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As AI becomes a greater and more important presence in our everyday lives, the way we interact with the "traditional" internet is changing.

For so long the main way to access the internet, the web browser is now having to rethink how to appeal to an audience which often seeks AI-first interaction - raising new challenges for developers to create the best and most interactive experience.

We spoke to Ajit Varma, Head of Firefox at Mozilla, to find out more.

• The web has always been built on the principles of openness and interoperability, but today's internet is increasingly shaped by a handful of dominant platforms and AI-powered services. What does the 'open web' mean in 2026, and why does it still matter?

The open web matters more today than it has in years because AI is changing how people experience the internet. As a small number of platforms become the gateway to search, content and AI-powered services, it's becoming easier for a handful of companies to shape what people see and how they interact online.

That's why the principles of the open web still matter. Common standards mean developers can build without asking permission from a dominant platform, and users can choose how they access the web rather than being locked into a single ecosystem. Those principles have driven innovation for decades, and they're just as important as AI reshapes the internet.

The challenge now isn't simply keeping the web open as it exists today. It's making sure openness evolves alongside AI, so the next generation of the internet remains competitive, interoperable and accessible to everyone

• AI is changing the way people discover information and interact with the internet. How do you see browsers evolving over the next five years, and what role should they play in helping users navigate an increasingly AI-driven web while maintaining trust and choice?

Over the next five years, you’ll start to see more divergences in how browsers treat AI. Many companies will use the browser to try and push a specific AI agenda but at Firefox we’re focused on how AI can make the tasks a user wants to do in a browser better. This includes things like a personal agent that can help a user accomplish tasks, navigating the web through voice, making the web more enjoyable, and creating new vibe-coded extensions and mini-apps.

We’ll do all this in a way that is user centric. The browser should adapt to the user, rather than the other way round. Some people will want AI integrated into their everyday browsing, while others will prefer to use it for specific tasks. Maintaining trust means supporting those preferences and letting people decide how much they use AI.

Users should be able to choose any model they want including open and local models. The important thing is preserving that flexibility, so people can browse, search and get things done in a way that feels natural to them.

• Privacy has long been a core part of Mozilla's mission, but consumers also expect convenience and highly personalised online experiences. How do you strike the right balance between protecting users' privacy and delivering the features people now expect from modern web experiences?

For me, striking the right balance starts with recognising that every user has different expectations of their browser. While context can make online experiences more useful and personalised, people should be able to understand how their data is used and decide what they are comfortable sharing. By giving users meaningful control over the features they adopt, Firefox can deliver modern experiences while continuing to protect their privacy.

This has guided our phased approach to AI, beginning with practical features such as summarisation, translation, tab organisation and optional AI chat integrations. Before introducing more advanced AI experiences such as Smart Window, we launched AI Controls so people can manage individual features or switch them off altogether.

Firefox is also model-agnostic, so users can choose or switch providers, use local models, or opt out entirely. Even though only a small minority of users disable AI features, people regularly tell us they value knowing the controls are there. Privacy and convenience can coexist when people are able to set the terms of the experience.

• There's growing concern that the future of the web could become fragmented between closed AI ecosystems, proprietary platforms and app-based experiences. What do you see as the biggest threats to the open web, and what gives you confidence that it can continue to thrive?

The biggest risk isn't AI itself, it's concentration. If the same companies control the AI models, the interface people use to access them and the browser they interact through, users lose visibility, choice and ultimately agency. That's a much bigger shift than simply moving from one technology generation to another.

What's encouraging is that the issue is becoming harder to ignore. Developers want open standards. Regulators are paying closer attention to competition. Users are asking tougher questions about transparency and control. The web has always evolved through periods of disruption, but it has remained resilient because it's built on interoperability rather than permission. AI can strengthen that model rather than replacing it with a handful of closed ecosystems. The future doesn't have to be a choice between innovation and openness. We should expect both.

• Developers have always been central to Mozilla's community. As AI transforms software development and web creation, how do you think the relationship between developers, browsers and the open web will change over the coming years?

