
Firefox Reality - mixedbit
https://mixedreality.mozilla.org/firefox-reality/
======
jvehent
Firefox Reality is a version of Firefox targeted at VR headsets. You can
install it from the store of the Oculus Quest (the headset I own, I imagine
others are supported). It's not meant to run on a regular workstation.

The interesting feature of this browser is navigating VR ready websites that
provide an immersive experience (aka. webvr). You can also browse the regular
web from your headsets, of course, but that's not particularly exciting.

~~~
nicholascamera
It is very odd how vague their product description page is. Naming a product
Firefox Reality seems like good marketing: what could be a better brand than
all of Reality? However _in_ reality, their site doesn’t say exactly what
parent says: Firefox Reality is a browser built for (standalone) XR devices.

~~~
ACow_Adonis
I'm assuming that's a typo and you meant VR, given that I've never heard of
XR, and thus wouldn't really be an improvement in terms of vagueness...

~~~
neiman
No, XR is a thing now. It's a general name for VR, AR and MR (mixed reality).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Reality_(XR)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Reality_\(XR\))

------
Quekid5
"Enter a New Dimension"... of what? I didn't advance beyond the opening
screen. Is this going to educate me (mmm), seduce me (eww), stimulate me
(eww/mmm?), or just going to advertise to me?

The problem with all of these virtual-X or augmented-X is that they don't
provide enough value to me -- as a consumer -- they're just "grand ideas"
without any real value.

I'm sure the gimmick effect has some value in and of itself, but c'mon.

~~~
lucb1e
I also didn't quite understand the landing page. Enter a new dimension can be
applied to anything. Scrolling further we find some VR brands, but the title
made that clear already. Then your eyes are drawn to the moving game covers.
So are they making an app store? Scrolling further, we find "Designed from the
Virtual Ground Up". Ha-ha I see what they did there. And then comes the
footer.

Only now that I go back through it more slowly to write it up, I find this
small text just before the end: "designed to tackle all of the new
opportunities (and challenges) that come with browsing in VR". _Oh it 's a
browser!_ Only after typing the comment about how I scrolled through the whole
page and didn't find a meaningful statement, I noticed a line of text hidden
between headlines and moving pictures that should have been the title.

~~~
sdan
Yeah the page wasn't clear what it was until I saw the video on the Oculus
page.

Thought they were releasing a headset or something.

------
wlesieutre
Not sure what the situation is for tabbed browsing in this.

"Viewing multiple pages concurrently" issue repeatedly mentions tabs as
something that needs to be designed
[https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality/issues/635](https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality/issues/635),
in May saying "Will keep this issue open for designing Tabs. Feel free to make
changes to track the design + engineering."

But then in June it's "Closing this in favor of new meta bug #1319"

And #1319 does not mention tabs anywhere.
[https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality/issues/1319](https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality/issues/1319)

Maybe tabs have been implicitly bundled into "multiwindow" when they're
talking about that? Can't check myself because the Quest version doesn't have
any multiwindow support, it looks like they're working on a crash issue for
it.

I tried a dev build sideloaded last week on the Quest and being in a single-
window no-tab environment where you can only have one page open at a time is
very limiting. But as soon as that's worked out, I'll be switching to this as
the main browser.

I wonder if it will be possible for someone to patch Oculus Home so that the
Browser button opens this instead.

~~~
larsberg
Hi! As we mentioned in the recent Quest release blog post,
[https://blog.mozvr.com/firefox-reality-for-oculus-
quest/](https://blog.mozvr.com/firefox-reality-for-oculus-quest/), we have
some designs for multi-window support and synchronization of content between
platforms. We're still working on options around tabs / additional content
beyond the number of windows you have open, alongside our really awesome
Seattle-based design partners, Podipo:
[http://podipo.com/](http://podipo.com/)

Once we have some concrete designs, we'll have issues open and on our public
roadmap for comment and we often have early builds available in our releases
page for sideloading if people are interested in testing and giving feedback.

------
djhaskin987
Mozilla has really gone off the rails. They have deprioritized html 5
compliance and keep chasing spectres like VR and mobile. I really wish they'd
just stick to making sure there's a solid, viable alternative to chrome,
instead of getting distracted like this.

~~~
mikedilger
I noticed a few months back that the Servo engine (upon which I was building a
play/experimental browser) development had shifted significantly in the
direction of Mixed Reality (it shifted more than a few months back, but I was
not paying that close of attention). At that point I gave up on my browser
project.

Some execs at Mozilla think MR is the wave of the future. I think it's mostly
a party trick with a very niche market and will always only be a niche market,
and wasting top talent on MR seriously detracts from a project that is a
hundred-fold more important. But maybe that's just me.

