Mozilla has released a new version of Firefox 4 beta for Google Android and Maemo devices. The latest version definitely launches faster and loads web pages more quickly than previous builds. Mozilla says it scores higher than the stock Android browser in JavaScript benchmarks, and I can confirm that it was roughly twice as fast on the SunSpider test. But the browser still feels slower and more awkward to use than Google’s WebKit-based browser.

Scan to download

Firefox still doesn’t support Adobe Flash, it shows checkered boxes for parts of a web page that haven’t fully loaded, and when you zoom in and out, there’s always a second or two when text looks fuzzy before it comes into focus.

That said, Firefox Mobile has come a long way since the first beta hit mobile devices. The browser is almost fast and stable enough to consider using as a primary web browser. It also supports third party add-ons, and there are about 200 available at the moment. CPU usage has been reduced, and it’s easier to set up synchronization between the desktop and mobile versions of Firefox.

There are few mobile browsers that come close to matching Firefox’s extensive set of features including the details history and bookmarks views, tabs, add-on and download managers, synchronization, privacy, and formatting settings. But despite the high scores in JavaScript benchmarks, Firefox 4 beta is still just a little too slow when it comes to everyday web browsing. Hopefully Mozilla can address the overall browser speed before launching the final version of Firefox Mobile.

You can find more details in the release notes. Firefox 4 beta for Android is available from the Android Market or from the Firefox Mobile web site. You can also grab the Maemo version from the Firefox site.

Read the rest of this entry »

After months of alpha testing, Mozilla has dropped the Fennec codename and launched Firefox Beta for mobile. The latest version of the mobile browser is still in beta, which means there may still be some bugs and it’s possible that not all of the features have been finalized. But Mozilla is at least confident enough in the mobile browser to give it the Firefox name.
Firefox Beta for Mobile is available as a free download for Android 2.x and Maemo devices.

The browser includes mobile versions of some of the features we’ve come to expect from the desktop version of Firefox, including the awesome bar which lets you enter a URL or search term in one place. It also provides quick access to your bookmarks and history.

Firefox Mobile also includes Firefox Sync, which lets you synchronize some of your settings with the desktop version of Firefox — including open tabs, so you can continue reading a site easily on your phone when you walk away from your desk.

There’s also support for add-ons, although not all of the extensions designed for Firefox will work with the mobile browser. In fact, most won’t… for now.

Mozilla says the developers have been working on overall performance and responsiveness, which is something I definitely noticed last time I took an alpha version of Firefox Mobile for a spin. That said, it’s still not the fastest browser around, and Firefox Mobile is still a bit of a resource hog, taking up around 30MB of disk space which can be problematic if you have a phone like the Google Nexus One which has only 192MB of internal storage space available for apps.

Mozilla has launched the first Alpha version of Fennec 2.0, which is code for the mobile version of the Firefox web browser. Fennec 2.0 is available for download for Google Android 2.0 and up or the Nokia N900 smartphone running Maemo Linux.

Fennec 2.0 Alpha uses the same page rendering engine as the desktop version of Firefox, but it’s optimized for mobile devices with small, touchscreen displays. You can access a list of open tabs, for instance, by swiping the screen to the right, or view other settings by swiping to the left.

Fennec supports add-ons, with support for Wikipedia, Twitter, and other search add-ons as well as extensions that add or improve features such as URL Fixer, a plugin that corrects common errors when you’re typing out a URL. While Mozilla says Fennec is the first mobile browser to support add-ons, I suspect the developers of Dolphin HD for Android would beg to differ.

Mozilla has also built in Firefox Sync functionality, which allows you to synchronize your browsing history, bookmarks, passwords, open tabs, and other information between Fennec and your desktop version of Firefox.

If you’ve been following the development of Fennec for Android and Maemo, you probably won’t find many surprises in the latest release. But it’s a bit more stable than previous builds, and this is the first version of Fennec I’ve tried that can be installed to an SD card on devices running Android 2.2. Even after moving the app to the SD card, it still took up more than 17MB of my phone’s primary storage space, but that’s better than the 28MB it used before moving some files to the SD card.

The browser is still slower than almost any other Android browser I’ve tested. It takes a while for pages to load, and zooming and scrolling aren’t particularly fluid. But we’re still looking at Alpha software. Hopefully things will get better before Mozilla officially launches Firefox for Mobile.

You can check out a demo video after the break, as well as a few more images.

Fennec 2.0 is available as a free download from Mozilla.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mozilla is continuing to work on a mobile version of Firefox for Google Android and Maemo devices. The project, which is code-named Fennec, has been in the works for a while, but one of the developers says that we should see the first alpha build of Fennec 2.0 soon, once some key bugs have been worked out.

