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Mobile Firefox Alpha 1 Released
An anonymous reader writes "Today Mozilla released development builds of its next mobile browser, Fennec 1.0 Alpha 1. 'The last eight milestones were building up to getting a stable browser with an easy to use interface. We really want to get Fennec in front of as many people as possible and get feedback.' To that end, Fennec has been made available for the desktop on Windows, Mac and Linux."
The OS X version is Intel only. This probably won't affect most of you, but it does kinda suck for those of us still on PPC machines.
This guy's the limit!
Indeed, that's exactly what the summary said. They made it "available for the desktop", "to get Fennec in front of as many people as possible".
Oh, I take that back. My bad. I read that "Mozilla Firefox", rather that "Mobile Firefox", as it actually said. It might still be arguable that "Mobile Gecko" would be a lot more accurate, though.
I honestly expected the anti-Firefox trolls to crawl out from under their bridges, but who woke you?
'Fennec' is a small fox with big ears. For extra geek cred it's nocturnal. It's not cute enough for a mascot by a long ways, but it does sort of fit.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
No, those aren't mobile platforms. But if you'd read the page, you'd see that they're making these available to help get the widest number of users to provide feedback re: the interface, as well as making it available for people to begin developing plugins for it. Of course, that will probably also lower the S/N ratio re: valid feedback.
This guy's the limit!
I'm really interested in trying Fennec on my actual mobile device. Oh well, I'm glad to see they're making progress.
Classic Slashdot: You did not read the article. The webpage is plastered with the word fennec because...that's what it's called. And you got modded up to 4 which means the moderators did not read the article.
check out the best blog ever:
http://oehlberg.com
I'd like to see a version for the iPhone, although I'm sure Apple would never let it see the light of day.
Slashdot traffic again brings down another blog.. For our next trick can we try the whitehouse.gov website?
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
And, in classic slashdot style, the site is dead before I make it there.
Dude... the " - Mozilla Firefox" at the end is because that's what you're using... :P
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
They sleep under the same bridge. Give him a break. He's a little groggy and couldn't bother to read the headline.
Fennec scores higher on the Acid3 test than Firefox 3.0.3. Well at least running on a windows PC
Are the firefox plugins going to work for fennec ?
It would be great if adblock plus would work !
It's not cute enough for a mascot by a long ways, but it does sort of fit.
How is this NOT adorable?
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
Or is Fennec solar powered? That would explain the ears.
Installed Fennec onto my N800 (OS2008). Slow as hell. I didn't think anything could be slower than MicroB, but they've done it. Plus you can't trigger the text input fields, I'm assuming they think everyone has an N810 with the built in keyboard.
Can't load gmail (which they even do in their example video). Sits and spins, and pops up a warning saying that a script is making Fennec unresponsive. Oh well.
Having said that, if you can get it to actually load and render a page, it does it really fast.
A sleeping mascot? Goes great with the speed of mobile data connections I guess.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Switching between the name and title when you edit the name/title widget is nice, but it means if you want to copy the name of the page you won't be able to select it.
Linux is a kernel, retard.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
At least I couldn't find them in the preferences page.
I'm curious to see how this performs on a real mobile device compared to Minimo. Wikipedia seems to indicate it's being pushed by the same developer, Doug Turner. I was never able to get even runnable performance out of Minimo, but there's definitely a market for a better mobile browser. I just updated my Q9m to WM 6.1 and Pocket IE is still garbage. The other alternatives like Skyfire & Iris show potential, but they are not there yet.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
And of course a RHEL4 desktop won't run it, wrong glibc version. When will people learn, either package it properly for a small set of distros or static link everything like netscape used to do.
Democrat delenda est
The linked article is already Slashdotted due to "exceeding bandwidth" or some such thing. No surprise there as it's a blog.
Going to the official Firefox site and searching for "fennec" matched nothing. Yea! With it being so easy to get, I'll be trying it "real soon now".
Ohhhhh, okay. That explains it. I was wondering why all the stories around here seem to be talking about Mozilla Firefox.
My blog
An African fox with large ears... Sort of like Obama, eh?
I wish I had mod points for ya buddy. ROFL
Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
He wasn't talking about Fennec in the webpage, he was talking about Firefox in the title. The title should have been "Mozilla releases Fennec 1.0 Alpha 1", or alternatively "Mozilla releases mobile browser based on Firefox". Also, it's impossible to RTFA now, the site has been slashdotted.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
So let me get this straight. I'd like Chrome (beta) for the desktop on Linux and OSX and can't get it, but I can get Fennec (alpha), a mobile browser, running on my desktop w/ Linux and OSX.
So far it seems pretty interesting, although there's definitely bugs (eg. my text disappears when I'm not typing a character), but hey it's an alpha. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes, although the interface is not geared towards Windows Mobile Smartphone, it seems to be best suited for a touchscreen at the moment.
