Mozilla is shutting down its made-for-VR web browser, Firefox Reality, and handing off the project to third-party team Igalia.
Mozilla launched Firefox Reality back in 2018 on a host of early standalones, including Oculus Go, Lenovo Mirage Solo, and Vive Focus. In the following years, Mozilla also brought it to Quest and PC VR headsets.
Firefox Reality is set to be removed from app stores within the coming weeks, Mozilla says in a blog post, with the newly announced Igalia Wolvic taking its place starting as soon as next week.
Wolvic is based on Firefox Reality’s source code, which includes the same native support for WebXR content and privacy/security that Mozilla has touted in the past with Firefox on other platforms.
Igalia says in a blog post that its first focus is on serving Android-based, standalone XR systems and HarmonyOS tethered systems, which includes Meta Quest, Huawei VR Glass, HTC Vive Focus, Pico Interactive, and Lynx. The company says its also hoping to support Qualcomm and Lenovo XR devices in the future.
“The Firefox Reality project was created […] to give users some choice and ensure that open and unlimited access to the web remains strong on these devices,” said Brian Kardell, Developer Advocate at Igalia. “These ideas are core to what we do at Igalia, so we’re thrilled to be able to carry the torch forward in leveraging that work to create a new browser, Wolvic. Together, we will help to ensure that the web ecosystem remains healthy.”
Igalia is consultancy studio based in Spain that’s focused on maintaining and promoting Free Software. The team says its developing via this GitHub repository, asking for help from the community to file any issues there that may arise.
The Firefox Reality browser project is being continued by an ‘open source consultancy’ as Wolvic.
Firefox Reality is a web browser for standalone VR and AR headsets, a project of the XR division of Mozilla Labs. It first launched on Oculus Go’s store in 2018. In 2019 it launched on Quest and HoloLens 2, and was built-in to HTC Vive Focus. But just a year later in 2020, Mozilla laid off 250 employees including staff working on Firefox Reality.
‘Open source software consultancy’ Igalia says it took over stewardship of Firefox Reality, and is now calling it Wolvic – with a beta release coming next week. It describes Wolvic as “a new branch of the evolutionary tree of the Firefox Reality Browser”. Former Mozilla Labs engineer Imanol Fernandez is among the staff now at Igalia working on the project.
While Firefox Reality is still available on Quest, Go, HoloLens 2, HTC, and Pico devices it hasn’t been updated in quite a while. Igalia says with Wolvic it will give the browser “new investment, updates and nurturing”.
Like Quest’s built in Oculus Browser, Wolvic supports WebXR content, meaning you can use it to enter immersive web experiences and 360 degree videos. It features a Privacy Mode, voice Search, Movie Mode, tab resizing, and Igalia plans to continue to add new features.
A beta will launch next week on Quest and Huawei VR Glass, with support for HTC Vive Focus, Pico Neo, and Lynx planned for future.
Firefox Reality, Mozilla’s made-for-VR web browser, has been available on standalone devices for some time now, featuring support for Oculus Quest, Oculus Go, HTC Vive Focus, and Pico standalones. Now Mozilla has brought its WebXR-capable browser to PC VR headsets with its new PC Preview version.
Like with its standalone headset variant, Firefox Reality PC Preview supports standard 2D web browsing, 360 video, and immersive content.
Alongside native support for WebXR and WebVR content, Mozilla says the browser also contains “the same privacy and security that underpin regular Firefox on the desktop.”
If you’re viewing this article using Firefox Reality (download link below), you’ll be able to do some pretty cool stuff like chat with people in social VR through Mozilla Hubs, explore the nearly endless 3D objects hosted on Sketchfab, and take a tour of a host of immersive content through the Hello WebXR! app. Just click the links, pop on your VR headset (if you’re not already using it) and jump in.
Firefox Reality PC Preview is available for download via Viveport, which includes support for SteamVR headsets such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive Cosmos, and Valve Index. Last year Mozilla mentioned it was working with Valve to bring a version to Steam.
The company says in a blog post that it has plans to both expand to other VR platforms as well as deliver updates that add more functionality and stability.
