Ah-ha! Finally! Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to try Firefox (or Fennec, as the mobile version’s still currently called) on my phone? Ages, that’s how long. Sure, there was a version of it earlier in the year, but you had to have a Touch Pro to try it out at the time. Which was annoying, because I haven’t.
However, Mozilla have released a new ‘alpha2′ version of Firefox, or Fennec Alpha 2, or whatever they’re calling it this week, and now, anyone with a Windows Mobile phone can try it out for themselves!
Well, I pretty much had to download it, didn’t I…
So, the big question is, what’s it like? Well, the ‘alpha2′ bit should give you a clue that it’s a really early version. So it’s slow, unresponsive, hasn’t been in the slightest bit optimised, and is generally a bit of an anticlimax.
Will it be fixed before release? Oh yes.
Will it, therefore, when it does get a final release, be any good?
That’s the question, isn’t it? When it does go on general release, will the holy grail of mobile browsers (as a lot of people have alluded to it being) actually be much cop? Well, I’ll be frank, yes, the alpha version isn’t that great. It clearly needs a hell of a lot more work doing to it, but one thing is for certain: when they do get it fully optimised, mobile Firefox is going to be a stunning web browser. The controls seem broadly similar to Opera Mobile, the one I use now, with features like double tap to zoom, and full kinetic scrolling (the one where you swipe your finger and the page keeps scrolling, before slowing to a stop, with real world physics, and everything).
One thing it has that Opera Mobile doesn’t, though, is the superb range of add-ons that makes Firefox the superb browser that it is. Yep, that’s right, the mobile version will have add-ons as well, and when they get the usability issues sorted out (which they will, because this is still a very early version), Firefox on your mobile phone is going to be brilliant.
But will it beat Opera Mobile?
Arrrrrrrrgh, I can’t decide! I can’t make my mind up, between the two, which’ll be better! We’re just gonna have to wait and see…
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