~~~
tempay
> MR seriously detracts from a project that is a hundred-fold more important

I have mixed feeling about this. I’m inclined to agree with you however if it
did take off it could mean the difference between Firefox dying and becoming
the market leader.

------
Wowfunhappy
Is there any particular reason they can't offer a damn .exe so I can try this
out with my Index? I'm sure the copy on Viveport would work, but I don't want
to install Viveport. :(

Edit: Their Github page has releases, but they're all APK's?
[https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality/releases](https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality/releases)

Edit2: Oh, it's for "standalone" headsets. Never mind I guess...

~~~
sirsuki
Any reason iOS is excluded? Last I checked they still have a good share of the
mobile user bases out there.

~~~
jillesvangurp
Firefox IOS uses the safari browser because Apple's walled garden is off
limits for browsers that are not based on that. So, that makes shipping a VR
browser without the Firefox internals impossible/impractical. In this case,
it's not only a browser but a content store that is not iTunes, which
complicates things further.

------
als0
A bit off topic - but does anyone remember VRML? Did it die out?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VRML](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VRML)

~~~
gattilorenz
Absolutely. When I was a kid I did not have any internet access, and most of
the software was from CDs from magazines. One of them had a VRML world+editor
that I still remember fondly.

I should try to see if the CD is still readable...

~~~
dguaraglia
You should check on cd.textfiles.com. They have the content of a bunch of
those old CDs that would come with magazines. I've spent more time than I'd
like to admit download content from textfiles.com and reminiscing of the pre-
ubiquitous-internet world :)

------
neiman
My problem with the whole VR world, Firefox Reality included, is that it
requires me to use stores, open accounts, and do all kind of stuff that seems
to me unnecessary.

Do I get it wrong?

~~~
gfodor
Firefox Reality includes support for WebVR, so you can use web based VR
applications through the browser.

Part of the reason you might choose to install Firefox Reality on your VR
headset is because it's important to you that developers of VR apps always
have an option to use the web to share their apps, which will avoid forcing
their users in the way you mention.

We've built a social VR application called Hubs (hubs.mozilla.com) to showcase
the potential of web based VR applications.

~~~
neiman
Thanks for the answer.

------
partiallypro
I swear if I get a client that says their site isn't Oculus ready, I'm going
to be upset.

------
zmmmmm
Seems a little bit weird to call this "Reality" \- the word "Virtual" is not
incidental the meaning of the phrase "Virtual Reality", taking it away
completely reverses the meaning. It's almost like this is an April Fool's
joke.

~~~
wutbrodo
Branding doesn't need to be literal, just evocative. The word reality is often
mentioned in trippy or philosophical contexts, which is the connotation that
the term "virtual reality" is trying to evoke. The brand strategy didn't work
for you, but I don't think it's a particularly unreasonable one, and I think
plenty of people will tap into the connotations they were going for.

------
have_faith
I've noticed it's very common for VR marketing material to show young children
using the devices. Is stuffing a headset onto your kid going to be the new
'give them a tablet to shut them up' in the future? going to have some very
interesting repercussions.

~~~
buboard
i hope not. long term effects of a heavy constricting belt on a still-
developing cranium must be severe.

~~~
scentoni
People have been doing that intentionally since prehistoric times.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cranial_deformation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cranial_deformation)

~~~
buboard
that ... doesnt look healthy

------
tyingq
I'm curious if Firefox has considered a GSuite competitor. Their IOT/home-
router offering looks great, and a similarly privacy-first GSuite might get a
lot of cross sell.

~~~
bytematic
That would be cool but a beast of a project and a hard sell to big business.
Maybe start with email/calendar/etc. first

~~~
nfoz
I think you've just come full-circle to Mozilla Thunderbird which has been
around since 2003.

\- [https://www.thunderbird.net/](https://www.thunderbird.net/)

\-
[https://www.thunderbird.net/calendar/](https://www.thunderbird.net/calendar/)

~~~
tyingq
I was thinking some version of privacy centric webmail + suite (yes, I get the
issue). The market for Thunderbird is just too niche.