On a side note, I didn't see any interface to specify a proxy, but I was able to set one through about:config. I have to go through an auto proxy so I just set the autoconfig_url to the URL of my proxy and the network.proxy.type to 2.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
The little shits are very fast and quiet when moving. I have one in my house that belongs to my girlfriend. I don't play with her much because she is too aggressive with me but she plays fairly nice with my girlfriend. Because of her very sharp teeth and her tendency to communicate with me using her mouth, I nicknamed her "the piranha". FYI, the fennec fox is the only fox the may be legally kept as a pet in the US.
Canadian, eh?
I really want to be able to run adblock, flashblock, and no script to keep my screen from being overtaken with adds on sites that don't have a mobile version... or even on those that do.
Of course, how can this be considered mobile without Palm listed. Pffft!
Well, I'm not really digging it ... "Targeted at Nokia N800/810 devices, with Windows Mobile a gleam in a developers eye, no plans to develop for Symbian, and iPhone not mentioned" ... nice big market share there.
I have one in my house that belongs to my girlfriend. I don't play with her much because she is too aggressive with me
And this, boys and girls, is an example of the fact that pronouns do not always enhance readability.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/fennec/1.0a1/releasenotes/
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
especially stupid considering Symbian S60 makes up well over half of the smartphone market worldwide - 64% last time I checked. Not that you'll notice this if you live in the States, land of Blackberry and iPhone, but it dominates the EMEA and APAC markets - I've been using several S60 phones from Samsung and Nokia for a few months for testing and they frankly blow everything else away in terms of usability (holy crap it's a PHONE FIRST), interface design (clean and extensible) and as convergence devices.
One problem with a Firefox browser for S60 is that it's playing catch-up to the likes of Skyfire and the integrated browser. It would be nice to see Firefox on smartphones though.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Amazing - Good show sir!
While this is true,by putting the browser out for desktops it gives users a chance to "try before they buy" and decide if Fennec is right for them. It also gives them a chance to report problem areas in the controls as well as ask for features. Besides there isn't anything wrong with having a lightweight browser for your desktop. For those that are curious I just download the Fennec for Windows and it is as simple as unzip and use.
Oh and for those that hate to RTFA(this is slashdot,after all) the link for the Windows version is here Linux here and Mac here.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The minimal UI would be perfect not just for mobile phones, but for other small-screen devices (I'd use it on my eee, for instance). This is obviously not the core market for Fennec, but I'd love to see an extension which added back just a few "desktop/laptop" conveniences:
Again, I'm not necessarily saying these should be folded into the core Fennec distro; "full" computers aren't its main market. But an extension would be nice.
Actually, both the fox and the girlfriend can be aggressive ;) I read that post a couple of times before posting and still missed the pronoun issue.
Dude... the " - Mozilla Firefox" at the end is because that's what you're using... :P
Mine says Vimperator, you insensitive clod!
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Neat-o. I'll have to install this on my slate-style Tablet PC; It's a fun toy, but you never realize how much you middle-click-for-new-tab until you can't any more.
I've sort of worked around it with Tab Mix Plus to open _everything_ in new tabs, but something more touchscreen centric would be nice.
--saint
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mobile/ :)
posted using fennec on aspire one running ubuntu
untar and click on fennec
it's a little strange scrolling is done by click and drag but its working wit fine on here
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
I'm impressed, my site works in it. While my web site validates and works in every desktop browser, not a single mobile browser so far (Pocket IE, Symbian browser, Opera Mini) supports it, but Fennec does.
I do have to say I'm not a fan of the back and forward button being hidden however.
What "- Mozilla Firefox"? It says "- Minefield".
eh? Both linux and OSX are used as mobile platforms. There's no way to develop Fennec for mobile OSX, though.
IIRC WinCE has a subset of the Win32 API.
So probably the platform glue layer for each of these desktop releases isn't astonishingly different than its mobile version.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I've tried installing this a couple times on an N810 (last week) and both times it completely messed up xulrunner. Couldn't remove it, update it, reinstall it, nothin'. If you are planning on testing it on an N810, make sure you are prepared to backup and flash if necessary (I was still able to use the device after xulrunner died, but my other browser, microb stopped working).
Windows mobile devices have the largest share of the market, why release it for a few specific nokia models if they want the largest number of users giving them feedback?
The desktop release don't count, desktop users will install it run it twice, think "ohh that's cute" and never run it again.
How about those of us stuck with pocketIE and opera's offerings both of which fail miserable on something as simple as a redirect.
My long-developed XUL application is completely screwed, the functionality in Fenek is at 30% maybe. For example, main menu doesn't work, image onclick event can't popup menu (or popup menu doesn't work at all?), all comboboxes are missing (but textboxes are there), mouse scroll button in tree doesn't work (cause it zoom the whole page), and now it completely crashed. While considering my last bugreport with MINIMAL TEST CASE was submited and completely ignored for 5 months, I think it's time to move on.