AI is making it dramatically easier to build software, which means we're going to see more developers – and more people who aren't traditional developers – creating for the web. That's a huge opportunity, but only if they can build on an open platform rather than for a handful of closed ecosystems.

That's why the browser becomes even more important. It's no longer just where websites are displayed – it's becoming the layer where people interact with AI to search, create, organise information and complete tasks. As that layer becomes more powerful, it has to remain open, interoperable and centred around user choice.

For developers, that means being able to build for the web, rather than for whichever company happens to control the dominant model or platform. That's always been one of the web's greatest strengths, and it's something we shouldn't lose as AI reshapes how software is built and experienced.

• If you look ahead to the end of this decade, what do you hope people will say about the state of the web? What would success look like for Mozilla's vision of an open, healthy internet?

Success, for me, is a web that's become more useful through AI without becoming less open. Technology should expand what's possible, not narrow the ways people can access information, build new ideas or participate online.

Innovation should continue to come from everywhere, not just a handful of dominant platforms. The web has always been at its best when anyone with a good idea can build something that reaches millions of people. That only happens when developers have open standards to build on and users aren't locked into a single ecosystem.

The web should still be the best place to build, discover and innovate because it remains accessible to everyone. If AI has expanded participation rather than concentrated power, we'll be heading in the right direction.

• Mozilla is competing in a browser market dominated by much larger technology companies. How do you differentiate Firefox, and why do you believe there's still a commercial and societal case for an independent browser?

We differentiate through independence, choice and accountability. Most browsers are tied to larger technology ecosystems spanning across multiple systems, search, advertising and AI.

Instead, Firefox is powered by Gecko, the only remaining independent browser engine, which gives us the freedom to make product decisions around what benefits users. It ensures that Mozilla is not only advocating for these principles but actively building the underlying infrastructure that makes them possible.

That independence is commercially relevant because there’s such a clear demand for genuine choice. Firefox has been selected through EU browser choice screens more than six million times in two years and those users are five times more likely to remain with Firefox than people who find it organically.

Societally, independent engines prevent one company’s technical and commercial priorities from being the default for the entire web. They also preserve competition, interoperability and the ability to build around different values.

• As regulators around the world seek to promote competition in digital markets, are we at a turning point for the open web, or is there still a risk that power becomes even more concentrated through AI?

There are certainly some encouraging signs that regulation can restore meaningful choice. The impact of browser choice screens in Europe shows that people choose alternatives when they are presented fairly and without being steered towards a default.

However, AI is creating a new concentration risk. If the same small group of companies control the operating system, browser, search engine and AI model, it becomes much easier for them to shape how people access information and which services they encounter.

Regulation needs to keep pace not only with how AI is developed, but with how it's distributed and embedded into everyday products. However, regulation can't do this alone. Interoperability, genuine defaults and strong technical competition will matter just as much.

• Trust has become a key differentiator in technology. How can browser makers earn and maintain users' trust as AI assistants become embedded in everyday web browsing?

Trust starts with being clear about what the technology is doing. AI should be optional, transparent and designed so users can understand what information it can access, how it’s being used and who is acting on their behalf.

That’s the principle behind Firefox’s AI controls. AI features are optional and can be managed individually, while a single setting allows users to block current and future generative AI features. We also use on-device models for features such as Link Previews and Smart Tab Groups, allowing people to receive AI assistance without any data leaving their device.

Ultimately, trust isn't earned through a single feature. It's earned by being transparent about how AI works and consistently respecting the decisions people make.

For many enterprises, virtualization has become so foundational that its strategic importance is easy to overlook.

Hypervisors, management tools, and the surrounding infrastructure stack quietly support the systems that run finance, operations, customer engagement, supply chain and other business-critical processes.

When that layer changes, the impact is rarely confined to IT.

It can affect cost, resilience, agility and the organization's ability to set its own technology roadmap.

That is why the latest shift in the VMware ecosystem deserves close attention from technology leaders.

With vSphere 7 reaching the end of general support and newer platform models emphasizing bundled, subscription-based private cloud architectures, many organizations are being pushed into a compressed decision cycle.