~~~
kwijibob
Mozilla should partner with Libreoffice to make their web version a polished
competitor to GSuite.

~~~
tyingq
Web Libreoffice plus a decent integrated webmail implementation seems like it
would do well. Several companies are charging $5+/month/user for less, and are
doing well, right now.

------
Brakenshire
I think this is Servo? Is there any progress with Servo outside of VR/AR?
Really looking forward to a browser with parallel layout.

~~~
pcwalton
Yes! There's an active Servo Layout 2.0 project going on right now, which is a
revamp of layout to make it production-quality. Anthony developed some Rust
iterator magic to allow us to write sequential-looking code that actually runs
in parallel, which is a major improvement in maintainability over what we had
before.

Most of the work is currently going on out-of-tree in Simon's victor project,
if you're interested:
[https://github.com/SimonSapin/victor](https://github.com/SimonSapin/victor)

~~~
krferriter
Java added fairly seamless parallel iterators via streams but there is a huge
amount of overhead there and often it is slower than normal iterators,
depending on the work being done at each iteration. Hopefully Rust is able to
avoid that sort of downside.

~~~
pcwalton
The parallelism in Servo layout is powered by Rayon, which is extensively
optimized and shipping in Firefox.

------
gtbono
Sad that the daydream version on a Moto Z in Google Play gives me a "Your
device isn't compatible with this version" for me even though I can run
Daydream and other daydream apps

~~~
Fej
It is meant only for standalone Daydream headsets. Why this is the case, I
cannot fathom.

~~~
yellowapple
Even standalone headsets seem to be a crapshoot. It "runs" on my Lenovo
Mirage, for example, but (last I checked) it's pretty crashy.

------
yarrel
I'm looking forward to Firefox supporting OpenXR, which will open it up to all
the headsets supported on GNU/Linux by OpenHMD via Monado.

------
bibyte
Maybe this is a stupid question but how would you click on something like this
? With your eyes or your hands ?

~~~
wongarsu
Clicking in VR is usually done with your controller. The controller shines a
virtual laser pointer making it easy to aim and click.

Doing it with your eyes may be preferable long-term, but eye tracking isn't in
consumer headsets yet.

~~~
chipperyman573
"Easy" to aim and click may be a stretch... I have only ever tried the Vive's
implementation before but it felt a lot like holding a laser pointer -
basically impossible to get any precision because your hand vibrates so much
in ways you don't realize.

------
pittsthebitts
I have a hard time believing browsing the Internet will ever be in a form like
this unless we find an easier way to input information than typing on a
keyboard. It's just too much energy.

------
cr0sh
EDIT:

I took a quick look at the codebase for the browser
([https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality](https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality)),
and it isn't what I was expecting (once you dive to app/src) - definitions for
the main three supported systems are each at this root level, and I didn't see
any kind of "template" or "empty" definition file or anything to guide someone
wanting to make one themselves - but maybe that's not possible.

It appears that these files are wrappers around the APIs used for those other
products (?). So your only hope would be to base your wrapper on these
existing ones, which while feasible (working with the API docs too), isn't
what I would call "ideal". Plus, there doesn't seem to be a separation of
concerns when it comes to input vs output.

I mean, what if I wanted to use my hacked powerglove with my Rift HMD? Or what
if I wanted to use my Vive controllers with my Virtuality Pro?

I understand that the supported systems are nominally "all-in-one" solutions,
but the parts (HMDs, controllers, tracking) are available separately (at least
in some of the cases) - so mixing and matching might be something someone
would want to do. It would definitely be that case for those implementing
their own "mixed setup", where they might have an old VPL datasuit and glove,
plus some other old pro-level HMD that they like to play with.

As it is, it seems like each setup would have to be a custom "all-in-one" for
that setup, so if you had two different systems that used two different HMDs
and tracking, but both used the same Powerglove Minelli interface - the code
couldn't be "shared" in a reasonable manner (yes, I know with the right
symlinking and other buggery it could be accomplished within the current
structure, but it isn't ideal).

I was hoping the structure would be more like /plugins, with /input /output,
and under those /controller /glove /wand and /hmd /motionplatform /cave, then
under each /occulus /vive /google /example

Or something like that. Am I wrong here?

\---

Ok - I know this is likely open source and thus can be changed, but I honestly
wish that things like this offered (and marketed) a means - via plugins or
something (and maybe this does - hence, marketed) - the ability to expand on
what i/o devices are allowed.

