Mozilla and Mobile
9 October 2007People ask us all the time about what Mozilla’s going to do about the mobile web, and I’m very excited to announce that we plan to rock it. Here’s some information about what we’re planning to do with hiring, technology, partnerships, and products, and how you can get involved. Short summary: we are serious about bringing the Firefox experience and technology to mobile devices.
Why increase Mozilla’s presence in mobile?
* A large portion of the world accesses the Internet from mobile devices, and this will become increasingly true over time (mobile devices outsell computers 20-1). Each Firefox install is an individual choice by a person to download something that didn’t ship by default on their computer. Why not offer that option for mobile devices?
* Firefox the most popular open-source browser on the planet with > 100 million active users. Bringing Firefox add-ons, the Mozilla platform (including XUL), open source, and a large and passionate community to the closed and fragmented mobile platform will do the world some serious good.
* Firefox and Mozilla give device manufacturers the best of both worlds: shared investment in the core open-source project plus the flexibility they need to customize the browser for their devices.
* You can already get a Mozilla-based browser for the Nokia N800 and Firefox is a key part of Ubuntu Mobile and the new Intel Internet Project, and most recently ARM has put serious effort towards Firefox on mobile devices.
* Through Joey, we’ve seen how the desktop and mobile browsing experiences can be bridged to build a better experience for both. Wouldn’t it be great if your bookmarks, history, extensions, etc. from Firefox on your computer just worked on your phone?
Just what are we announcing?
* Mozilla will add mobile devices to the first class/tier-1 platform set for Mozilla2. This means we will make core platform decisions with mobile devices as first-class citizens.
* We will ship a version of “Mobile Firefox” which can, among other things, run Firefox extensions on mobile devices and allow others to build rich applications via XUL.
* Mozilla will expand its small team of full-time mobile contributors to focus on the technology and application needs of mobile devices. In particular two new folks just joined:
** Christian Sejersen, recently the head of browsers at Openwave which has shipped over 1 billion mobile browsers, joined Mozilla Monday. He’ll be heading up the platform engineering effort and setting up a R&D center in Copenhagen, Denmark.
** Brad Lassey just joined Mozilla from France Telecom R&D. He’s already been an active contributor to our mobile efforts and can now focus on Mozilla mobile full time.
These folks will accelerate the tremendous work already done by Doug Turner, Chris Hofmann and the entire Mozilla community. The efforts in mobile will be magnified by all aspects of our kick-ass community in everything from testing, to UI design, to core engineering. Together we will accelerate the development and use of mobile-ready Mozilla technology.
Why now?
* Getting a no-compromise web experience on devices requires significant memory (>=64MB) as well as significant CPU horsepower. High end devices today are just approaching these requirements and will be commonplace soon For example, the iPhone has 128MB of DRAM and somewhere between a 400 to 600 MHz processor. It is somewhere between 10x-100x slower on scripting benchmarks than a new MacBook Pro and somewhere between 3-5x slower than an old T40 laptop on the same wifi network. But rapid improvements in mobile processors will close this gap within a few years. There are chips out there today that are faster than the one in the iPhone and integrate graphics, cpu, and i/o (wifi/3g/wimax) on one die. Intel has recently re-entered this market which will keep things interesting. Most exciting of all ARM has announced that by 2010 devices will be shipping with a processor 8x faster than what’s in the iPhone!
* The user demand for a full browsing experience on mobile devices is clear. If you weren’t sure about this before you should be after the launch of the iPhone.
* We’ve seen through Mozilla on the Nokia N800 and Minimo that it is possible to build a great experience on devices by using the Mozilla code.
* We are wrapping up work on Gecko 1.9 and there is room post 1.9 to make significant changes to the architecture for improved performance and memory use on devices. Things like reducing the use of XPCOM, unifying memory management under MMgc, and other improvements from Mozilla 2 will make Mozilla a great platform for all devices from mobile phones to your desktop. The use of a single source base gives us the leverage that makes OSS work so well.
Is this the right time?
