Mozilla launches app store to rival Android, iOS

In a challenge to the dominance of the smartphone giants, Firefox open-source browser maker Mozilla launched a store for web apps Wednesday, hoping to promote the use of smartphones that are not tied to one company’s software.

Mozilla’s plans call for a new breed of smartphone where all applications would work through a browser rather than through proprietary operating systems like Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS or Microsoft’s Windows 7.

While those companies try to lock consumers in to their own software systems Mozilla’s idea is to use the phone’s browser as the operating system, supporting features like the camera, voice communication and geo-location abilities of the phone.

“Mozilla is now unlocking the potential of the web to be the platform for creating and consuming content everywhere,” said Todd Simpson, Mozilla’s chief of innovation.

The so-called Mozilla Marketplace would allow developers to write apps that would work on any phone that supports a browser. The Silicon Valley non-profit is already in talks with wireless carriers and manufacturers about support for a Mozilla phone and is reported to be planning to unveil a software prototype at next week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Firefox currently has 450 million users and has completely recast the browser landscape since it was launched in 2004, when Microsoft’s Internet Explorer had a near monopoly over web users.