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[coolpoete]

Firefox Mobile is weeks away from alpha

Codenamed Fennec, Firefox Mobile is probably one of the most eagerly anticipated mobile apps around. We’ve seen the concept video and it looks awesome yet we know it will be even more game-changing once a release version emerges. While said release version is likely still relatively far off into the future, it now looks as though an alpha version is closer than we ever would have imagined. In fact according to an interview with Mozilla CEO John Lilly, we are now just weeks away from the first official alpha:
We want to make sure that the Web on mobile is more like the Web than what the mobile industry offers today, which is closed, separate networks and not a very good information-getting experience for the user. The first thing is to bring Firefox to mobile devices. We’re working on that, and we’ll see some alphas in a few weeks.
It remains a mystery as far as which devices will be supported initially. In fact, we don’t even know if the referenced alpha version will be available to the public or only to a select test group. What we do know however, is that Mozilla can’t crank this puppy out fast enough. Of course a version of Fennec has already been available for quite a while now - Nokia Internet Tablet users can download it directly from the maemo.org site. That’s all well and good but we can’t wait to see Firefox Mobile unleashed on cell phone platforms and we hope Mozilla is targeting a good mix of OSes rather than doing something crazy like focusing on Windows Mobile first…

[From Boy Genius Report]

[coolpoete]

Follow up article from WM Poweruser.com

Mobile Firefox - now running on Windows Mobile

The picture is not pretty, but what it represents is - Mozilla running in the Windows Mobile emulator, rendering a web page.

The new version of Firefox mobile, code-named Fennec, is already running on the Linux-based Nokia N810 tablet, but early released on the Windows Mobile platform will occur “within the next few months”, according to Jay Sullivan, Mozilla vice president of mobile.
Follow the progress of Firefox on Windows Mobile on Brad Lassey’s blog here.

[c1k1r1]

Sounds cool. Though didnt mozilla make a browser at one time called minimoz or something like that I seem to remeber using it at one point.

[coolpoete]

They did and it works better for touchscreen devices than smartphones. There were lots of bugs and it was slow. It's in the downloads section.

[coolpoete]

Another follow-up article from WMPowerUser:

In a rather impressive debut, Firefox Mobile, which has not even entered alpha release yet, already scored 88/100 in the Acid 3 web-standards test (wikipedia). This test measures how standards compliant a web browser’s rendering engine is, and therefore how accurately it will be able to display complex web pages. For comparison, the iPhone 3G browser only scores 74, wile making a complete hash of the rendering of the test, and the Opera Mobile 9.5 browser scores a lower 71 (but however renders the web page much more accurately than the iPhone browser). With results this good, and also reports that browsing is pretty past, I cant wait for this new entrant to arrive in the now-crowded Windows Mobile browser arena. See Brad Lassey’s blog to follow the latest developments.

[coolpoete]

Windows Mobile is all about having options, sometimes to a fault. If you want someone else to decide how you're going to use your device, go here.
That's why the advent of yet another browser for Windows Mobile is a time for celebration. Opera Mobile, Skyfire, Webkit — they all bring something to the table that Internet Explorer does not. And they're all different enough to make having more than one browser not seem silly.
We're eagerly awaiting the alpha release of Firefox Mobile, aka Fennec (we'll save you the trouble: It's a small desert fox), any day now. And after a quick read through Mozilla's mobile roadmap, we can sum up our excitement with a couple of points (after the jump).
Mozilla Weave

Fennec is being developed by Mozilla, makers of uber-browser Firefox, so it's pretty safe to assume that it should be a competent mobile browser. Fennec and Weave are where it can get really sexy.
A spin through that Fennec roadmap brings us a couple of juicy tidbits:
Release themes

In priority order, here are the key themes of the first Fennec release:
1. Simple, fast navigation to Web content 2. Compatibility with the Web 3. Secure 4. A "whole product" 5. A platform for innovation on mobile
Getting to Web content

• Awesome bar
• Search integrated into URL bar
• Password manager
• Weave

Simple and fast navigation to Web content, eh? Weave, eh? An explanation:
If you've ever used Activesync to sync your PIE favorites, or Foxmarks with Firefox to sync your desktop bookmarks, or the now-defunct Google Browser Sync, you're familiar with the premise. All of your browser's data — bookmarks, history, cookies, passwords, etc. — are stored in the Cloud and synced to whatever device you're using at a given time. That's what Weave does. Read more about Weave here.
Weave is still in its infancy. It's still pretty wonky. And if you don't have a log-in for the 0.2 prototype, you're out of luck, for now.
But many of us live and die by our bookmarks. And right now, there's no way to keep them synced among different mobile browsers. Fennec and Weave won't fix this. What it looks like it may do is allow synchronization between your desktop browser and your mobile browser, so that you don't have to have two and three and four sets of bookmarks. You'd just have one set, synchronized, presumably, over the air.
Still, we have to remember that it's just the alpha release of Fennec that we've been reporting on and waiting for. That's early stuff, and Weave might not even be implemented in the early builds.
The acid test

Another reason for our excitement? That Acid3 test result of 88 out of 100 that we saw on the Fennec version ported over from a Nokia device. The Acid Tests were developed as a way to check how a browser follows Web standards.
By comparison, here are results from my browsers on a Windows XP desktop, plus what I run on my Motorola Q9h:

• Internet Explorer 7.0.5730.13: Scored 12 out of 100 (I think) after about 30 seconds. It rendered so horribly it was hard to tell.
• Internet Explorer 8 beta (8.0.6001.18241): Scored 15 out of 100.
• Firefox 3.0.3: Scored 71 out of 100.
• Safari 3.1.2 (525.21): Scored 75 out of 100.
• Google Chrome 0.2.149.30: Scored 79 out of 100.
• Opera Mobile 6.5: Scored 3 out 100.
• Skyfire 0.8.0.68.43: Scored 52 out of 100.

So, Fennec appears to have a bit of browsing power under its belt. I'll be interesting to see how older devices handle it. That said, the Fennec roadmap lists Windows Mobile 6 as the earliest version supported.
Not quite drooling - yet

At this point, we're mildly excited about Fennec. Having more options on your Windows Mobile device is a good thing, especially one that's open source. We won't go into full-on drool mode until we see some actual hands-on video and get to try it for ourselves.
But Fennec is looking like it may be a fine addition, along with Skyfire and Opera, to our browsing arsenal.


[Taken from WM Experts.com]

[coolpoete]

First Firefox Mobile release candidate, er, released

We explained a little while ago a few of the reasons why we're looking forward to seeing Firefox Mobile, aka Fennec. Now, it's time to start playing.

Mozilla has posted "an early developer release of the mobile version of Firefox, for testing purposes only." [via Gizmodo]

And test, we shall.

Fennec still is only actually running on a Nokia 810. But you can get a taste of it now on your desktop or laptop computer. The full version of WMExperts.com loaded without a hitch (minus Flash, of course), and I got 90 out of 100 on the Acid3 test, which is in line with those early shots we saw. Yeah, it's a release candidate on a desktop PC, but we're still starting to get goosebumps.

Check out Mozilla's alpha release page here, then get your download on, be you a Windows, Mac or Linux OS.

[Taken from WM Experts]