Absolutely! Up until very recently device limitations required writing new mobile browsers from the ground up. Being able to leverage all the investments in the Mozilla platform across both desktops and devices is the right approach. There is far from a dominant player in this marketplace and even the best mobile browsers today have compromises in user experience, performance, and compatibility. There is still *plenty* of room for innovation.
When?
As mentioned above, Mozilla browsers are already available to N800 users and you can use Joey today to extend your Firefox desktop browsing experience to your phone. We’ll continue to invest in Joey and will work closely with partners who want to ship Mozilla browsers today. Mobile Firefox will arrive later (certainly not before 2008).
What about Minimo?
Minimo was an experiment in mapping the desktop browser experience to a specific mobile context. While we don’t currently plan to develop that project further, it has already provided us with valuable information about how Gecko operates in mobile environments, has helped us reduce footprint, and has given us a platform for initial experimentation in user experience.
Does this mean that Firefox 3 will run on my phone?
No. This project is focused on Mozilla technology that will ship after Firefox 3. We’re at least as excited as you about getting Mozilla’s great web capabilities into your hands, literally, but it’s a big undertaking, and won’t be something that we can wrap up in time for Firefox 3.
What mobile devices will Firefox run on?
We haven’t yet determined what our target platforms will be. If you’re a mobile device or software-stack developer, your insight and support will be very helpful in determining which configurations we can and should support in our initial efforts.
How can I get involved?
Join us on IRC at #mobile, in the newsgroups, or ping me. We need your help!
85 Responses to “Mozilla and Mobile”
October 10th, 2007 at 1:15 am
This is great news. Mozilla on mobile would be a dream come true. But surely if Webkit can run on current devices, gecko could be made to run with much less than 64MB ram?
October 10th, 2007 at 3:32 am
PLEEEEEEEZ ship for the sony ericsson P990i - i.e. symbian….
October 10th, 2007 at 4:42 am
This is a light-at-the-end-of-tunnel post! Great FF’s future ahead. Thanks for clarifying.
October 10th, 2007 at 5:31 am
Hi Schrep,
I work in a small engineering team focused on designing new services around mobility for customers.
Your announcement looks interesting for us.
Do not hesitate to send me a mail (sorry I didnot find your Email on the page :o( ).
Best regards,
Laurent.
October 10th, 2007 at 5:50 am
Brilliant ! Keep on rocking Mozilla
October 10th, 2007 at 6:43 am
Will this run on Symbian based mobile phones too?
October 10th, 2007 at 7:30 am
So Mobile Firefox won’t run on Symbian S60 Plattforms?
October 10th, 2007 at 7:32 am
Sounds great guys, looking forward too it
October 10th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Great news!!!
By mobile devices you mean that Symbian S60 phones might also be supported?
October 10th, 2007 at 8:00 am
I’m glad to see a plan to bring Firefox to Mobile Devices. As powerful as it would be to have the Web browser available, XUL could allow for some wonderful hand top experiences.
October 10th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Schrep, TechCrunch pointed me over here. I suspect my comments are justing preaching back at the choir, but just in case I thought I’d give you the perspective of someone who is a developer and a user.
Until I can deliver (and use) the same AJAX functionality in a mobile device that I can on the desktop, handhelds are nigh on to worthless. I
October 10th, 2007 at 9:31 am
I would get on the phone with the guys from Nokia and work with them. They ship roughly 100 million devices per quarter, granted a lot of those don’t have the Webkit based S60 web browser, but as a partner they know mobile and are very serious about it. Why else would they have close to 40% market share?
October 10th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Hi Schrep, This is great news. I have always wondered why Firefox and Mozilla have been turning a blind eye towards a mobile browser when Opera (with their Opera Mini) is already innovating a lot on that front.
This is a great step (better late than never) towards Firefox’s extension to mobile devices.
Below were some of my thoughts on where Mobile Firefox should work towards:
1. Mobile firefox should be first developed using java as most of the mobile devices support the same. This is the quickest way to capture the mass.
2. Also, you should think of an innovative solution something similar to what Opera Mini does in terms of making the browser fast (like caching and optimizing the pages before they are given back to the device).
