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."

Comments

OS X Intel Only

[gEvil (beta)]

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.

Re:Windows Linux Mac.

[Dolda2000]

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".

Dead

[Mehetabelo]

And, in classic slashdot style, the site is dead before I make it there.

Re:Mobile browser for desktop OS?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fennec A1 is available for the Nokia N800/N810 internet tablet. The desktop versions are merely for those people who don't have a targeted mobile device, but want to see the browser

Re:Mobile browser for desktop OS?!

[felipekk]

Or developers. From the blog entry:

"That's right, you can install Fennec on your Windows, OS X or Linux desktop too! We want you to be able to experiment, provide feedback, write add-ons and generally get involved with the Mozilla Mobile project, even if you don't have a device."

Re:More Standard compliant?

[i.of.the.storm]

And Firefox 3.1 nightlies score better than that, around 93/94 if I recall correctly. Fennec is running nightly versions of Gecko.

Minimo2

[SlashdotOgre]

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.

Re:Minimo2

[Colonel Korn]

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.

Opera Mobile's not a bad browser at all.

Re:Article already Slashdotted

[jDeepbeep]

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".

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/FennecVision

Re:Article already Slashdotted

[jDeepbeep]

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".

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/FennecVision

Here's the actual FTP links http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/fennec-1.0a1.en-US.win32.zip http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/fennec-1.0a1.en-US.mac.dmg http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/fennec-1.0a1.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2

Re:Article already Slashdotted

[orclevegam]

After some poking around and a bit of google-fu I found this: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mobile/ which has all the builds. There's also instructions in installing it on a Nokia N810 here.

Re:Windows Linux Mac.

[J05H]

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.

Re:Windows Linux Mac.

[blackest_k]

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

Re:Firefennec?

[Tubal-Cain]

No, Fennec is a (small) species of fox that has large ears

N810 users beware.

[supernova_hq]

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).

Re:N810 users beware.

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Try this:
http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23909&highlight=xulrunner

Just installed it on my n800

[dbc001]

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.