The internet is an intrinsic part of our everyday lives and championing this is the virtual reality (VR) space is Mozilla with Firefox Reality. This week the company has released Firefox Reality 10, adding new features to expand and improve the experience for users.
The big update for Firefox Reality 10 is support for WebXR. Originally planned for 2019, the rollout this week aids improvements in cross-device functionality so that websites can work with a variety of controllers without the need to write individual support. The browser will still work with WebVR – the previous version – as most web content which is VR compatible is WebVR content.
“This will help our partners and developer community gracefully transition to WebXR without worrying that their audiences will lose functionality immediately. We will eventually deprecate WebVR. We’re currently working on a timeline for removing WebVR support,” notes the Mozilla Blog.
A useful feature the general public will notice is the addition of gaze navigation support in Firefox Reality 10. This allows you to control various browser functions without the need of a controller, useful for those who can’t use a controller. Scrolling, selecting and typing are all possible if your controller suddenly stops working.
Smaller improvements include dual-controller typing for those you prefer to use both hands, download management options; better privacy and security when online and DRM video playback.
For the launch of Firefox Reality 10 Mozilla has also announced a partnership with Pico Interactive. The browser will come supplied with all Pico headsets including its new Pico Neo 2 standalone headset. Firefox Reality already supports headsets such as Oculus Quest, Oculus Go and HTC Vive, with Pico now added to that list. The Neo 2 and Neo 2 Eye are Pico’s latest enterprise-focused headsets with 4K resolutions, inside-out tracking and 6 degrees of freedom (6DoF) controllers.
Last month saw the company release Hubs Cloud for Amazon Web Services (AWS). Currently, in Early Access, organisations can build private or public social spaces for a range of use cases such as connecting with clients or teamwork, all through their AWS account.
As Mozilla continues to update Firefox Reality, VRFocus will keep you updated.
Recently, Mozilla unveiled ‘Hello WebXR’, a demo designed to show that WebXR is a viable alternative to store apps. We tried it out, and found it certainly makes a convincing case.
The Mozilla Foundation is a not-for-profit organization which seeks to advance the open web. It develops and maintains the open source Firefox web browser, including the mobile VR version Firefox Reality (available on Oculus Quest, Oculus Go, Vive Focus, Lenovo Mirage Solo, and almost all other standalone headsets).
WebXR is an open standard application programming interface (API) which enables 3D webpages to display on VR headsets and be interacted with by VR controllers. WebXR experiences are rendered with WebGL, usually with an engine like three.js.
Impressions Of This Demo
Hello WebXR contains a large hall as well as three portal doors which bring you to other mini-experiences. Locomotion is handled by a simple teleport system in which you point your handed controller and press the trigger.
The experience uses controller models rather than hands, and the controllers are generic rather than tailored to the headset you’re using. Mozilla mentions that they plan to use WebXR Input profiles in the future, which may solve this problem.
The first thing that stood out, and thus the first thing I tried, was the xylophone in the center. Using the triggers each stick can be picked up to play the keys. The interactions feel smooth and solid, other than the lack of haptics.
Also in the center of this hall are spheres which, when selected, immerse you in a 360 degree photo, similar to the user experience of Valve’s The Lab. Each loads instantly, demonstrating how WebXR can be easily used to distribute this kind of content.
But what about bringing the regular web into the VR web? Mozilla demonstrates this with a “Twitter Feed” screen, which shows Tweets that use the #helloWebXR hashtag. This is where WebXR shines, developers can more easily integrate the wealth of APIs and frameworks that already exist for the web ecosystem.
Current VR headsets have limited resolution, and the lack of variable focus means you don’t want to get extremely close to things. So how can VR be used to show detailed paintings or other works of art? Mozilla’s solution is a magnifying glass, and it feels entirely intuitive and natural to use.
One of the three rooms you can teleport to is the “dark room”, which lets you hear positional sounds (crucial for VR audio). This is probably powered by Resonance Audio. The positioning was relatively precise, but not quite as pinpoint as I’m used to with Oculus Audio or Steam Audio.
Another of the rooms was incredibly impressive — a classical sculpture captured using photogrammetry. Even on the mobile headset, this essentially looked photorealistic. This was not something I expected from a web page, especially not one that loaded instantly.