3. Once you have a decent browser based on Java, then probably we should be concentrating on developing or porting Mobile Firefox to specific Operating Systems. Preferrably start with Symbian (for obvious reasons).
4. Also, we need a whole new paradigm and innovation when it comes to usability. We need to probably come up with focus groups whose only job is to think of the usability of the Mobile browser. I am sure, future mobiles will have a different kind of man-machine interface and most of them would be based on touch screens.
These were some of the points that came quickly to my mind. Hope these would be helpful. Would be glad to extend any kind of help if possible.
October 10th, 2007 at 10:12 am
this would be great product…please keep me updated with your future releases
October 10th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Link the browser up to a datamatrix/QR-Code barcode reader and you’ll have a hit on your hands.
October 10th, 2007 at 10:23 am
I would love, love, LOVE to have Firefox on my Helio Ocean!
( … Opera Mini is nice, but it just isn’t the same … )
October 10th, 2007 at 11:13 am
great this
October 10th, 2007 at 11:14 am
The Trackback URL is broken. See my comment Yet Another Mobile Browser http://blogs.s60.com/browser/2007/10/yamb_yet_another_mobile_browse.html
October 10th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Although I appreciate the effort, I am under the impression that developers are looking at hardware requirements of the future instead of that of the present. Firefox is clearly not the smallest, most efficient platform in the browser market for desktops. Setting the bar for future, faster than today- hardware sounds to me a way to get around the bloat that affects Firefox today. So why not just taking what’s offered today (a Nokia N800) and make it run on it. A scaled down version of it is already present in that device. A fast application on today phone will be even faster in tomorrow’s.
October 10th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Sounds good… The only thing is about the paragraph with “High end devices today are just approaching these requirements and will be commonplace soon For example, the iPhone has 128MB of DRAM and somewhere between a 400 to 600 MHz processor.”
Some Pocket PC devices have reached this point a couple of years ago already… I actually had last week a review unit with 1 GB SDRAM and 806 MHz XSCALE processor.
October 10th, 2007 at 11:58 am
A BREW version would be wonderful
October 10th, 2007 at 11:59 am
I am looking for mobile Safari functionality for my HTC Touch. If mobile Firefox can deliver that by spring/summer 2008 then I will be a happy camper.
October 10th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
So what broad class of handsets are they targeting? Is it going to be a J2ME app that runs on phones 2 years from now, after java FX is out?
Will it be in .NET and only run on windows mobile?
Will it ever show up on a Verizon phone?
Will there be a Symbian version?
Will it run on mobile linux, and if so, what flavor, and what country?
October 10th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Awesome news. I hope this is developed for BREW phones (Verizon)
October 10th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
ok.. so now you are copying the opera mobile idea :).. as always
October 10th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
I see a lot of posts saying write it in JAVA.
PLEASE for the love of god DO NOT DO THIS.
Firefox is not written in Java, existing 1.9 is not Java, why you would write in Java to target some slow, slow phones is beyond me.
I can PROMISE you that apple’s safari is not written in Java.
Please leverage the existing open source community and development, and write an application that can run well on future devices. These are going to be Linux and other ARM/x86 variants. Targeting Java is a terrible terrible mistake. As firefox has shown, you can write cross platform code without using Java…
October 10th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
@Iain: Mobile Safari is based on WebKit — the full web engine that powers Nokia S60. wake3.com just announced they’ve ported WebKit to WinMobile. And there is another port coming from a major software player…
October 10th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Congratulations! Christian is a rockstar.
Would Firefix mobile play back flash content? I think Adobe would be interested in talking.
regards,
Vinay
Group Product Manager,
Flash for Mobile & Devices
Adobe Systems Inc.
October 10th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
We’re really looking forward to it!
Safari on a iPhone is ok, but FF on every phone would be such a great platform for mobile web dev.
We at storexperience.com would be enjoying to participate in beta testing if any program like this exists.
October 10th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
wow…great news…can’t wait to have firefox running on my mobile phone.
October 10th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
I would have expected everything to be under the Minimo name.
October 10th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Yet ANOTHER Opera feature they want to copy.
