Introducing Weave

As the Web continues to evolve and more of our lives move online, we believe that Web browsers like Firefox can and should do more to broker rich experiences while increasing user control over their data and personal information.

One important area for exploration is the blending of the desktop and the Web through deeper integration of the browser with online services.

We’re now launching a new project within Mozilla Labs to formally explore this integration. This project will be known as Weave and it will focus on finding ways to enhance the Firefox user experience, increase user control over personal information, and provide new opportunities for developers to build innovative online experiences.

Just like Mozilla enables massive innovation by making Firefox open on many levels, we will aim to do the same with Weave by developing an open extensible framework for services integration.

Organizing Principles

We’ve set out some basic organizing principles to help frame the approach that we’re going to explore. We will:

• provide a basic set of optional Mozilla-hosted online services


• ensure that it is easy for people to set up their own services with freely available open standards-based tools


• provide users with the ability to fully control and customize their online experience, including whether and how their data should be shared with their family, their friends, and third-parties


• respect individual privacy (e.g. client-side encryption by default with the ability to delegate access rights)


• leverage existing open standards and propose new ones as needed


• build a extensible architecture like Firefox

Overview of the Idea

1. browser metadata is pushed into the cloud (e.g. bookmarks, history, customizations, etc.)


2. this metadata is transparently reflected everywhere an individual gets online


3. we provide a basic framework for easily sharing and delegating access to this metadata to friends, family and third-parties


4. we build tools and APIs to extend this framework and to provide new user experiences

The above excerpt from Mozilla labs gives a detailed insight to their new plan, Weave, a quasi-social quasi-application integrated into their browsers. Click the link to read more about it