Firefox Home Coming To iPhone, Browser Next?

siliconbits writes "Mozilla has launched an iPhone app called Firefox Home that gives iPhone users instant access to their Firefox browsing history, bookmarks, and the set of tabs from their most recent browser session. What's more, it provides Firefox Awesome Bar capability that enables people to get to their favorite websites with minimal typing." With the Mozilla blog promising "There will be more to come," can the full browser be far behind?

Comments

Re:Desktop?

[The MAZZTer]

There is an extension you need called Firefox Sync. Just install it and it walks you through the sync process. IIRC you just need to set up an account with a password and choose what to sync. The data is encrypted by YOUR password which they don't know (so they can't peek at your data). Works with Firefox for desktop and Firefox Mobile. It was called Weave when it was in development.

Keep an eye on labs.mozilla.org, cool stuff on there.

Re:Desktop?

[BZ]

> Will it require something on my desktop that then sends all the information from my
> browser to their servers?

Yes (though note https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Weave/Crypto for details; the only data the server sees is an encrypted blob).

> Does firefox do that currently now?

Only if you install the relevant extension. See https://mozillalabs.com/sync/

More insightful than it sounds

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdotters have an odd tendency to view things in terms of black and white, good and Evil-with-a-capital-E. Most corporations fall solidly within the Evil category. Slashdot assumes that companies are in business to screw their competitors and customers as much as posible.

The idea that companies are in business to do business doesn't register.

Awesome Bar

[Richard_at_work]

Please, not more 'Awesome Bar' stuff, its the bane of my life. Heres my problem with the 'Awesome Bar':

1. I start typing 'stackoverflow', with the intent of tabbing to 'stackoverflow.com'
2. At 's' I get one URL suggested, but not the front page. I have visited this page once before in living memory. Its not in my bookmarks either.
3. At 'st' I get another URL suggested, but not the front page. Again, I have visited this page only once before and its not in my bookmarks either.
4. Repeat the last two steps until I get to 'stackoverf' when it finally suggests the front page of Stackoverflow.com to me

And theres no way to turn it off. Fantastic. Highlighting the options in the url bar and hitting delete doesn't get rid of them either. Fantastic.

Re:Awesome Bar

[Dog-Cow]

I like the Awesome Bar. I think it's much more likely that you're an anal-retentive asshole.

Why not switch?

[nightfire-unique]

I honestly don't mean this as a troll. I just don't understand something here.

If application compatibility is an issue for you, why not ditch apple's proprietary device and buy one of the many Android devices? Or if you're a *nix user, an n900?

I'm truly baffled by the iPhone's continued popularity amongst my fellow engineers.

What would make this news ...

[Trufagus]

This is not news. Mozilla is free to put as many apps as they want on the iPhone so long as they follow Apple's rules. Unfortunately, Apple won't tell us what those rules are, but we have a pretty good idea that you can't say anything bad about Apple or powerful people, and you can't compete with any Apple technologies or strategic plans (e.g. what Google Voice did). So, it would be news if Mozilla puts Firefox on the iPhone without stripping out their HTML5 Ogg support since Apple has a financial interest in H264. If Mozilla gets Firefox on the iPhone by agreeing to tailor Firefox to Apple's wishes (e.g. strip out Ogg or anything else that Apple doesn't like) then that would be a total sellout on Mozilla's part.