October 10th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
We haven’t yet determined what our target platforms will be. >>> N95 8GB
October 10th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Great news. 2 points -
1.) Please make it available first on by far the most popular smartphone platform - Symbian/S60 (including Series 3, Feature Pack 1 devices).
2.) Really important - please expose phone functionality via the browser, most importantly any GPS data the phone OS has access to via a Bluetooth GPS, or inbuilt GPS (e.g. Nokia N95, Nokia 6110 Navigator). This is SO needed in mobile browsers right now.
Thanks,
Alex
October 10th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
This is an great development, will there be any cooperation with Google’s rumored Java browser, in the works?
October 10th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Firstly Martins right for the love of god run away screaming from Java. The way things are progressing is obvious, the high end phones of today run OS’s capable of porting c and C++ apps to them, todays high end phones will be the middle of the range phones two years from now. With that kind of evolution you don’t want to burden yourselves with java when there are a million existing open source c libraries.
As for target platforms, the obvious ones to me seem likely to be Symbian s60 rev3 which I believe runs the Nokia N95, Windows Mobile since Minimo already runs on that and the various flavours of linux as and when they appear.
It seems likely that the emergence of decent browsers for smartphones is going to send smartphones/pda sales through the roof.
October 10th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
I know this is probably counter-intuitive as apple is constantly locking down the iphone and it seems to be a “good enough” browser, but will mozilla FF ever come to the iPhone???
Because I firmly believe that safari is not the best possible possible browser for this phone and although it may sound foolish I actually want a choice in picking an alternate browser. Just the other day I was telling my friend how I wish someone would just port firefox to the iphone. But if it doesn’t happen I’ll just have to wait and see which phone will support it to buy it then…
Good luck with your development!
P.S.
I love the way you guys do things. You leave the system open to modification and give users a choice to use something better (e.g. Firefox)
October 10th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Will there be a Symbian version of Firefox?
October 11th, 2007 at 12:26 am
anything-but-IE, on any platform, i love it
October 11th, 2007 at 12:37 am
It’ll be interesting to see the end product. For now, I’m just hoping Apple opens the iPhone up.
October 11th, 2007 at 12:43 am
Mozilla based browser for mobiles would be nice thing to have. But words like ‘in 2010 there will be fast ARM cores’ sounds like ’sorry, we are unable to get Mozilla working on today cpus’.
I have Minimo working on 400MHz PXA255 machine but this is not Firefox ;(
October 11th, 2007 at 1:23 am
I hope you will be building on the work done for Minimo and not just letting another open source project die out. You should have invested more in this a long time ago. It’s one of the largest growing markets. This will be a key area where all the Firefox haters who scream about performance will either praise you or hang you. If your browser cannot be ubiquitous as Mobile Opera is you will fail. It must work on Symbian Series 60 phones, PDAs etc.
However I applaud your decision to put a renewed focus on the mobile browser effort, especially with extensions, something that is perhaps Firefox’s greatest feature.
October 11th, 2007 at 1:34 am
One more thing, you say that for an uncompromising experience that you need at least a 400-600Mhz processor and 128MB DRAM or something to that effect. What would you rate the current web experience on the N800 with the Mozilla-based browser? That has 128MB RAM and a 330Mhz processor from TI. You should be concentrating on performance at the base level. Effeciency. Not relying on technology roadmaps to bail you out. Exciting news if you focus well enough.
October 11th, 2007 at 3:25 am
Martin and Co, unfortunately j2me is the biggest platform for mobile apps at the moment.
Series 40, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, LG… these are all pretty much J2ME only.
Most of the other platforms (apart from iPhone), so series 60 and windows mobile AFAIKT support j2me.
Also Opera Mini runs find in java. It is only really the motorola phones that are really slow, however by the time this is written even they will be faster.
Stu - mobile app developer.
October 11th, 2007 at 3:47 am
Awesome… Keep Rocking!
October 11th, 2007 at 3:49 am
Hi, I was involved a bit w/ the Minimo project (working w/ Doug). Though its been awhile I’d like to help out again. Please let me know your email address if you can. Thanks!
