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Mozilla Makes Prototype of Firefox OS Available

Posted by timothy on from the more-than-a-concept dept.

Thinkcloud writes "Even though the operating system hasn't arrived in a version for smartphones and tablets just yet, Firefox OS is available as a prototype module that you can run on Windows, Mac or Linux computers (download page). The initial Firefox OS phones are expected to arrive in 2013, and it's been reported that Alcatel and ZTE are the first manufacturers on board."

16 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. What Is To Be Gained? by organgtool · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The smartphone market already has a ton of operating systems, each with their own ecosystem of applications. What is to be gained by introducing another this late in the game? I would much rather Mozilla focus all of their development efforts on making Firefox better. I just switched from Chrome back to Firefox and the memory management of Firefox still leaves a LOT to be desired.

    1. Re:What Is To Be Gained? by telchine · · Score: 4, Funny

      Please be more specific. What do you desire from Firefox memory management?

      Siri, is that you?

    2. Re:What Is To Be Gained? by jedirock · · Score: 2

      Obligatory xkcd.

    3. Re:What Is To Be Gained? by organgtool · · Score: 4, Informative

      I tend to leave my browser open all of the time with quite a few open tabs. A few weeks after my switch to Firefox, my computer started slowing down while I was browsing the web. I figured one of the tabs had a JS proc that was running away with the processor, so I started closing tabs. After all of the tabs were closed, the computer was still slow, so I started the Task Manager. I couldn't determine why it was spinning the processor, but I did notice it was using 800 MB of RAM with no open tabs. I closed the browser down and restarted it and it ran fine, but I never need to do that crap in Chrome.

    4. Re:What Is To Be Gained? by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      I found the memory problems with Firefox disappeared in version ten.

      As far as the rest goes, some random thoughts:

      - The key selling point of FirefoxOS is that it's relatively lightweight in hardware requirements compared to Android et al.
      - Android and iOS are, to a certain extent, over-engineered. When Google's "reference design" phones (Nexus series) have battery lives measured in hours rather than days, with no sign that Google even gives a rat's ass (a Google exec was quoted as saying he carries around a spare battery for his Galaxy Nexus. The Nexus 4 doesn't even offer the option!) then it's fairly clear that light hardware requirements are a good thing.
      - FirefoxOS should encourage the development of HTML5 apps - HTML5 makes it relatively easy to create persistent apps that are stored on your device after being loaded once, can tell when you're offline, and can store information offline. These will work under iOS and, to a lesser extent, Android (I'm not sure why Android feels the need to make using HTML5 apps without a wrapper awkward.)

      That said:

      - There's a substantial difference in hardware requirements at the moment between Gingerbread and post-ICS Android operating systems. It appears that Google and the phone manufacturers aren't actually decommissioning Gingerbread at this stage. It's not impossible to imagine Google actually creating Android 2.4 at this stage, a version designed for lower end devices.
      - Android is an excellent operating system and it has mindshare. It's where developers who aren't iFanbois want to be.
      - HTML5 is, like its predecessors, a kludgy environment when it comes to software development. Building a user interface using the DOM makes OpenGL look like an elegant API.

      I'm going to sit this one out. I think it's nice Firefox are working on this, but it seems to me that it's existence should be a wake-up call to Google and Apple that they are, on one level at least, producing sub-optimal operating systems. If I worked at Google I'd be looking into whether some of Google's post 4.0 work could be rolled back into the 2.x branch, and I'd be seriously looking at whether the 2.x branch could be made even more efficient than it already is. I love Jellybean, especially 4.2, but I'd happily sacrifice some of the newer features for a usable battery life.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    5. Re:What Is To Be Gained? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Keep in mind that when a process frees memory, often* memory is generally still shown by the operating system as allocated to that process, even if it's paged out and mostly idle. Chrome is sneaky in that every tab is its own process, and when a process exits all of its allocated memory is completely reclaimed by the operating system. So Chrome could leak memory, but if you close that tab, it becomes irrelevant. *(a big part of this is whether it's anonymous mmap'd memory or just the break value of the heap)

  2. WebOS... by SCHecklerX · · Score: 2

    ... does it better. And chromeos is already moving along pretty quickly and will have a lot of apps from the gate.

  3. Competition Is Good by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The smartphone market already has a ton of operating systems, each with their own ecosystem of applications. What is to be gained by introducing another this late in the game? I would much rather Mozilla focus all of their development efforts on making Firefox better. I just switched from Chrome back to Firefox and the memory management of Firefox still leaves a LOT to be desired.

    Well, one thing that I would like to see is more free open source mobile operating systems. Right now Android is dominating and I'm afraid that this will lead to a stagnant ecosystem in the mobile operating system world.

    iOS is a good operating system but it can't compete with how cheap Android is and how pervasive it's becoming. You may think it's best for everyone to keep their heads down and concentrate on their bread and butter but I'd like to see someone challenge Android to be better. A natural monopoly could arise that causes Android development to stagnate and I don't think that'd be good for anyone.

