Mobile Firefox Reaches Alpha 1, Offers Desktop Version for Testing
Mozilla’s mobile version of Firefox, code-named Fennec, has reached the alpha 1 milestone. As with the previous, pre-alpha releases, Fennec alpha 1 will only work with the Nokia N800/N810 internet tablet. While Mozilla says that it has made great progress on the Windows Mobile version, there’s still no release available. There also won’t be an iPhone version anytime soon; as Mozilla execs have previously stated, Apple���s software requirements for the device are too restrictive.
There is, however, now a desktop version of Fennec available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
We know what you’re thinking, why would I want a desktop version of a mobile browser? The answer is you probably don’t ��� unless you’re interested in helping Mozilla test the mobile browser by experimenting, providing feedback or writing add-ons.
The focus for this milestone is the user experience and most of the changes from previous versions are UI-related.
I took the desktop version of Fennec for a spin this morning and found it usable, with a nice UI that’s vaguely reminiscent of Mobile Safari on the iPhone, but obviously there’s no basis for predicting what performance is like on an actual mobile OS.
As you can tell from the screenshot above, the desktop version of Fennec is considerably larger than its mobile counterpart.
Still, if you’d like to see what Mozilla is planning for the mobile world, you can grab a copy of Fennec alpha 1 from the Mozilla site.
If you already downloaded a copy of the mobile version for the desktop, be aware that the first release had the mouse cursor turned off. As Mozilla wryly notes, “this is good for touchscreen devices, but bad for desktop applications.” The oversight has since been corrected so grab a new copy and it should work just fine.
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