October 11th, 2007 at 4:05 am
Great documentation
thanks…
October 11th, 2007 at 4:07 am
There are many advantages in developing it as a JavaME MIDlet. Opera Mini has set the bar very high for you guys, good luck
October 11th, 2007 at 4:19 am
Great news. I have just finished development of one mobile site and am half way through another. Everyone says Opera Mini is the best browser, but I have to say, if you look at say data tables, it makes a complete mess of those.
Can I ask that you publish a list of the HTML and CSS features that it will support. I don’t think it will need to support a full set, but knowing what it will would be a great advantage.
My one concern is the isue of starting it up. If you have to go through a load of menus to get there, as you do in my phone, people will just open their default browser instead. To me that will be a crucial thing. Other factor is how are you going to make money at it? A Google search bar at the top of all windows is a bit intrusive and you would have to navigate over the top of it each time. Best bet I would think would be a Google homepage as per your desktop, and a shortcut key to take you to a Google search.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:21 am
@Vinay: It’s not the browser that enables Flash, it’s whether the device has Adobe Flash installed. Full browsers all support standard plug-ins through the open-source Netscape plug-in API (WebKit on S60 does today, and desktop browsers all do). But for example, iPhone Safari can’t do Flash because Apple & Adobe haven’t put Flash on the device. Adobe Flash Lite devices: http://www.adobe.com/mobile/supported_devices/handsets.html
Nokia’s S60 3rd Edition has Flash Lite 2.0 in Feature Pack 1, and will have FL 3.0 in FP 2. FL 3.0 supports streaming video, so web video will work! List of Nokia Flash versions: http://www.flashdevices.net/downloads/Nokia-phones-Flash-Lite-pre-installed-08-08-2007.pdf
October 11th, 2007 at 4:36 am
The BlackBerry community would surely be interested in such a browser. The majority of owners have some sort of data plan, most unlimited, and regularly use real-web browsing. Naturally the built in BlackBerry browser has many limitations and I know I would love something better.
October 11th, 2007 at 7:01 am
Great news. Lots of talk in the post above about iPhone. Is anything being done to communicate with Apple? I really enjoy surfing the web on my iPhone. It’s been a great tool for me and has already changed the way I handle the web and mobile content. But, I’d dump Safari for Firefox on the iPhone ANY day. Please say you’re talking with Apple, to get Firefox on iPhone.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:08 am
This sounds great, I’m always a little shocked about browsing on the ” mobile” net. But if I should have my favorite (And fast ;-)) Firefox I think it would made it a lot more appealing. Plus maybe on this way we can kick the IE browsers behind on every way :-D.
I’m staying tuned to see what the updates are. And hope it will come rather fast ’cause I can’t wait.
And maybe, just maybe I’ll get a better phone just for running FF
October 11th, 2007 at 8:40 am
I was surprised to find that the One Laptop Per Child project’s XO laptop wasn’t listed as a Gecko user. We’re very interested in the mobile mozilla work, since we have tight space and memory limits;
please keep us in the loop! Jim Gettys (jg at laptop.org) can coordinate involvement with OLPC, if you need information or would like to have
us try out builds.
October 11th, 2007 at 9:44 am
The Nokia N95 8GB has 128 MB of RAM, 2 * 333 MHz processors, 8 GB of flash storage, WiFi, a high-res high-colour widescreen and runs the latest Symbian OS. There’s a brilliant Webkit browser on it, why can’t we have a Gecko one too?
October 11th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Why Mozilla on Mobile now? It’s the strategy defined by Google for coming Google GPhone.. If Iphone has safari on it.. the upcoming Google Phone will come with Mobile Mozilla…
October 11th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Great news. Just today I have been instaling Opera on my PDA, while wondering why there is no FireFox awailable…
Looking forward to seeing it work
October 11th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Good Luck.
(I really liked the emphasis you needed to explain the hardware requirements)
October 11th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Woow, que bueno que ya van a sacar una version para el celular, es una gran noticia, lo he estado esperando desde hace mas de dos anios que pense que firefox es mejor que el explorador por defecto en windows y mejor que el explorador integrado de mi celular, es una gran noticia. espero poder colaborar para los plugins
October 12th, 2007 at 12:19 am
I am very interested in this development. It does need to be very light on power usage and footprint.
