firefox mobile

Mozilla on Windows Phone 7 – “We’re not going to bother.

July 10, 2010 | By Surur

Firefox is dead on Windows Phone 7

Christopher Blizzard, Director of Developer Relations and Open Source Evangelist at Mozilla spoke to Gizmodo about the future of their browser in the new order, where they are facing competition from Google on the desktop and mobile, and are also seemingly excluded from many mobile platforms, such as the iPhone and Windows Phone 7.

While the interview only touches on Windows Phone 7, is is clear the open source browser project has no love lost for the new OS.

Noting that they were going to do Windows Mobile because it “really needed a good browser”, he felt the restrictions related to Windows Phone 7 was too cumbersome to make it worthwhile.

“(Microsoft) said, ‘You can use stuff in Silverlight if you want, but you have to come through our app store, and we get to veto.’ We’re not going to bother….”

He was not too impressed with IE Mobile 7 either.

“They’re gonna ship some version of IE, which is gonna be terrible.” He went on “The wonderful thing about the mobile web is the people like being able to use modern browser platforms and Microsoft’s gonna single-handedly gonna drag that back.”

Of course the slow progress of the browser on Windows Mobile has meant Mozilla lost any fanbase they may have had rooting for a Windows Phone 7 port, but it is still disappointing that they are not even expressing any desire to be on the platform, especially given Microsoft’s expressed willingness to bend the rules regarding native applications for significant players.

Read the full interview at Gizmodo here.

Via The Deranged Shaman, thanks Serge Francis for the tip

26

Mozilla dropping mobile Firefox development for Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7

March 23, 2010 | By Surur

In a blog post Stuart Parmenter, Mobile Team Technical Lead, Mozilla Corporation, announced that the company will cease all development of Firefox for Windows Mobile.

Just like on Android prior to the release of the Native Developer Kit, the company blames it on the inability to develop native applications:

While we think Windows Phone 7 looks interesting and has the potential to do well in the market, Microsoft has unfortunately decided to close off development to native applications. Because of this, we won’t be able to provide Firefox for Windows Phone 7 at this time. Given that Microsoft is staking their future in mobile on Windows Mobile 7 (not 6.5) and because we don’t know if or when Microsoft will release a native development kit, we are putting our Windows Mobile development on hold.

Mozilla will soon disable the builds and test automation, and will only return to further development if and when Microsoft opens up the Windows Phone platform. The move comes as another blow to Windows Mobile, which is rapidly entering dead man walking status.

Via Techie-buzz.com

Thanks Cristian Adam for the tip.

34

Fennec Alpha 4 now available

February 19, 2010 | By Surur

Mozilla has announced a new Alpha for their Mobile Firefox product on Windows Mobile. The timing is opportune, as their project has been seen to be in doubt after comments by one of their executives suggesting they may wait till Windows Phone 7 is released.

New in this version is:

Improved interactions with the software keyboard
Fixed painting artefacts from panning
Faster .exe installer option
More responsive "fuzzy" zoom
Option to become default browser
Opening downloads from download manager fixed
Password echoing
Improved panning/scrolling performance
Improved start-up time
Numerous bug fixes
Improved painting performance
Improved UI polish
Improved kinetic panning with directional locking
Ability to scroll frames
Improved zooming support

The 10 MB cab can be downloaded, here.

6

Pocketfox now Fennec’s new logo

November 8, 2009 | By Surur

Mozilla has announced the result of their Mozilla Creative Collective’s “Firefox Goes Mobile” design challenge, and reported the winner was “Pocketfox”, by Yaroslaff Chekunov.

Yaroslaff, who is based in Krasnodar, Russia, cites as his design inspiration, “the Firefox itself, your approach to the web-site execution, and of course my wife who always brings up new ideas.”

The official emblem of the upcoming mobile version of Firefox will be used as an avatar on social networking sites, on mozilla.com, on t-shirts and more.

Do our readers feel the logo is dynamic enough to represent something as important as a cross-platform mobile browser? Let us know in the comments.

Via Pocketpcthoughts.com

8

Fennec Alpha 3 video review

September 7, 2009 | By Surur

Pocketnow has recorded this video overview of the FireFox Mobile Fennec browser for Windows Mobile Alpha 3.

The alpha brings faster start-up times, much improved panning, support for a wider range of screen resolutions and a few more features.

Read more and download Fennec Alpha 3 for Windows Mobile here or via your mobile browser using this tinyurl: tinyurl.com/fennec3

Note the cab is still a very large 9.5 MB.

7

Weave bookmark sync comes to Fennec for Windows Mobile

July 31, 2009 | By Surur

We may have jumped the gun a bit when we wrote a few months ago that Weave was available for Fennec for Windows Mobile. The latest version, version 0.5, however corrects the error, and the software now natively supports our mobile OS.

Weave Sync is encrypts and securely synchronizes the Firefox across multiple browsers, so that your desktop, laptop and mobile phone can all work together. In short, Weave Sync lets you securely take your Firefox experience with you to all your Firefox browsers — including your mobile Firefox browser.