The experience also performs excellently on the Oculus Quest standalone headset. Quest uses a smartphone processor with limited power, so it is notable to see it handle all of this so smoothly.
When we tried WebVR in the past, even on PC, performance was mixed. Hello WebXR seemed to maintain a constant 72 FPS, with the exception of the graffiti wall, where the framerate was significantly lower.
The Potential Of A VR Web
Oculus Quest is a semi-closed platform, with a heavily curated store. Facebook will only allow apps that meet its strict standards on quality and value to be distributed through its store.
Even on the more open stores for PC VR content still requires a basic approval process, and sometimes fees (Steam charges $100, for example). Developers are reliant on each store to distribute to a large number of users. While executables can be distributed through the web, this is a fairly major security risk.
WebXR makes the argument that just like websites, no central authority (other than government in case of law violation) should control VR content. And because browsers keep web code in a sandbox, there shouldn’t be any security risks.
The SideQuest project aims to offer an alternative route to distribution on Oculus Quest, but this requires connecting your headset to a PC and apps still have to be downloaded and installed. WebXR enables content to be delivered near instantaneously directly from the headset from a simple web URL.
A problem that arises, however, is monetization. This is more necessary on the web than through a store since each developer would be hosting their own app. While web hosting and bandwidth has never been cheaper than today, it is still a recurring cost. And of course, developers may build WebXR apps as deserving of a price as store apps.
The Oculus Store within Quest allows the user to enter a simple PIN code to use the payment method on their account. Would users really grab their debit card and awkwardly enter their details while the headset is half on their head? Probably not. But the open standard Payment Request API (which Facebook is contributing to) seeks to solve this kind of problem on the web, so in the future we might see payments passed through to the Oculus Browser.
How To Try It
You can access Hello WebXR on Quest via Oculus Browser — just Google Search ‘Hello WebXR’ inside it.
UploadVR’s weekly podcast, The VR Download, is LIVE on YouTube today at 10:30 AM PST (18:30 UTC)!
Unlike regular video podcasts, The VR Download is broadcast from virtual reality! Our team are together in a virtual space, giving us many of the benefits of a studio even though we live on different continents.
Our Special Guest this week is Diane Hosfelt, a Senior Research Engineer at Mozilla. Hosfelt is security and privacy lead for mixed reality, identifying emerging threats and potential mitigations to create a better immersive web.
This week’s Hot Topic: with Sony skipping E3 again, what does 2020 have in store for PlayStation VR?
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Mozilla announced at CES this week that it’s bringing Firefox Reality, its VR web browser, to Pico headsets soon.
Launched in late 2018, Firefox Reality is a made-for-VR web browser that includes the ability to sync your Firefox Account, send tabs, sync history and bookmarks, and easily browse a curated selection of WebVR content.
Along with Firefox Reality comes Mozilla Hubs, the web-based social VR platform, both of which are said to arrive on all Pico headsets sometime in Q1 2020.
Hubs allows users to simply follow a hyperlink to quickly collaborate in a customized virtual space, replete with the ability to upload 3D assets, chat in VR, and share documents and photos. The web-based, low-poly social space is accessible to both VR headsets and desktop web browsers, making it potential tool for businesses looking for a quick way to shift in-person meetings from the physical to the virtual.
It seems with the upcoming release Mozilla is making a continued effort to widen its reach into the standalone headset segment, as it most recently brought Firefox Reality to Oculus Quest last summer. Firefox Reality already supports Oculus Go, HTC Vive Focus, and Google Daydream headsets, so its continued push to support newer headsets is a good sign of the overall health of the project. At the time of this writing Firefox Reality has yet to launch on Steam for PC VR headsets as it was previously announced in April 2019.
The announcement was timed with Pico’s unveiling of the 6DOF standalones Neo 2 and Neo 2 Eye on Monday. Like its name suggests, Neo 2 Eye includes integrated eye-tracking, so it will be interesting to see whether Mozilla will be accommodating that functionality into both the web browser itself as well as Hubs.