Please excuse the simple questions…
What spec handsets it will be targeted at? From the posts above, most mention high-end devices. Will it also be available on lower spec devices? What standards will it be targeted at (W3C/XHTML etc)? Will it support legacy WML? What about Javascript and AJAX.
My biggest question though is will it’s goal be to be a “mini-desktop” or “mobile internet” browser? They are not the same thing!
October 12th, 2007 at 1:32 am
Mike - not sure how to contact you but interested in contributing.
This is just the kind of step that along with Apple is going to start getting the mobile platform to reach it potential.
I think that one of the keys in that potential is an easy add-on framework and putting XUL on a phone to me makes a lot of sense.
I have recently been writing about how a javascript API in the next mobile browsers needs to be able to access more of the phone (in a secure and user aware way). I also think that for a mobile platform to succeed it will need the equivalent of Google Gears to provide off-line functionality. Creating XUL based add-ons is another option for this to succeed in the short term.
The device API must allow a developer to access resources in a secure way that the user is aware of. Clicking a phone number to phone / sms the other person is basic stuff, but a user giving permission for a website to access Calendar information is a different matter.
The one key area where mobile phones are different from desktop computers is the fact they are always with you. A really useful function they can perform because of this is to prompt you about something and this should become an important part of the API - that a website can get the phone to start up the browser and call their site at a specific time. This functionality must be secure and highlighted to the user in the same way it is using Java and other mobile options.
I think that Apple will lead the way with mobile javascript standards in the short term, not because of the size of their user base, but because their user base is dominated by people who are building web apps. There needs to be a disruption in the same way there was on the desktop did to make sure this works well for all.
I write java apps and web based apps for mobile phones and can give you some key insights into what I think can make mozilla a killer on mobile. We need to get rid of the need to install apps on the phone in the same way that mozilla has removed the software I install on my desktop.
If you could put me in contact with Christian Sejersen that would be great.
All the best
Al
October 12th, 2007 at 2:13 am
I love Opera Mini and I use it very regularly on my K750i. but i hope firefox delivers something more which is not in Opera Mini
October 12th, 2007 at 2:46 am
Hi!
Great to “hear” this!
It would be very cool to have Firfox/Mozilla on my Nokia N90 (Series 60 R2) phone or any Series 60 (R1, R2, R3) phones!
Bye,
Gime
http://www.gime.hu
October 12th, 2007 at 5:05 am
http://blogs.s60.com/browser/2007/10/coring_the_browser.html
Conclusion: I propose the Mozilla and WebKit communities combine resources to make WebKit’s WebCore and JavaScriptCore the very best possible open browser core for mobile. Innovate to make it smaller, faster, more compliant.
Then port Firefox for mobile onto the WebKit core engine. Who cares what the core is, as long as it’s small, fast, and accurate? And, I would claim, pervasive.
The big win would be to have the Firefox experience available on all mobile devices, using the exact same core as other browsers, so we can stop fussing with rendering differences across different cores, and focus on what really matters — innovative user experiences. Diversity in browsers is wonderful — give users choices!
Having multiple, slightly incompatible browser core engines in mobile devices actually hinders the success of the web on mobile because it adds headaches for web developers, who are already overwhelmed dealing with several desktop browsers and now hundreds of different mobile device types.
Diversity in core engines is a waste of time.
October 12th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Good news! I want to have it at my smartphone! with all plugins included ofcourse…
October 12th, 2007 at 11:59 am
I too, am a litte sad, as this seems to mean the Minimo name will be going away, but please correct me if im wrong. Hopefully this will just be another transition of code getting worked into cooler projects and products as Mozilla Suite code eventualy became other browsers like Firefox and SeaMonkey.