Sure - should the "main players" be featured? Of course. But what about those
of us who might like to - oh, I don't know - throw on an old Forte VFX-1 and a
Powerglove and go at it? Maybe we want to recreate the experience of using
REND386?

Or what if you have access to a Polhemus or Ascension magnetic tracking system
(or any number of other "pro-level" tracking)? Or HMDs? Or other input
devices? Or motion platforms?

Maybe you're a developer of something completely new, and want to play in this
same environment and make it compatible...

Again - I haven't dug into the code, and maybe it's designed to accommodate
these kinds of use cases. I'd just love to see that availability, if it
exists, to be advertised more. I guess its because I get the same feeling
around software released for my OS of choice, where Windows and Mac are
prominently advertised, and Linux is at best, if it's offered at all, the
classic step-child stuffed in a closet.

As an aside, I never can figure out the argument that "we don't offer support
for Linux because the market is so small, it isn't worth it for us" \- well,
if everyone keeps saying and doing that, what do you think will ultimately
occur? Do you think that market will grow, stay the same, or shrink?

~~~
djsumdog
> Forte VFX-1

Man I remember seeing those in copies of PC Gamer as a kid. You can find
modern reviews online. They had a lot of issues; mostly due to low resolution
leading to motion sickness.

There were attempts at 3D web standards in the past. Who remembers VRML?!

~~~
mceachen
VRML contained the technology to crash both Netscape Navigator and your entire
X display, frequently under a minute.

------
mosselman
How about making Firefox work on mac without having to put it in low-res mode?

------
StevePoling
Wind power really needs something to level demand—either a battery scheme such
as Tesla is selling or pumped storage (where you pump water uphill when the
wind is blowing and let it flow downhill when it isn’t) it’s

~~~
DangitBobby
I think you commented on the wrong thing

------
ronreiter
Oh man, I miss VRML :)

~~~
cr0sh
In my collection of VR documents and software "artifacts" \- I have a
collection of QuickBasic 4.5 programs (source code) that this French team
built (circa late 1990s IIRC) to generate various VRML models and "worlds"
using code. I don't recall how abstracted it was, but I thought it unique
enough to save it for my archive. I should really go through that collection
and release it in some manner - I have tons of interesting stuff, much of
which has disappeared from the web. Maybe an upload to archive.org would be in
order...

------
ilaksh
Will it work for Oculus Quest?

~~~
cjbprime
Yes, just announced.

------
jdlyga
Is this for Oculus Quest yet?

~~~
tantalor
Yep

[https://www.oculus.com/experiences/app/2180252408763702](https://www.oculus.com/experiences/app/2180252408763702)

~~~
wlesieutre
Note that multi-window support isn't released on Quest yet, but should come
once they get to the bottom of this:
[https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality/issues/1459](https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality/issues/1459)

------
brianzelip
What _is_ it? A new headset? A new browser? What?

~~~
djsumdog
A application for existing 3D headsets. I've had this on my Oculus Go for a
while.

------
forgotmypwd123
Viveport, eww.

~~~
spilk
yeah, really. Why not put it on Steam?

~~~
rocky1138
I love Viveport, personally. It's great to just pay once and play any game.

I imagine Firefox will make tons of money this way since devs get paid by the
amount of minutes the software runs.

------
AcerbicZero
Until Mozilla fixes Firefox and stops treating users like children, I will
continue to use other browser options. What a slow sad death :(

------
dyarosla
A little off topic, but what a world we live in when a prominent browser maker
is advertising a new browser with a webpage that doesn’t properly display its
main tagline on small devices (iPhone SE)
[https://i.imgur.com/WkqsUEZ_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&f...](https://i.imgur.com/WkqsUEZ_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium)

If they can’t get it right, what does that say about the state of the web as a
platform?

~~~
stevenhubertron
If its like the analytics for the 45MM users I get on the sites I manage the
SE traffic is less than 0.5%.

And to be clear, its not broken, the alignment is slightly off:
[https://imgur.com/a/GBLe5Jt](https://imgur.com/a/GBLe5Jt) I would totally let
this pass QA for such a minority view.

~~~
dyarosla
1) I didn’t say broken, I said ‘doesn’t properly display‘.

2) How many other smaller phones exist on the market? It’s disingenuous to say
it’s .5%.

This is not some complex item- it should simply not look like this. If the
simple stuff is misaligned, what can you expect the rest of the page and more
complex items to work like?

