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Mozilla Releases Firefox 4 Beta For Android, Maemo
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla has released the first beta of its Firefox 4 for Android and Maemo. The browser is based on the Firefox 4 core and should be released in the same time frame as the big brother. The mobile browser includes Firefox Sync, a cloud feature that enables users to sync browsing history, passwords, form-fill data and bookmarks, as well as open tabs." Android news site Androinica also mentions the release, and provides a small tutorial on installing beta apps for Android.
Sigh, I wish that meme would die a horrible death. Fennec is new and they haven't worked all the bugs out of it, but the whole firefox ZOMG memory leaks thing is really, really old.
I've tried the portable version and it does have issues, but I haven't seen any evidence of leaks yet. Although admittedly since I've been using daily builds, I haven't been using it very much.
They should just go to 9 and reflect the fact that they're ahead.
It uses 50MB RAM on boot, that's alot, but the app has worked pretty well for me so far. It's not bad, and the potential shines through. Sync works nicely, but there are some bugs with form data (saved data doesn't show up some times). Doesn't seem to like swype much, and forgets to bring up the software keyboard half the time. Page load times are a few seconds slower than stock android 2.2
Tested on my Samsung Galaxy S GT-i9000 running froyo XXJPK
Ugly font rendering and kinda jerky on my G2. Also uses a fuckload of ram and storage. I'm not impresses.
Everything is patent encumbered, if we worried about that sort of thing nothing would ever get done.
I just tried it and couldn't post here it was so aweful.
Font and/or font rendering was aweful (had to be much larger than either dolphin or default to be readable)
Double tap did not zoom enough (about 85 characters, I think it's keeping the pixel count true, but when I zoom I expect my characters to have at least one pixel between them, and many don't).
Slow, but I expected that as it's a beta.
The start page looks nice.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I installed it on my Nexus One and tried posting this from there, but it's still way too unstable to do that (it didn't crash, but it kept scrolling/resizing in weird ways).
It's much improved over the Alpha, but one thing still bugs me.
Sync won't let you use your own server.
Firefox Sync is /the/ killer-app for me. It's really the only reason I'd want to use a different browser (barring EXTREME speed improvements), and they've neutered it to the point where it's, well, pointless. I've seen people request this feature ever since the pre-alpha days, to no avail.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
First big issue for me: the sync credentials page use some non-Android text box, so I can't copy my username/password from my password keeper and paste them in. I use large ugly generated passwords for stuff like that and I REALLY don't want to have to type them.
Waze does this crap too; why program *AROUND* the interface provided!? Seriously, your text boxes aren't precious snowflakes that are so special as to not use what the OS gives you (and supports).
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
Firefox Sync encrypts everything locally using your passphrase before sending to their server.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Weave/Developer/Crypto
Dilbert RSS feed
9 AND a fucking second foaming aloe strip!
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Good thing they can't, then, since all Sync data is very strongly encrypted, and only you get a copy of the encryption key.
There's a bug that causes random system freezes on the original Droid and the Droid 2: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=602252 Unfortunately we just discovered this today, too late to fix it for beta 1. We'll fix it before the stable release, of course.
Really every application leaks memory. I use Firefox and will continue to use Firefox regardless of it leaking on my desktop. Sure the portable version leaked early in Alpha stage a bit more than preferred from what I hear, but what I said was meant as a joke not an insult towards the device. My comment...
More ways to leak memory!
...also was completely ambiguous in relation to the four bullet points above I have no idea why people rated it as a troll, until I read your comment:
Sigh, I wish that meme would die a horrible death.
hedwards, I really am only halfway in tune with the latest memes it seems and I can see how my comment could have been annoying if everyone keeps on saying that memory leaks memory leaks (sorry Slashdot, oops)
There is a little red line that tells me when I am an idiot and cannot spell. I need a blue line or some different color to tell me where potential meme infringement may occur...
cheers
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
Actually, it has 256 megs of RAM and 768 megs of swap on an internal flash device.
Everything is patent encumbered, if we worried about that sort of thing nothing would ever get done.
And if we didn't worry about that sort of thing, nothing would ever get done because your business would be liquidated to pay damages to the plaintiffs who have successfully sued you.
Dude, please don't sit there and pretend 768 MB of swap is anything like 768 MB of actual RAM. Seriously, just don't. Furthermore, a rooted Android device can be configured for as much swap space as your heart desires as well as compressed cache.
It's a really huge application in the Android world, though.
I hope the RCs and the finale releases will be slimmer.
And I hope it will get its way to the market.
And I hope Google will release Chrome for Android as well, a main missing app there.
Welcome the the mobile browser wars.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
You can install Firefox Sync on your own server (like I have), and then Mozilla won't even see your encrypted data.
http://tobyelliott.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/weave-minimal-server/
Boot time (initial start of FF when not returning to it, but used a task killer) is as slow as booting my Ubuntu 10.04 desktop 64bit system with 8Gb RAM - not good.
Firefox does render a page nicely, without much difference from the desktop version, but renders it in fullscreen (entire page on screen).
No setting for "mobile view".
No easy setting for default zoom level. When following a link, the next page is rendered at the same fullscreen zoom, so new zoom is needed.
Click an Ajax link that updates a
and the browser returns to the top of the page - not optimal, but it didn't reset the zoom...
There aren't any customizations that are easily available, not enven enough to compare with a small fast browser like DB mentioned above or SkyFire. The general look/feel of FF for Android is a very basic app that should still be in alpha as the customization menu is very odd and not polished compared with other smaller and similar programs.
Mozilla, please don't make Android apps that divert from the way Android apps are supposed to do, use the menues, and respect the backbutton when pressed... aka kill your current download/render of a page if the backbutton is pressed, don't continue working on something that the user want's to stop.
My device is HTC Desire with latest HTC Android 2.2, so it is not an old G1 I'm using, though FF4 beta for Android feels like it is running on a G1.
My moment is running 2.1 Android and the app kept crashing. I uninstalled it.
I have nothing clever to put here...