The one-click install didn't work, but the step-by-step instructions worked fine.
It seems to run pretty slow. Can't seem to enter any text into the address bar.
Disabled Javascript and now I can enter a URL - not sure if that's related.
It needs a lot of work (it is an alpha) but it's exciting that they've gotten this far.
You can, in fact, develop Fennec for mobile OSX. Any version released through the iphone app store could not include Javascript capabilities, though -- people could write their applications in js and release them through other channels in that case.
It seems like a big mistake to hide the back and forward buttons, the buttons that users are frequently going to want to use. I'd much prefer that they hide the Bookmarks button and put the forward and back buttons on the main screen so I can get to them without having to move the screen to the left first.
pw:secret
Any version released through the iphone app store could not include Javascript capabilities
Fennec uses JavaScript and XUL to render itself.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Opera Mobile's not a bad browser at all.
Yes it is, try any extended use on symbian S60v3 platform like Nokia E90 communicator and you'll see why. Frequent crashes (even the whole phone reboots), pages loaded only after n times of clicking the link, wrong keyboard maps, incorrect rendering of web pages (yes, that includes slashdot).
It's only good in one way: quite fast.
I have one in my house that belongs to my girlfriend. I don't play with her much because she is too aggressive with me
And this, boys and girls, is an example of the fact that pronouns do not always enhance readability.
Yes, but she's a fox.
90/100
acid3.acidtests.org
All I want for xmas is a WebKit browser.
The standard web browser for the N800/N10 devices is MicroB, which is based on Gecko and it's a royal piece of crap. It's VERY slow, buggy, non-intuitive, and lacking most of the standard features of any modern desktop browser. The only redeeming quality is that it does Javascript and Flash just as well as Firefox but of course orders of magnitude slower. With Nokia acquiring Trolltech, I figured we'd see a good WebKit-based browser around the corner, but the Nokia developers still seem married to Gecko. Nokia needs to completely rework Maemo from the ground with Qt and Wekbit if they ever want to create a decent user experience.
I downloaded Fennec onto my 2.6GHz deskop and my 320MHz MIPS N800. On the desktop, performance seemed to be about on par with Firefox (that is to say, decent but not great) and at 9MB, it's even about the same size. On the N800, it was completely unusable. It took almost a full minute to load and going back and forth between tabs and controls was painful. Scrolling pages sucked too.
I know it's still in alpha, but unless they can trim the size back by at least half and increase performance at least tenfold, it still will not be a viable solution until phones and Internet tablets start shipping with 1GHz processors. Gecko is just not a solution for embedded browsers.
Nokia needs to take Apple's lead and release a WebKit-based browser for their tablets and phones. WebKit is plenty fast, standards-compliant, stable, and above all, proven. The only thing my N800 does particularly well is download and play podcasts. I'd love to be able to actually use it as an Internet tablet.
Windows Mobile builds are fairly close:
http://blog.mozilla.com/blassey/2008/10/11/windows-mobile-update-3-fonts/
I know there has been interest in a Symbian port, but I don't know if anyone is looking into it. As opposed to something like the N810 (Linux) or Windows Mobile, porting to an entirely new platform is a bit more work, so it can take a significant effort. The iPhone port wouldn't be a huge amount of work, but the distribution would be a non-starter, so it hardly seems worth the effort.
... could use Fennec right now. :-)
what about firefox? omg, I cant keep firefox at home!
Just odd that the single biggest platform is the lowest priority on the dev list. N800/810 is "cooler", but hardly a notable marketshare.
They can't put it out on the iPhone because it would duplicate the functionality of Apple's Safari.
But if it's not on Symbian, it's simply not going to compete against Opera Mobile.
"Converged mobile device shipments (S60 phones) were 15.5 million (down from 16 million in Q3 2007) including 9 million Nseries and 3 million Eseries devices."
This comes from Nokia only. There are many other vendors producing Symbian handsets. When Symbian becomes open source and free, you may even see it on current J2ME "dumb" cheap phones.
As Opera did the unimaginable by not releasing Opera 9 beta for Symbian and now enjoying Windows Mobile bug reports rather than their own issues and as I remember Mozilla released a Windows Mobile version one time, I am just saying... Don't do same mistake again.
Unless Apple tells you privately that they will make it possible to release a full feature browser on iPhone, don't spare a byte of coding to it too.
Point is: Don't ignore Symbian. Especially for currently unrealistic iPhone or MS controlled Windows Mobile.
Just because Opera doesn't run on your favorite platform doesn't make it a bad browser. If it does run on a platform, it's excellent. Obviously there's a problem with your platform of choice which causes Opera to bug out. It works fine on other platforms.
Clever signature text goes here.
I think it is kind of cute
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:VulpesZerdaScratching_cropped.jpg