Mozilla Gets A Nerdy Makeover, Perhaps Too Nerdy?

Mozilla has always set itself apart as the browser company that cares about its base, but faced with the ever-shrinking user count, the company decided that it’s time to make a change. One of the most recent changes it made is to have a new logo and techies will likely get a kick out of it. Unfortunately, there’s now a concern that perhaps only nerds will appreciate the new look.

Among the media companies that are questioning Mozilla’s choice of logo is Gizmodo, which views the change as rather backward. For starters, the whole premise behind the change is outdated and something that would have worked better back in 1997.

Those who want to check out anything related to Mozilla might come across “Moz://a” now, which replaces the “ill” with a colon and two slashes. Speaking to Wired, the company’s CEO Tim Murray explained how they came about this idea and why they went with it.

“Because it has a portion of URL embedded in the middle of the logo, you know this must be some kind of internet company,” Murray said.

Based on the reactions to the new logo so far, it would seem that things are not turning out as Murray would likely have hoped. The justification for the choice almost brands Mozilla as being out of touch with how far the internet and its users’ understanding of it have come along. This is not the pre-2000s when most people didn’t even know what a URL was.

More to the point, all major web browsers actually suppress the “://” part of the URL when visiting websites that are not considered secure, Ars Technica reports. It’s a coding aspect that is so inconsequential, it’s doubtful that anyone other than programmers would pay it any mind. Basically, it’s not something that your average internet surfer would consider important enough to pay attention to.