The question is no longer simply which version to upgrade to. It is whether a vendor-driven platform shift aligns with the business, operating and financial outcomes the organization is trying to achieve.

That distinction matters. A version upgrade is a technical project, but a virtualization strategy is a business decision.

And business decisions should be guided by requirements, value and timing, not simply by changes in a vendor’s roadmap.

Support deadlines have a way of focusing attention. They also have a way of narrowing choices. When a critical platform approaches the end of vendor support, the instinct is often to move quickly toward the recommended next step. In some cases, that may be the right decision. In others, it can lead to organizations into unnecessary cost, disruption and loss of flexibility before they have fully evaluated the alternatives.

The risk for IT leaders is treating the vendor product roadmap as if it were automatically the enterprise roadmap. The two may align, but that alignment should be proven, not presumed. A vendor’s timeline is not, in itself, a business case for broad infrastructure change.

A vendor’s priorities are shaped by product strategy, recurring revenue, portfolio simplification and platform consolidation. An enterprise’s priorities are shaped by uptime, security, cost control, application performance, operational continuity and business agility. Those priorities can overlap, but they are not identical and treating them as interchangeable can result in decisions that solve for the vendor’s direction more than the customer’s needs.

This is where CIOs and infrastructure leaders need to step back and ask a more fundamental question: what business outcome are we trying to achieve, and does this change materially advance it?

If the answer is improved resilience, better automation, simplified management, stronger security or a more cloud-like operating model, then modernization may be justified. But, if the answer is simply maintaining continuity or preserving support status, organizations should examine the full range of viable paths before committing to a major platform shift. The right response is not always the most disruptive one.

Pricing changes often capture the most attention, but the true cost of an infrastructure change extends well beyond the license or subscription line item. In many cases, the larger costs are organizational: the time, risk and disruption that accompany a broad platform transition.

Virtualization platforms sit at the center of complex environments. A major change can trigger downstream work across storage, networking, backup, monitoring, disaster recovery, security tooling, compliance processes and application dependencies. Even when the technical migration appears manageable, the operational validation can be extensive, and the burden on teams can be significant.

Organizations should consider the full cost of change, including staff time, retraining, integration testing, potential downtime, consulting support and hardware implications. Just as important is the opportunity cost. Every major platform transition consumes budget, leadership attention and skilled talent that could otherwise be directed toward security improvements, automation, AI initiatives, customer-facing innovation or other strategic priorities. A more bundled platform may simplify some parts of the stack, but it can also introduce new commercial and architectural constraints.

This is particularly important for enterprises running stable, heavily integrated environments. Many virtualization estates have been tuned over the years to support specific workloads, service levels and operational requirements. Stability is not a weakness to be corrected by default; in many cases it is a business asset. Replacing or restructuring that environment should be justified by measurable business value, not just by pressure to conform to a new delivery model.

Most organizations facing a virtualization decision have three broad options, and the right answer may differ by workload, business priority and time horizon.

The first is to migrate. This could mean moving to the vendor’s latest platform, shifting workloads to a hyperscale cloud provider, adopting an alternative hypervisor or pursuing a hybrid architecture. Migration may be the right choice when the current environment no longer supports business needs, when hardware refresh cycles align with broader transformation goals, or when the organization has a clear cloud operating model, budget and execution plan for the next state. But migration should be a deliberate strategic move, not a reflexive response to a platform event.

The second is to modernize in place. This approach keeps the core environment intact while improving the capabilities around it. That may include stronger automation, better observability, improved security controls, more resilient backup and recovery, tighter cost management or more intelligent workload placement.

For many enterprises, modernization does not require a wholesale migration. It requires identifying the gaps that matter most and addressing them with targeted investments. Modernization and migration are not the same thing, and organizations should be careful not to treat them as if they are.

The third is to maximize the existing environment. This option is often overlooked because it sounds less transformational, but it can be the most rational business decision when a platform is stable, secure, performant and well understood. Extending the value of an environment that continues to meet requirements is not inertia; it is intentional lifecycle management. If the platform remains fit for purpose, the better decision may be to maintain it effectively while redirecting budget and talent toward higher-value initiatives.

