Mozilla is working on Mobile Firefox

After making a revolution in desktop web browser market, Mozilla have now announced their plans to step into the mobile space with a new version of Firefox for mobile devices. They’ve already hired two high-profile mobile developers for this project. And the first, basic release is expected to come as early as 2008.

For Mozilla, this isn’t the first venture into the mobile browser space. They have already released a mobile browser called Minimo. Unlike most other mobile browsers, Minimo offers full AJAX supports, RSS feeds, addons and is probably the only tabbed browsing solution for Pocket PC. Mozilla has also developed a mobile browser for Nokia’s N800/N770 mobile internet device.

The sweetest part of Mobile Firefox would be its support for extension. Third party services and other additional features can be easily integrated with ease. Think of it something like using Greasemonkey or Adblock Plus on your mobile phone.

Full browsing experience is the greatest demand in the mobile community. One factor, which probably made Apple’s iPhone a huge hit, was the fullscreen browsing support. Web pages on iPhone are rendered, as they appear on your computer, but the same feature isn’t available on other mobile devices. So, if Mozilla’s upcoming mobile browser will be able to put the same functionality on other high-end devices like N95, it could quickly become a huge hit as well.

It is unclear whether Mozilla picks Windows Mobile or Symbian as their target platform. Currently, the Symbian browser market is largely monopolized by Opera and Opera mini.

This post was published by on October 11, 2007

About the Author: Thilak Rao works as a Social Media Expert. He is one of the first professional bloggers from India, and he loves to write, travel and click photos. Follow him on Twitter @thilak

  • Sreejith

    And, I think you was wrong there that no other browser allows tabbed browsing and only iPhone renders full-screen webpages.

    Nokia E70 does it too. See here [PIC] : http://maddox.xmission.com/e70_web8.gif

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Sreejith: By “no other browser which allows tabbed browsing”, I meant in the Sybmian browser segment. Even my Nokia N95 renders exactly like the screenshot posted by you (fullscreen), but I meant “Web pages on iPhone are rendered, as they appear on your computer”, and no other smartphone can do it. Or am I wrong?

  • http://techroach.com/ Sreejith

    Well, I think the rendering in iPhone is pretty excellent. But I think Nokia does provide computer-like surfing. Its just that iPhone has a wider screen which enhances the experience.

    I’m not biased or being one-sided here, ok ? Anyway, I think Apple could’ve included 3G in the thing. Steve said that the chips are pretty immature in that they’re big and power hogs.

    But personally I would be ready to sacrifice the form factor for the chip. Anyways, I just hope they add 3G before it gets to Asia and prolly the prices should drop.

  • http://www.online-tech-tips.com Aseem Kishore

    This is very good news! Can’t wait for it! Thanks!

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Sreejith: Nokia’s browser fails to render flash objects, which is exactly where Apple took them down. Moreover, no AJAX support in Nokia’s built in browser, which means…. it is not really a browser which can handle web 2.0 apps.

    Sankar: Airtel, or maybe Vodafone

  • http://techroach.com/ Sreejith

    I don’t know about the AJAX bit. But isn’t AJAX built with Javascript ? So, it should work since the browser does have Javascript support. About Flash, iPhone doesn’t support flash. Read this : http://www.flashdevices.net/2007/06/iphone-does-not-support-adobe-flash.html

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Sreejith: Thanks for correcting me. I was under the misconception that Apple’s Safari for iPhone had flash… it’s webkit based right?

  • http://techroach.com/ Sreejith

    Exactly.

  • http://www.nerdcouncil.com Nerd Forum

    This is awesome news. I really hope phone companies start having Firefox by default.