Much of our daily lives revolve around the internet, whether it’s for your job sending emails or communicating long-distance, doing some shopping for new clothes or consuming vast amounts of entertainment via streaming apps. So it would make sense that with the growth of virtual reality (VR) developers would have embraced the web more. In fact, the web has played a bit of a side note, sure there are plenty of online multiplayer titles out there and apps like Netflix are available, but actually perusing the internet is another matter entirely. Which is why Mozilla created Firefox Reality. So VRFocus sat down with Director of Mixed Reality, Lars Bergstrom, at the recent Oculus Connect 6 (OC6) event to learn how they plan on helping VR users make that leap.
Firefox Reality originally arrived for headsets like HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Google Daydream just over a year ago, offering a web browser specifically built for VR purposes. Since then, support has expanded to include Oculus Quest and Microsoft’s mixed reality (MR) device HoloLens 2, with work still ongoing for a SteamVR compatible version.
The app has a range of features designed to maximise the immersive potential of web-based VR, such as 6 degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) control for anything on the app, Enhanced Tracking Protection which blocks sites from tracking you and collecting personal data for ad networks and tech companies. Firefox Reality also supports 10 different languages, including Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.
It’s not just Firefox Reality which Mozilla is developing for VR users. Another part of its ecosystem is Hubs, a social platform with Discord integration where users can create their own rooms to invite people to join. Online and open source, Hubs will work with virtually any headset, allowing users to add web content, watch videos, chat, share their screen/webcam feed, and pull in 3D objects from Sketchfab and Google Poly.
Bergstrom details all this and more in the OC6 interview below, so take a look if you’re interested in the future possibilities of WebVR. As always, when Mozilla announces any further updates to either Firefox Reality of Hubs, VRFocus will let you know.
Mozilla has finally brought its made-for-VR web browser, Firefox Reality, to Oculus Quest.
In September of last year, the company initially released Firefox Reality on Oculus Go, Lenovo Mirage Solo, and Vive Focus (and other Vive Wave headsets) for free.
Now, according to a press statement, users on Quest can jump into the immersive web with what Mozilla calls “sharp text, high quality videos, and a seamless transition from 2D to 3D immersive modes.”
The company also boasts that Firefox Reality for Quest is “the best VR web browsing experience” due to Oculus Quest’s boost in performance and capabilities.
On all platforms however, Firefox Reality has Enhanced Tracking Protection enabled by default, which aims to protect users from tracking and collection of personal data by ad networks and tech companies. Mozilla additionally says the browser’s Enhanced Tracking Protection works in the background and “actually increase[s] the speed of the browser.”
In addition to voice search, Firefox Reality is currently available in 10 languages, including Japanese, Korean, Simplified & Traditional Chinese; the company says more languages are on the way.
In the next few months Mozilla says they’ll be rolling out support for WebXR, multi-window browsing, bookmarks sync, and more.
Mozilla finally brought its popular VR browser, Firefox Reality, the Oculus Quest this week.
Firefox Reality is an entirely VR-native browser available to download for free. It allows you to visit your usual websites in a virtual window whilst also taking advantage of VR-specific features like 360 videos and WebVR support. Better yet, you can use Mozilla Hubs to meet up and hang out with people in VR. Think of it as Mozilla’s first shot at establishing a virtual metaverse.
This is the third 6DOF standalone headset Firefox Reality has launched on. In fact, HTC is even making the platform its default browser for its headsets going forward. Oculus has its own browser appearing across its various headsets too.
That’s not all though. Firefox Reality also recently introduced a data-blocking system called Enhanced Tracking Protection. This is designed to protect data about your behavior in VR from sites and apps that might record it. VR’s reliance on head and hand tracking presents interesting new issues for the era of data surveillance. Download Firefox Reality in Quest and the Tracking Protection will be in place by default. It will be interesting to see if others follow in Mozilla’s footsteps on this front.
Coming up, Mozilla is also prepping multi-window browsing, bookmarks syncing and additional language support for the browser. It’s also set to introduce ‘nearly VR-ready’ WebXR support. Basically the company is building the browser for AR devices too. The company is certainly getting all of its bases covered for the spatial computing future.