The right answer may include elements of all three. Some workloads may be ready for cloud migration. Some may benefit from in-place modernization. Others may be best left alone because they are stable, cost-effective and do not justify major reinvestment. The goal should not be uniformity for its own sake, but alignment between each workload and the business value it is expected to deliver.

Before committing to any virtualization path, CIOs should bring the conversation back to business requirements. What systems does the platform support? What uptime is required? Which workloads are growing, and which are stable or declining?

What regulatory or compliance obligations must be met? Where does the business need more agility, and where is predictability more important than change? Those are the questions that should shape the roadmap.

From there, organizations can conduct a practical assessment:

1. Which systems truly need to change now for security, compliance, performance or support reasons?

2. Which workloads can remain in place with the right resilience, security and operational controls?

3. Which applications are real candidates for cloud migration, and which are not?

4. Where would this decision increase lock-in or weaken negotiating leverage?

5. Which investments will deliver measurable business value over the next three to five years?

6. What strategic initiatives will be delayed if budgets and talent are redirected to this transition?

This kind of analysis helps technology leaders avoid making decisions based on urgency, assumption or vendor pressure. It also gives CFOs, boards and operating leaders a clearer view of the trade-offs, including where change is necessary, where it is optional and where it may create more disruption than value.

The vSphere 9 era is part of a broader shift in enterprise technology: vendors are consolidating platforms, simplifying portfolios and steering customers toward subscription-based operating models.

That approach can offer advantages, including more integrated tooling, simplified procurement and a more standardized operating model. But it can also come with trade-offs, including higher costs, reduced flexibility and greater dependency on a single vendor’s pace and direction of innovation.

Virtualization remains too important to be managed as a reactive upgrade cycle. It underpins mission-critical operations and increasingly shapes hybrid cloud strategy, resilience planning and long-term infrastructure economics. Enterprises should treat it with the same strategic discipline they would apply to any other decision that affects business continuity, cost structure and future flexibility.

As infrastructure models evolve, the message for CIOs is simple: don’t let a support deadline become your strategy. Use it as the moment to define one based on business requirements, financial reality and the level of change the organization needs.

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• Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 detailed three Google passkey exploits
• Attacks require prior malware infection; methods ranged from impersonating victims to stealing the master secret protecting synced passkeys
• Google implemented fixes after disclosure, with some services (e.g., eBay) patching vulnerabilities directly

Security researchers from Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 have found three ways to exploit Google’s passkey system and log into people’s PIN- or biometrics-protected accounts.

They named these ways ‘Pass-ta-key’, ‘Silver Pass-ta-key’, and ‘Golden Pass-ta-key’, each being progressively more dangerous than the previous one.

While it sounds mighty dangerous, there are major caveats to the exploit, and some of the holes have been plugged already.

The biggest caveat is that the victim’s device needs to be infected with malware beforehand. Malware can do all sorts of things, from stealing session cookies to exfiltrating sensitive data, so if a device is tainted with malware, it’s already in trouble.

Still, Unit 42’s findings were important enough to warrant a fix from Google.

In the first technique, the attackers pretend to be the victim. By using malware, they can “ask” Google to log into a passkey-protected account as if it was the victim themselves. Usually, the service being logged into would require a PIN or a fingerprint to confirm the authenticity of the request, but in this scenario, that wasn’t the case.

The method doesn’t work everywhere, though. Unit 42 could not replicate the attack on GitHub, but they succeeded on eBay. The latter later fixed the problem.

In the second attack, Unit 42 managed to make Google “trust” the threat actor’s device, meaning the victim’s computer was no longer necessary.

In the third attack, the researchers managed to steal the “master key”.

Google Password Manager syncs the passkeys between devices, and to do that, it uses a master secret that protects all of the synced passkeys. The researchers found that, under certain circumstances, malware can grab this master secret while Chrome is temporarily using it, unlocking all of the synced passkeys, copying them to another computer, and being able to use them at a later date.

The researchers disclosed their findings with Google before publication, and some fixes were already implemented. Google is yet to comment on the findings and confirm that all of the flaws were addressed.

Via BleepingComputer

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