Latest Technology Trends

Firefox For Windows Mobile Coming Soon

Firefox has confirmed it is working on first a Linux version, followed by Windows Mobile 6 version. Christian Serjersen of Mozilla wrote in his his blog that a Symbian version will come down the line as well.

He listed out the goals of the program as:

1. provide Mozilla’s standards-based open-source browser engine, optimized for mobile, that can be embedded by device manufacturers and others;
2. a full-featured mobile browser including support for XUL-based add-ons, delivering on Firefox’s key principles of ease-of-use, security and accessibility;
3. grow the Mozilla community in the mobile space;
4. provide tools and documentation to help developers develop, debug and deploy web applications;
5. do all of this work in the shared Mozilla source repositories so all platforms, desktop and mobile benefit each other

Initially the primary focus will be on two platforms/devices running on ARM11 processors (ARM v6):

• Linux – first device working already is the Nokia N800 (possibly update to N810) running Linux (maemo)
• Windows Mobile 6 – a good first device is the HTC S730

These platforms are either already up and running or will be soon – and will allow our community to start testing UX with different hardware characteristics e.g. screen size (N800/N810: 800×480 vs. HTC S730 320×240) and touch-screen vs. non-touch-screen.

As many people will quickly notice there is no Symbian version here. We are aware of the millions of Symbian devices in the world and this is just a start and a good area to focus. We’d love help on Symbian if anyone is interested.

So, if you are a Symbian expert, you could help FireFox go mobile!