Mozilla’s cross-platform VR/AR web browser Firefox Reality has come a long way in the last year, transitioning from an April 2018 preview to an official release on multiple platforms, then becoming HTC’s browser of choice for Vive devices. Today, Firefox Reality is arriving on the Oculus Quest, taking advantage of the standalone headset’s 6DoF hardware for a more compelling browsing experience.
The core element in the free app is a simplified web browsing and video playback interface that initially floats inside a cartoony, pseudo-3D environment — users can choose between backdrops ranging from a meadow to a cave and underwater settings. In addition to serving as a conduit to immersive VR web content, which can run in a flat or curved resizable window or completely fill stereoscopic VR displays, Mozilla supports 360-degree videos and traditional webpages.
Firefox Reality includes a feed to aid in discovery, but you can explore pretty much whatever you want from the web. To access content, you can call up a virtual keyboard to type, or you can use voice for searches, eliminating the need to peck at keys using the Oculus Touch controllers. Initially, Firefox Reality supports English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and both simplified and traditional Chinese.
Unsurprisingly, Mozilla includes support for private browsing, as well as default-enabled enhanced tracking protection against data collection by advertisers and ad networks. In the near future, Firefox Reality will add multi-window browsing support, more languages, bookmark syncing, and support for “the nearly VR-ready WebXR specification.”
The first Quest release is available now from the Oculus Store. It’s a small download at only 67MB and, as always, free.