For a point of reference, im only about 20 feet from my desktop computers (windows XP home, ubuntu linux 7.04) typing this on my AT&T 8525 running windows mobile 5.0 (still waiting on at&t for WM6), simply because im taking a smoke break, and cant be indoors. I also started reading this article on another such break at work, even farther from my home desktop PCs. My point here is our PCs and the internet are following us around now more than ever.
The truth is, i have been a web junkie sine i first got a taste in the late 90s with Netscape and i have followed it became the open source Mozilla ever since.
I had no problems using firefox back when it was still called firebird (or phoenix before that, sorry about any painful memories) even as a default browser. This is because most of what I do online involves reading, or sometimes even writing, as in this case. Text is not a big deal for most web browsers, even mobile ones. My point, before this rant gets any longer, is i enjoy a web browser from a minimalist perspective with simple, but useful tools and a clean UI. (i only have the talkback extension installed on any of the 4 alpha/beta versions which i am currently testing on XP)
One of the thngs that origonally drew me to Firefox was its simple user interface with intuitave features neatly tucked away and oganized. Firefox to this day, however slightly more bloated it grows, has remained a secure, and responsive browser platform as good as any, IMHO. However, it seems to be so scailabe, extensible and easier to develop than other browsers. Of course lets not forget other browsers like Internet Explorer, AOL, and even Opera are NOT open source.
As for everyone needing firefox on the iPhone, i hope someone does talk with Steve about his locking down the development end so tightly i mean, Mozilla with Firefox surely has to make for great 3rd party software for the iPhone, right? You might think so, but for some reason i dont know if Steve will let it be that simple.
As for platform suggestions, i personally feel you should look at the largest platforms first, so J2ME in MIDlet Manager, that sort of thing was a great suggestion. Opera mini uses their own servers to render the page like a desktop would before they send it to your mobile device (heard something awhile back on microsoft working similar called Deepfish). So despite whatever hardware limitations you see in the mobile device RAM or CPU, there are always ways around that. Perhpas that would also cost more than we want to talk about.
However, i would love to watch Mozilla pull a fast catch-up with Opera on mobile browsing market share as it has been doing for awhile now with IE in desktop browsing market share.
All that being said, you want larger versions for every type of smartphone, PDA, and mobile platform that opera currently runs on, and then some (yes even iPhones as i said earlier).
Dont doubt the power of this community to help make this new dream into a reality. Better late is always better than never when we talking open source software.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I too, am a litte sad, as this seems to mean the Minimo name will be going away, but please correct me if im wrong. Hopefully this will just be another transition of code getting worked into cooler projects and products as Mozilla Suite code eventualy became other browsers like Firefox and SeaMonkey.
For a point of reference, im only about 20 feet from my desktop computers (windows XP home, ubuntu linux 7.04) typing this on my AT&T 8525 running windows mobile 5.0 (still waiting on at&t for WM6), simply because im taking a smoke break, and cant be indoors. I also started reading this article on another such break at work, even farther from my home desktop PCs. My point here is our PCs and the internet are following us around now more than ever.
The truth is, i have been a web junkie sine i first got a taste in the late 90s with Netscape and i have followed it became the open source Mozilla ever since.
I had no problems using firefox back when it was still called firebird (or phoenix before that, sorry about any painful memories) even as a default browser. This is because most of what I do online involves reading, or sometimes even writing, as in this case. Text is not a big deal for most web browsers, even mobile ones. My point, before this rant gets any longer, is i enjoy a web browser from a minimalist perspective with simple, but useful tools and a clean UI. (i only have the talkback extension installed on any of the 4 alpha/beta versions which i am currently testing on XP)
One of the thngs that origonally drew me to Firefox was its simple user interface with intuitave features neatly tucked away and oganized. Firefox to this day, however slightly more bloated it grows, has remained a secure, and responsive browser platform as good as any, IMHO. However, it seems to be so scailabe, extensible and easier to develop than other browsers. Of course lets not forget other browsers like Internet Explorer, AOL, and even Opera are NOT open source.
As for everyone needing firefox on the iPhone, i hope someone does talk with Steve about his locking down the development end so tightly i mean, Mozilla with Firefox surely has to make for great 3rd party software for the iPhone, right? You might think so, but for some reason i dont know if Steve will let it be that simple.
