsystems logo to work as an address?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's a fucking LOGO for gawd/ess's sake!

It's a fucking LOGO for gawd/ess's sake!

Did these same lackwits expect the old Sun Microsystems logo to work as an address?

No. But also back then, browser address bars were just for the URL and didn't double as general purpose search fields as well. These days people expect to be able to type anything into the address bar and get meaningful results whether it's a URL, a search term, an emoji-laced tweet, or a random string of characters.

So in today's world, typing a logo (especially a "typeable logo") into the address bar would be expected by most users to produce useful results. So I can definitely see the point here, despite your snarky response.

The one mitigating factor is that the name Mozilla (or Moz://a) is not really used by many people; most end users of the browser will know it as Firefox and may not have registered the Mozilla name at all. Those who do know the Mozilla name will generally be those who are tech-savvy enough to understand the implications of typing the new name into the URL bar.

[Doctor_Wibble]

Mo. Zill. Ah. Noo!

We-will-not-let-you-go (etc).

Sorry, that appeared in my head and won't go away and I felt it was my duty to share.

But agreed with the 'make it findable' remarks and yes make it at least know its own name!

[Baldrickk]

Searching for "moz://a"

What's wrong for searching for this when it is in the address bar?

Address bar searching has been around for a long time now in most browsers:

if validaddress(text):

loadcontent(text)

else:

search(text)

This is a bit of a non-story really.

"SAFARI DOESN'T SEARCH ON TERMS IN ADDRESS BAR

Shock as one browser does things slightly differently - as it always has"

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Searching for "moz://a"

An address bar is for an address (the clue is in the name).

I don't want it fscking searching for _anything_ I put in there, TYVM

/Grumpy old git

[Tac Eht Xilef]

Re: Searching for "moz://a"

An address bar is for an address (the clue is in the name).

I think you'll find it is actually "Awesome" - like the cat (https://catmacros.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/awesome_cat_poster.jpg)

[Mage]

Re: Searching for "moz://a"

An address bar that searches or redirects to a similarly spelled website is a vulnerability. It's a really really stupid GUI design. Was it for tiny 3" phone screens?

[Richard Tobin]

Re: Searching for "moz://a"

Define "validaddress()". moz://a has the form of a URI; there's no way for browsers to know that "moz" isn't a new or experimental URI scheme that they haven't implemented.

[Destroy All Monsters]

saw://a?

Yeah it's like trying to grab something in the dark from a cupboard that you know is full of unprotected used syringes.

[Dwarf]

Re: saw://a?

Yeah it's like trying to grab something in the dark from a cupboard that you know is full of unprotected used syringes.

Perhaps there are some similarities here.

The cupboard is full of pricks. What does that say about the Moxilla marketing team ?

Surely they must have considered things like this before they came up with the name/logo/whatever its supposed to be.

Presumably this is only an issue for people that use Mozilla, which from recent reports seems to be a fairly small number.

[Brian Miller]

Re: Searching for "moz://a"

Put it in quotes, and then it becomes a search term. And moz.com comes up at the top in the results!

After that, comes all of the rebranding hits, including the stupid bugzilla entry.

[Mage]

Disable URL box search

see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1134010

[Pascal Monett]

Great idea, guys

Yeah, let's add logos to things to put in a URL bar. As if URLs aren't complicated enough what with the Unicode stuff that is supposed to be put in. And we really need another functionality for crims to exploit endlessly on the masses.

Well done, really. Not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Great idea, guys

But... But... This is marketing and the marketing wonks have outdone themselves in stupidity again.

[Alan J. Wylie]

about:mozilla

The twins of Mammon quarrelled. Their warring plunged the world into a new darkness, and the beast abhorred the darkness. So it began to move swiftly, and grew more powerful, and went forth and multiplied. And the beasts brought fire and light to the darkness.

[Cuddles]

Huh?

“I'd imagine with the new logo, a lot of people will try typing moz://a in the URL bar,”

Who the hell tries to type a logo into an address bar? Who the hell ever types out a logo at all? And finally, why the hell do these companies keep spending so much money to come up with such shitty logos in the first place? A logo is a supposed to be a simple, easily recognised graphic to represent your brand, not "We started typing the company name but got bored halfway through and just mashed out hands on the keyboard", or as in previous examples "We started typing the company name but then had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to determine the exact angle of the exclamation mark".

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Huh?

My hope is that all of that will become the past as the stark madness of the Obama (best described as "Bush In Stasis with more race issues") years is fading away.

[Adrian 4]

Re: Huh?

My hope is that all of that will become the past as the stark madness of the Obama years is eclipsed by a level of stupid you would not believe could exist.

FTFY.

[Geoffrey W]

Re: Huh?

My hope is that Trump will sign a bill allowing us to track down and humanely, or otherwise, exterminate trolls for the pestilence that they are, despite myself being somewhere on the lower levels of the troll scale. Suicide sheds will be erected in public parks for them. The King in Yellow is come to us. Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn

[Alumoi]

Re: Huh?

Why stop at trolls?

There are also marketing droids, lawyers, politicians and other filth.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Huh?

Take a look at their previous selections.

https://ffp4g1ylyit3jdyti1hqcvtb-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/opendesign/files/2016/08/jb_Mozilla_all-routes-1500x1061.jpg

If you have to pick one, which one will you pick?

[Bucky 2]

Non-Problem

Are there people who would type an invalid URL into an address bar and expect anything else?

I would recommend that such people immediately commit suicide to relieve the burden on society.

[Gary Bickford]

Bad, bad, bad idea

I think I said something to this effect before on the original announcement: "Moz-people, have you lost your fricken minds!" This is a pure example of the triumph of technically ignorant marketing nerds over the boring reality of how things work. Yes, it does "speak to the essence of what Mozilla does", much in the same way that parking your bicycle in the middle of the freeway speaks to its "essential spirit of transportation", with (one hopes) perhaps not quite equally bad results.

Please, Mozilla, please. Undo this very bad idea. It has as much style and attractiveness as lipstick on a pig, and (as we see) completely confuses the parsing systems on applications and services spread out all over the Internet. If you like square wheels on a Porsche, you'll love this new trademark. And, since the Moz-people involved seem to be the mechanically-uninclined type for which this warning is relevant, please also stop using pliers on your wheel nuts and trying to unscrew Phillips screws with a straight screwdriver.

[Geoffrey W]

Re: Bad, bad, bad idea

Its a Logo, not the new name of the company. Most logos are graphical and you do not type them into browsers, because they are graphical. This one just happens to be typeable but why would anyone bother? The name of the company is still Mozilla so if you wanted to see info about the company why would you type its logo into the browser? The complaint this article reports on is silly.

Having said that, the new logo seems rather pointless and to be an effect of someone looking for something to do, lacking anything productive to be on with; i.e. Marketing.

[eionmac]

Stupidity of marketing over reality.

My comments are not printable in family site.