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.
hey Brad, what phone is in the photo?
thanks
Andy B
NY, NY
Actually I’m not sure. I snapped this screengrab from the official Mozilla video. I haven’t had a chance to test the latest build myself. The last build I tried was an alpha version a few weeks ago.