As for platform suggestions, i personally feel you should look at the largest platforms first, so J2ME in MIDlet Manager, that sort of thing was a great suggestion. Opera mini uses their own servers to render the page like a desktop would before they send it to your mobile device (heard something awhile back on microsoft working similar called Deepfish). So despite whatever hardware limitations you see in the mobile device RAM or CPU, there are always ways around that. Perhpas that would also cost more than we want to talk about.
However, i would love to watch Mozilla pull a fast catch-up with Opera on mobile browsing market share as it has been doing for awhile now with IE in desktop browsing market share.
All that being said, you want larger versions for every type of smartphone, PDA, and mobile platform that opera currently runs on, and then some (yes even iPhones as i said earlier).
Dont doubt the power of this community to help make this new dream into a reality. Better late is always better than never when we talking open source software.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
We are BlackBerry experts and may be interested in finding ways to contribute our expertise to bring Firefox to the BlackBerry platform.
Is BlackBerry something that is in the mix?
October 12th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Pleeeeeezzzz p990i and p1i sony ericson
October 12th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Pleeeeeezzzz p990i and p1i sony ericson
October 12th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Please do not forget RIM, aka BlackBerry. We deserve a great browser, such as FireFox…Opera just does not cut it.
October 12th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Interesting. That’s why the first MoZine_3.0 “MobilePublisher” (in German; focus on Mobile Web) has published this news on http://mpub.mobi/. The trackback-function here doesn’t seem to work!
October 12th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
As i see Firefox is an great bloatware, if you can make it run in low-end cellphones i will make an tatoo “Firefox Mobile Rox” on my face.
Firefox will never wins Opera Mini.
October 12th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Plz don’t forget nokia 6630 phone it runs on symbian 2 OS.
October 13th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Plz create a version for symbian2 divices like 6630.I think there’s a need to standerdise mobile hardware i.e. Even the cheapest mobile handsets should have at least 100Mb RAM.
October 13th, 2007 at 12:25 am
plz create a FF version for symbian2 nokia 6630 also.I think there’s a need to standerdise mobile hardware i.e. Even the cheapest mobiles should have at least 100Mb RAM.
October 13th, 2007 at 1:22 am
There is an open-source mobile browser for low-end cell phones, those that do not have Java capability. Also, a number of carriers do not allow third-party applications. Bomjpacket is implemented as a proxy that converts an arbitrary HTML page into a number of WML pages:
http://research.alexeysmirnov.name/bp
October 13th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
The rumor is the upcoming LG Voyager for Verizon will have the Firefox browser with mini map. Can you confirm this?
October 15th, 2007 at 12:04 am
@Schrep: ping!
Specifically interested in Mozilla on the OLPC and the OpenMoko - for corporate, sector ground-breaking use. Can provide testing resource and possibly development time.
Regards
Chris
October 16th, 2007 at 1:24 am
cool~
October 17th, 2007 at 9:25 am
hi mozilla folks,
i understand that firefox is currenlty written in c, what language will your mobile project be done in? danger offers a rich application development environment.
add to that i am a rabid mozilla fan, i am wondering what it would take to get FF on my sidekick? note that sidekick has been shipping for awhile…
tia, jackc…
October 18th, 2007 at 2:27 am
Ok with minimo,
I are tested my solution Web2.0 solution
http://www.1computer.info/1work
with minimo and is very fine
October 19th, 2007 at 6:52 am
I would LOVE to see Firefox running on my Treo 650 (although I am sure to upgrade phones soonish). I have used Opera Mini and I like it but it is FLAKY - it crashes a lot. I think the Java dependency just kills it. Their “proxy” server (I think this is how they attain their speed) is very handy though to help cut down on the network traffic.
November 5th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Can we have it for symbian S60 phones???
November 27th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
sheesh no comparison to opera mobile “not mini” it all ready rocks java script support works great on it and its proven to be able to use plug ins “flash for one”
minimo was getting there WHAT THE HECK?
poor judgment in my eyes quite like throwing the babe out with the bath water