In a blog post, Matt Brubeck also points out some of the other changes that you’ll find in the latest builds of Fennec. That includes a new Find in Page feature which lets you search for tex, the ability to share links through Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader, or email, and the ability to use your phone’s address book to make entering phone numbers and email addresses faster.

Multitouch capabilities are also baked in, although right now that just means pinch to zoom. More multitouch gestures should be available in the future.

One of the coolest features is the built in Firefox Sync utility, which will synchronize your bookmarks, history, and open tabs with the desktop version of Firefox. While you need to install the Firefox Sync add-on to a desktop browser to enable this feature, it comes built into the mobile browser.

Mozilla still has a lot of work to do. While Fennec is running faster and more smoothly every time I test it, I never keep it loaded on my Nexus One — and that’s because the app takes up more storage space than any other app I run on my phone. Mozilla is either going to need to reduce the footprint of Fennec or give users a pretty compelling reason to install an enormous app which in many ways simply duplicates the functionality of the web browser that comes built into every Android pone.

On the other hand, phone makers are including more storage space and RAM and faster processors all the time. Maybe the point will be moot soon.

You can check out the latest builds of Fennec at the Mozilla FTP site.

via Droid Life

Documents To Go has been allowing smartphone and PDA users to open and edit Microsoft Office documents for ages. The software is available for BlackBerry, iOS, Android, WebOS, and Windows Mobile. And now the company has launched a version for Maemo 5, which means you can run Documents To Go on the Nokia N900.

The Maemo app lets you view and edit Word and Excel files, with support for Microsoft Office 97 through Office 2010 files. There’s also support for password protected files.

The original formatting stays intact, and the app supports multiple zoom levels to make it easier to view large documents on a small screen.

A full version of DataViz Documents To Go for Maemo will set you back $29.99, but there’s a 30-day free trial download available as well. There’s also a $9.99 version that lets you view (but not edit) documents.

via ZDNet

Mozilla is going all out on the mobile front this week. On Wednesday the company submitted Firefox Home to Apple for inclusion in the App Store. The app isn’t a full-fledged browser, but it brings your Firefox bookmarks and browser history to the iPhone. And now Mozilla has also released Firefox 1.1 for the Nokia N900 smartphone running Mameo Linux.

To be honest, Maemo is an all-but-dead platform, with Nokia and other smartphone makers moving on to MeeGo. But Maemo was the first mobile platform to get a version of Firefox, and the Android version of Firefox is still in the pre-alpha stages.

In the meantime, by looking at Firefox 1.1 for Maemo, we can get a pretty good picture of what the full version of Firefox for Android will eventually look like.

The latest version comes with a number of new features including:

• Automatic updates of add0ns
• Autocomplete and other form assistant improvements
• Use the phone’s volume keys to zoom
• Save web pages as PDF files (making it easier to email pages to your desktop for printing)
• Improved Site Menu
• New context menus for opening links in new tabs and saving images
• Support for portrait and landscape mode
• Ability to “forget” passwords for web sites

You can find out more about Firefox 1.1 for Maemo in the release notes. You can download the app from a Nokia N900 by visiting Firefox.com/m/. There are also builds for Windows, OS X, and Linux if you want to try out a development version of the mobile web browser.

via Stuart Parmenter’s blog

The latest release of the Firefox web browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux desktop computers includes a feature that prevents the browser from crashing if a plugin gets out of hand. In other words, a Flash video using up all of your CPU cycles isn’t going to cause all 12 browser tabs you have open to go kaput.

Soon, the same feature will be available in the mobile version of Firefox, code-named Fennec. The feature is called Electrolysis, and basically it allows different browser tabs and different types of web content to run as separate processes. That means that if only one element of your web browsing experience fails, the rest of the processes can keep on keeping on.

The new feature should be part of Fennec 2.0… whenever that’s ready for release. Fennec 1.1 still hasn’t officially been launched yet.

Typically, the version of Fennec for Maemo Linux gets new features first. Later we should see them show up in the Android version of the web browser.

Mozilla also plans to bring the Layers project for accelerated rendering to Fennec.

via Android Central

Skype may not plan on launching video chat software for Google Android until later this year, but if you have a Nokia N900 you should get the feature later this week. GigaOm reports that Skype will roll out new software soon that will allow 2-way voice and video chat with Skyper users on any platform.

That means you’ll be able to pick up your Nokia N900 phone and make a video call to users on a PC or on another N900.

The Nokia N900 runs the Maemo operating system, which is a custom version of Linux optimized for mobile devices. That makes it an ideal platform for rolling out experimental new software like a Skype video chat client, since Skyp’s desktop Linux app already supports this feature.

But Skype plans to make 2-way video calling available on all of its mobile platforms. So hopefully any phone with a front-facing camera including the upcoming 4th generation iPhone as well as Symbian and Android phones should eventually be able to support Skype video calls.