    As a consumer, you should be excited that another genuine contender is attempting to enter the ring against this unstoppable behemoth.

    I love Android and I've used it as my mobile OS for the past three or four years but I wouldn't turn down another operating system that is open source and somehow better, would you?

    I just switched from Chrome back to Firefox and the memory management of Firefox still leaves a LOT to be desired.

    Firefox OS is part of their labs development. While you may have genuine concerns about their browser, I don't think they should shut down all their experimentation in the name of memory management (speaking of which my own personal experiences have been that their memory management is getting slowly better). Could you elaborate on what "a LOT to be desired" specifically is?

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Competition Is Good by plover · · Score: 2, Informative

      Nobody would argue that competition benefits the consumer. But how do you think they're going to effectively compete? What are the attributes where they could provide value that nobody else is delivering?
      Perceived quality of OS: iOS +++; Android ++; Windows Phone ++
      Perceived user OS experience: iOS +++; Android ++; Windows +++
      Perceived user App experience: iOS +++; Android (variable); Windows (unknown)
      Cost: iOS ---; Android -; Windows --
      App store monopoly: iOS ---; Android +; Windows ---
      App availability: iOS +++; Android ++; Windows -
      Coolness factor: iOS +++; Android +; Windows ?
      Compatibility with previous phone apps (can I transfer my Angry Birds high scores from iOS to Android?): (variable, depends on vendor support for the platforms)
      Vendor lock in (how much do I have invested in my existing phone that I would throw away if I switched?): (varies over duration of ownership.)
      Compatibility with friends phones: (entirely dependent on circle of friends)

      And I'm sure you can insert a dozen other factors here.

      Note that I'm not trying to start a flame war over the coolness of iOS vs Android vs Windows, I'm listing it as a user decision factor. If you want to give Android +++, iOS ---, and Windows +++++, go ahead.

      After you list these all out, you have to come up with weights. How heavily does the coolness factor come into the buying decision? What about cost? What do people think about ease of use? And it's not like these are solid numbers. At best, they're educated guesses based on market penetration studies and user surveys.

      So after all that analysis, where would Firefox OS fit? How would it break into the market? So far Microsoft has spent more money on advertising Windows Phone than Mozilla has ever had in total, yet they aren't exactly taking over the market. Are they counting on a very loyal user base? Are they going to provide fully open phones, yet have some magically strong UI guidelines that keep third parties in line for providing consistent interfaces? Are they going to give away the OS for free to phone makers?

      --
      John
  4. New phones by partyguerrilla · · Score: 2, Funny

    They're waiting for manufacturers to ship smartphones with 16GB of RAM before release.

  5. Can't wait for by AltF4ToWin · · Score: 2

    Opera OS. That shit is going to be off the hook.

  6. All software will expand by Evro · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I had a professor - an Emacs fan - who had a saying, "all software will eventually expand until it can send and receive email." It seems that needs to be amended to "all software will expand until it becomes an operating system."

    --
    rooooar
  7. Re:about:memory by seyfarth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Chrome runs a separate process for each window. I'm pretty sure Firefox is 1 process. With 1 process normally freeing memory does not return it to the OS. So closing a Firefox tab would not really shrink the Firefox process, while closing a Chrome tab would end a process and return its memory to the OS for re-use. It makes sense that Chrome might be better memory usage after extended use.

    --
    Ray Seyfarth, ray.seyfarth@gmail.com, http://rayseyfarth.blogspot.com
  8. about:memory by tuppe666 · · Score: 2

    Chrome runs a separate process for each window. I'm pretty sure Firefox is 1 process. With 1 process normally freeing memory does not return it to the OS. So closing a Firefox tab would not really shrink the Firefox process, while closing a Chrome tab would end a process and return its memory to the OS for re-use. It makes sense that Chrome might be better memory usage after extended use.

    The article is a little out of date, but you get the point.

    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/windows-7-chrome-20-firefox-13-opera-12,3228-12.html
    "IE9 uses half as much memory as most of the competition with only one tab open. Firefox has always had the lowest 40-tab memory usage total, but version 13 takes its single-tab total down to just 61 MB, which is right in line with Safari and Opera. What the composite score does not show is the speed at which the different browsers return memory back to the operating system. Chrome is the only contender to do this instantaneously. While Firefox and IE9 drop usage totals a great deal, they can take a minute to do so."

    As you see what you said does not refute my point, just adds to it.

  9. Nice one Mozilla... by korpenkraxar · · Score: 2

    They release this one day before Jolla will unveil their continuation of Meego: Sailfish OS, which likely will be a highly open platform as well. http://jollatides.com/2012/11/20/24-hours-to-go-great-expectations/

  10. Apple stopped supporting Leopard in 2009 by tepples · · Score: 2

    From this page: "Apple stopped supporting Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) in 2009". Have you tried upgrading to at least Snow Leopard, or failing that, replacing your over six-year-old PowerPC Mac with an Intel Mac?