It currently supports continuous synchronization of your bookmarks, browsing history, saved passwords and tabs and allows, for example to:

Get the same results on the Smart Location Bar on each of your Firefox browsers, so you can get to your favourite sites with just a few keystrokes
Continue what you were doing: have the ability to open any tab you have open on any of your Firefox browsers
Keep the same list of bookmarks on all of your Firefox browsers
Easily sign in to all your favourite sites using your saved passwords (this is especially handy on mobile phones, where it’s hard to type in complex passwords)
Do it all securely: Weave Sync encrypts user data before uploading it to Mozilla’s servers, so that only you can access your data

Version 0.5 brings major performance improvements during upload and download, improved support for bookmark tags and smart folders, support for changing passwords and passphrases, better error handling and reporting and of course support for Fennec on Windows Mobile.

Weave can be installed from Mozilla here. (requires Firefox 3.5 or higher)

Via LifeHacker.com.

1

FireFox weave released, syncs your browser sessions between your desktop and smartphone

June 29, 2009 | By Surur

Weave Sync 0.4 has just been released by Mozilla labs and now supports the new Fennec Alpha 2 for Windows Mobile. Weave Sync lets you take your Firefox experience with you to all your Firefox browsers. It currently supports continuous synchronization of your bookmarks, browsing history, saved passwords and tabs. For example:

Get the same results on the Smart Location Bar on each of your Firefox browsers, so you can get to your favourite sites with just a few keystrokes
Continue what you were doing: have the ability to open any tab you have open on any of your Firefox browsers
Keep the same list of bookmarks on all of your Firefox browsers
Easily sign in to all your favourite sites using your saved passwords (this is especially handy on mobile phones, where it’s hard to type in complex passwords)
Do it all securely: Weave Sync encrypts user data before uploading it to Mozilla’s servers, so that only you can access your data

Weave 0.4 brings:

Preference syncing (including Personas)
Identity support (automatic login, including use of OpenID logins)
Better support for addons using Weave
Support for Fennec 1.0 beta 2.
Significant improvements in performance during startup and opening new windows.

Weave 0.4 can for Firefox 3.5 (the only supported desktop version) can be downloaded from here.

Via LifeHacker.com

1

Fennec Alpha 2 – latest version if Firefox Mobile released

June 27, 2009 | By Surur

The Mozilla Foundation has released the latest version for their Firefox browser for Mobile devices. Alpha 2 brings the following improvements:

Improved panning performance
Newly designed theme
JavaScript error console is now built in
Improved add-on support
Numerous bug fixes
Improved UI polish

Unfortunately it would not be an Alpha is there were not plenty of bugs still. A major one may be that panning and scrolling in iframes have not been solved yet, meaning web sites like Google Mail and Reader remain difficult to use.

Download the latest alpha, for the HTC Touch Pro specifically, here.

Via WMExperts.com

1

First alpha for Mobile Firefox now available

May 15, 2009 | By Surur

The first Windows Mobile alpha for Fennec, the mobile version of Firefox has been announced by Mozilla.

Fennec has benefited from the delay however, with some important advances being implemented. The user interface controls have been rebuilt to be entirely CSS based, which allow it to be more easily adjusted for various screen sizes and resolutions in the future.

The release also supports Add-ons with a gestures module already being available.

The software is still targeted at the HTC Touch Pro and can be downloaded here.

See a video of the browser in action here.

Fennec – alpha 1 for Windows Mobile from Madhava Enros on Vimeo.

Mobile Firefox gets shown off

March 18, 2009 | By Surur

While the Windows Mobile version has hit a bit of a snag, the version of the Nokia N810 seems to have come on great, and the Mozilla team is readying a beta for the device soon. This video below shows the app in action, and it looks pretty good.

The latest news from the Windows Mobile Fennec team is that they have sorted out their memory allocation issues and are just about ready to move ahead. They have also implemented GPS and telephone dialler support.

Hopefully the Windows Mobile version can now also move full steam ahead and add to the already large library of great Windows Mobile browsers.

Via WMExperts.com

2

Fennec on Video

January 31, 2009 | By Surur

Pocketnow has managed to keep Firefox Mobile running long enough to make a 3 minute video of the app in action.

While the UI appears nice the app still looks slow and unresponsive. Hopefully this will improve rapidly in the coming months

Firefox Mobile coming to the Touch Pro next week?

January 27, 2009 | By Surur

WMExperts reports that Mozilla is close to releasing a first public release of the Fennec, the Firefox Mobile browser, on the Windows Mobile platform.

According the the notes from their weekly meeting, the release is just awaiting the code being signed of by one or two members of the team.

We are targeting a Milestone release for the first week of February, targeting the HTC touch pro.

We are two patches away from the meta goal of building from trunk. The tools changes have review from dougt, and are waiting for review from ted, who has promised review by the end of the week. NSPR changes are waiting for review from Nelson, who asked for and received a patch against NSPR trunk

Its likely the release will be far from bug-free and polished, but progress seems to be occurring apace, and we will hopefully soon have another contender in the now crowded Windows Mobile browser space.

Firefox Mobile released for Windows, get an early taste

October 17, 2008 | By Surur

While Firefox Mobile for Windows Mobile has not been released yet, one can get an early taste of the browser in action by running the desktop emulator version, which can be downloaded here.

GSMDome has done just that, and has recorded this video of the application in action.

As can be seem from the video, the rendering is pretty good. However in my experience, while double tap zooming works OK, there seems no way to do variable zooming as in Opera Mobile.

Read more about the release and download the emulator here.

4