New Firefox For Android Beta Released

Mozilla has announced the availability of a new beta version of Firefox for Android. The release notes list many of the new features and fixes, which include Flash support, improvements to panning and zooming, plugins loading only on touch, and a new "Awesome Screen." They point out that many Android phones are supported, and that a beta version for tablets will be coming soon. Mozilla is asking for help "testing everything from the faster startup and response times to compatibility for specific websites and graphics performance." Here's the download page.

Comments

Didn't you get the memo? Maemo is dead.

[OliWarner]

As much as I hate to say it (as a N900 pre-orderer), the N900 is dead. The community is split between fourteen different forks and forks of forks and most of its users seem to have moved on to more popular devices (Android and iOS - I doubt too many bought another Nokia/WP7 after what Nokia did with the N900).

Anyway all these together make for a rather unwelcoming development platform. You can't blame people for dropping it.

What's special about this version?

[shutdown -p now]

They release new Android betas pretty often - there have been half a dozen last year, for example. What makes this version so special that it warrants a /. front page story?

Re:What's special about this version?

[markdavis]

>"What makes this version so special that it warrants a /. front page story?"

Because it is the first Firefox for Android that uses the Android user interface, instead of a totally foreign one. It is a pretty big milestone.

If they can improve the speed to match (or at least approach) the native Android browser AND support Adblock, I will absolutely use it for 100% of my mobile phone and tablet browsing, like I already do for all my desktops.

Re:What's special about this version?

[evilviper]

Firefox on android has always been a dog slow, steaming pile of crap. I just downloaded the Beta, and it seems this new version FINALLY isn't... It starts up pretty quick (the old one takes forever) have gotten rid of the nightmare UI elements like scrolling off the left & right sides of the web page to see controls and tabs.

Plus, Flash support is a big deal, that it should have had from the start.

I've kept Firefox around as a last resort, because web pages that won't work on any other Android browser, even with the user agent switched to desktop, usually DO work with Firefox, but otherwise, refuse to use it. The latest beta sure cranks down the pain level by leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, almost no ad-ons work for it right now, so I can't test much, and it looks like It's still a long way from something I'd use as my primary mobile browser, but it seems to be a hell of an improvement.

Re:What's special about this version?

[kangsterizer]

This is the Android native version. The old beta was the XUL version.
It is very different from the last beta in almost all regards.

XUL:

- XUL UI
- Electrolysis (one process per tab and uses a lot of memory)
- Supports all XUL addons
- No flash
- Native as in NDK

Android Native:

- Android UI
- Asynchronous UI and renderer (gecko), much reduced memory footprint with many tabs
- Flash
- Native as in Android UI native, Gecko is still using the NDK.
- Needs specific addons.

No Adblock :(

[markdavis]

Ug- unlike the non-beta, this one has no Adblock Plus support (yet). That is the major reason for Android Firefoxt (well, that, and no Google-overlord spying as with the stock and Chrome Android browsers). Hopefully this will come soon.

Also looks like no tablet support for it yet.

Also still looks like you have to install an Addon to get it to switch to non-mobile presentation mode. That is annoying and should be built-in.

Re:No Adblock :(

[Calos]

(well, that, and no Google-overlord spying as with the stock and Chrome Android browsers)

Out of curiosity, has anyone seen any evidence to back this up, or is it just speculation?

Not saying I don't understand the cause for concern, but, given the number of people suspicious of anything Google, you'd think someone would have some evidence were it a problem.

A new FF story every day

[Hentes]

With the rapid release schedule a story for every FF release would already be more than enough, but now we are getting a new story for a BETA for every platform?

Re:A new FF story every day

[cpu6502]

You read my mind. Firefox coverage here is ridiculous and overdone. Meanwhile other browsers like Opera and seaMonkey are basically ignored when they have new releases.

Re:Don't forget about mobile AdBlock Plus

[MachDelta]

If your Android is rooted, try AdFree. It's a blacklist for your hosts file to block ad servers from almost any app, not just the browser.

Re:Why?

