Firefox Arrives On Android

Barence writes "Mozilla has launched a 'pre-alpha' version of Firefox for Android smartphones. The mobile version of Firefox, codenamed Fennec, has until now been restricted to Maemo Linux handsets. But following a surge in developer effort, Mozilla has unveiled a build for handsets running Android 2.0 or above. Mozilla is making no guarantees about the browser's stability. 'It will likely not eat your phone, but bugs might cause your phone to stop responding, requiring a reboot,' writes Mozilla developer Vladimir Vukicevic on his blog. 'Memory usage of this build isn't great — in many ways it's a debug build, and we haven't really done a lot of optimization yet. This could cause some problems with large pages, especially on low memory devices like the Droid.'"

Re:Why then

[gnud]

Unless you want to help debug and/or develop, I doubt anyone expects or even wants you to.

Re:How can it be pre-alpha?

[arndawg]

Pre-alpha is just PR talk. Just like how game-developers claim their new screenshots is pre-alpha build. "Oh. it doesn't look so good now. but it's just pre-alpha. We promise, in 3 months when it's released it will be AWESOME". (ref. bungie halo series)

Re:Why bother?

[ircmaxell]

Some of us don't like our data being proxied and processed off our phones. I know it's a fine line, but my Android browser has good JS support. Why would I want to throw that away for a little bit of speed?

Re:Why then

[Anonymous Coward]

Why then would I want to replace my webkit browser with this? I understand this is an Alpha and that bug might be fixed, but again, why would I want to use this over my webkit based browser?

Simple. Once FF works on Android, we can use its superior plugins like AdBlock and NoScript. Anyone with a mobile device will see a huge improvement in browsing performance having these two preventing the dozens of extra retrievals from unrelated servers, ad-farms and other shit.

Re:Why then

[kaiser423]

Because you might want to help make it better by submitting feedback and tracking bugs as it heads into alpha/beta stage and reporting them?

Because tinkering is cool, and it doesn't replace your webkit browser?

Re:Why then

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not really a valid point, you're both criticizing this as if it were a release.. It's alpha for a reason. Like the GP says, they don't expect nor want people with your expectations to try this build.

As far as why you'd want it at all, well, competition is always a good thing..

How does this work? Native or links to java?

[leuk_he]

How does this technology work? Since the android gui is written in a java dialect, and firefox is written in C/C++, how does a C++ program run on a java VM? As one big native plugin?

anyway,having a runnin POC might attact other developers, that cannot be bad for fennec.

Re:Why then

[YouWantFriesWithThat]

so your question is 'why would i download a pre-alpha release and play around with it on my phone' because it MIGHT NOT WORK

...mine is why are you on slashdot if that sounds like something you wouldn't do? i was really excited about the release and installed it immediately for my Moto Droid and then i come into the one place on the web where i thought that others would share my enthusiasm and here you two are pissing all over it for being, you know, an alpha release.

Re:Why then

[roseblood]

<i>Why then would I want to replace my webkit browser with this? I understand this is an Alpha and that bug might be fixed, but again, why would I want to use this over my webkit based browser?</i>

Because some of us view OSS as more than just free software. Some of us want to help debug/test it and add to the community. Some are out for more than just a free-ride (although there's nothing wrong with a free-ride when it's offered.)

Re:What about resource usage?

[tibman]

Good god man, my FF never goes over 100mb, even with lots of tabs open. It averages at 70mb and i'm sure you can configure it to be even more minimal.

It's possible your build is bad. Are you using something stable and tested by your distro?