Boot to Gecko: Mozilla enters the OS wars

With plenty of operating systems that are already available on the market, you would think that we’ve already got enough to choose from. Apparently Mozilla doesn’t seem to think so and has announced that it will be developing a new operating system for devices that will run apps primarily on the web. At the moment the project is called B2G – Boot to Gecko, and Mozilla’s ultimate goal for the OS is “breaking the stranglehold of proprietary technologies over the mobile devices world.”

Mozilla believes that web apps are the future – where developers only have to code apps once and give the same app experience to users across all platforms. While this has been going on recently with the use of HTML5, but most web apps still haven’t reached the point where they are more preferred over native apps. B2G is designed to take advantage of those web apps instead of having to rely on native apps to work.

The operating system will be based on Android at the lowest-level, since the basics are already there, but there’s no word on whether it will be compatible with Android apps. Mozilla will also need to get OEMs on board with B2G if they hope to sell devices running the OS: unless Mozilla intended the OS for people who know how to hack their phones for installing B2G.

While making a platform that works on web-apps is a great idea, one major problem is the fact that it requires an internet connection all the time. Since not everybody has a data heavy plan, and internet isn’t reliable in all parts of the country, this could lead to a bad experience for a large number of users. What do you think of a B2G? Do we need yet another operating system? Find out more about Mozilla B2G.

[Image Credit]

George Wong
Categories: Cellphones, Web
Tags: mobile, Mozilla, operating system, web app