[sethstorm]

It would be nice if Firefox for Android supported all the desktop add-ons

That would heavily depend on the addons being architecture independent.

Re:Let me know when Android devices equal the N900

[evilviper]

* Root-out of the box
* Hardware QWERTY
* Removable SD storage
* Large internal storage
* Works with T-Mobile 3G/4G bands (if not just the latter)
* FM+RDS Transmitter
* USB Host
* Onboard Wifi that can be repurposed for carrier-hostile tether
* Debian-based userland
* Relatively curve-free body (unlike most everything HTC).

Devices aren't rooted out-of-the-box, but it's trivial to root any Android device. USB cable to the PC (Linux/Windows/Mac) and run a shell script to invoke ADB and transfer the SU APK. Really, really simple.

Hardware QWERTY is very easy to come by with Android.

Just about all new Android phones have removable microSD.

Size of internal storage varies from phone to phone. If you're willing to spend good money, you can get at least 64GB. Personally, I'm perfectly happy with very limited internal storage, and relying on said swappable microSD cards.

I'm sure you can find plenty that'll work on T-Mobile's network. Personally I'd strongly recomend looking at Sprint first, though...

FM Transmitter seems like a ridiculously silly requirement to me, (long-live bluetooth) but I imagine you can find an Android phone that has it.

Any high-end Android phone will support acting as a USB Host... And if it doesn't, you just need to root it and install the appropriate app.

Once you've rooted the phone, you can install a plethora of Wifi Tethering apps. There's at least one that claims to work without root, but I can't vouch for it... YMMV.

Lots of people install a Debian userland on their Androids... It only gets ugly if you want to run X11 apps (NX Client, for me), and I'm hopeful that the new X server will get up to snuff soon.
 

Too slow

[Turmoyl]

Just like its predecessor, this beta loads content too slowly to be usable as a daily driver. In high contrast there's the Opera mobile browser, which is the fastest page renderer I've found on Android yet. I'll also take Opera's "speed dial" feature over Firefox's "loathsome bar" on any given day.

STILL no text reflow on zoom? What the heck?

[TheEyes]

Seriously, the stock browser has been able to reflow text on zoom practically forever; why doesn't Firefox Mobile?

This is the killer feature for me; with my poor vision I always have to zoom in pretty far to see anything on those tiny screens, and being forced to pan left and right to see every line is a huge pain. I like FF for its bookmark/password sync functionality, but when it comes to actually reading anything it's almost easier to copy the bookmark out of Firefox into the stock browser and go from there.

Worthy of note

[dark_requiem]

This story is worthy of note. As others have mentioned, this is the first beta release to use the Android native UI instead of xul. I can attest it is *dramatically* faster, night and day. The previous xul-based builds were largely unusable, taking 30 seconds just to start, even on my heavily oc'd phone. The new native UI builds run smoothly and fluidly. I've been using the native UI builds since they were first released as nightlies (currently on Firefox 15 nightly), and they're a big step forward.

That being said, these do have some big downsides. The native UI builds dropped support for things like text selection, copy/paste (can't copy what you can't select), and generally feel unpolished. Once all the features from the xul builds are available in the native ui builds, it'll be the best browser around, hands down. Until then, it's a nice tech demo from Mozilla.

Re:New permissions, no explanation for why

[kbrosnan]

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-firefox-android-use-permissions-it-requests not sure if the most recent changes made to it for the Beta are live.

Re:Don't forget about mobile AdBlock Plus

[Calos]

Better yet, some work is going on for an Android port of Privoxy. Much better control and more robust than IP-based blocking.

stupid slashcode...

[advocate_one]

slashdot really NEEDS to fix the experience for mobile browsers... I've just tried the new beta on this site and it's a fscked up experience... just logging in is a real pain as the fancy login window doesn't work well with the onscreen keyboard... and the tabs and links on the pages do not work very well either... touch one and 9 times out of ten, nothing happens... even when zoomed right in on it... the tabs at the bottom of the page don't work either so you're stuck with whatever stories are shown on the front page...