Next Steps for Wolvic

Back in 2018, Mozilla Labs announced its Firefox Reality XR Browser. Over the next 4 years there were significant shifts in the market, in the world, at Mozilla and in the standards space. While coined “Firefox Reality”, it was never an official project, and ultimately fell behind, suffering from funding and priority changes. Many in the community expressed concern that this likely left many devices without a browser at all, and left all XR devices without an open source browser choice, at a critical time. Based on discussions with companies in the community and Mozilla, Igalia worked to take over stewardship of the project in early 2022. Since then, we’ve brought it up to date and onto several popular platforms.

Reimagining the Role of Browsers in XR

From the outset, our goal was clear: establish that browsers in the XR space must be a norm, not an exception. We believed strongly that open source browsers should not only exist in XR, but thrive—and even become the default experience on XR platforms. We saw a future where users could rely on the web as a first-class citizen in immersive environments, and we worked hard to make that vision real.

We invested in development, modernized the codebase, and brought Wolvic to life across multiple new devices. We engaged with partners, hoping to build a coalition around this idea. With our partners’ help, we were able to deliver solutions for their use cases, advance Wolvic, and gain a lot of experience. Indeed, Wolvic became the default web browser on a number of XR devices.

Over time, however, our partners’ strategies shifted. Some have moved to AndroidXR, some to Harmony OS, and some have left the XR space altogether. With those changes in strategy have come changes in priority, and thus, one by one, the partnerships have ended.

A Challenging Landscape

This reality is compounded by several factors:

• The engine in production is Gecko, which lacks investment in the core XR features we need to be competitive.
• We did focus on a Chromium-based version due to its better performance and stronger feature set for XR, but during that time, Google announced its own XR browser efforts, further shifting the landscape.
• When the original architecture was conceived, there were no standard OS-level UI/UX expectations for XR. Wolvic’s architecture was designed to answer those questions—but now, those answers are duplicative and costly to maintain.

In short, the environment has changed. The technical and strategic assumptions that once made Wolvic viable have evolved, and without strong partnerships or engine-level support, it’s increasingly difficult to make Wolvic truly competitive.

What’s Next for Wolvic

Given these realities, Igalia is moving the main Wolvic project into maintenance mode. This means:

• We’ll continue to provide security updates a few times a year
• We’ll do minor maintenance work to ensure stability
• We’ll remain open to new partnerships and opportunities that could help reinvigorate the project
• We’ll use the money in the Wolvic Open Collective to cover a portion of the maintenance costs; Igalia will cover the rest

We still believe in the importance of open source browsers in XR. We still believe in the web as a platform for immersive experiences. But to make that vision sustainable, we need a new path forward—one that includes committed partners, shared investment, and a renewed architecture that aligns with today’s expectations. If you’re interested in helping shape that future, we’d love to talk. And to all our supporters, thank you.

Wolvic remains available in stores today, and we’re proud of what it represents. But the next chapter will require collaboration, vision, and a shared commitment to making the open web thrive in XR.