Mozilla Firefox to Get a Paid Subscription for Premium Features, New Logo Unveiled

Mozilla, the maker of open source browser Firefox, is planning to offer a subscription service within Firefox that would offer users access to "premium" features like a virtual private network (VPN) service and cloud storage. Separately, Mozilla also unveiled a new, cleaner logo for the Firefox brand. The new look will translate to not just the Firefox browser, but to products like Firefox Send, Firefox Monitor, and Fire Lockwise.

In an interview with t3n, Chris Beard, CEO, Mozilla mentioned that the company intends to begin offering the subscriptions starting October, The Verge reported on Monday.

As of now, it remains unclear if this would be a single subscription service offering multiple features, or if these will be separate subscription services.

With this plan, Mozilla aims to develop "diverse sources of revenue" to avoid being heavily reliant on capital that comes from search companies that pay to be featured in the Firefox browser.

The company said it would not charge for any existing Firefox features as part of its shift to offering subscription services.

In October 2018, Mozilla started testing a VPN subscription service that was made available to only a small group of users who were allowed to subscribe through Firefox, paying $10 per month for access to ProtonVPN.

"A high-performing, free and private-by-default Firefox browser will continue to be central to our core service offerings," the report quoted Dave Camp, Senior Vice President of Firefox, as saying.

As we mentioned, Mozilla this week also unveiled its new logo for the Firefox brand.

In a blog post, the company said, "Now Firefox has a new look to support its evolving product line. Today we're introducing the Firefox parent brand — an icon representing the entire family of products. When you see it, it's your invitation to join Firefox and gain access to everything we have to offer. That includes the famous Firefox Browser icon for desktop and mobile, and even that icon is getting an update to be rolled out this fall."