Lord of the Web

Mozilla has released the Alpha version of Fennec, the mobile version of its popular web browser Firefox. The Mozilla website claims that “this is an early developer release of the mobile version of Firefox, for testing purposes only” and  only runs on the Nokia N810 (and N800) tablet at the moment. But Windows, OS X or Linux users can download their corressponding versions and play around with it to get its feel.

A look at the browser ( I had to run it on Windows), shows how well it has been designed for use on mobiles, the touchscreen ones especially. It features a full-screen display with navigation set to the side. By dragging the screen to the left, we get the “Back”, “Forward” and “Favourites” controls along one for
“Settings” and a drag to the right reveals the opened tabs. Thats pretty slick, considering its usage on a touchscreen mobile.

The browser also features a lowered down version of Firefox 3’s Awesome Bar- though not as good as the one in Firefox, it does save a lot of typing! Near this is the “Reload” button, of course and also a button to view your bookmarks/favourites. Searching is done by typing the keyword on the bar and selecting the search provider from a bar at the bottom of the screen.

This version also contains a password manager that offers to save and autofill your logins. A very important feature, considering how hard it is to input text in any form of mobile keyboards. A look at the Settings page shows that Fennec no less mighty than Firefox when it comes to customization and add-ons. Firefox add-ons bring the uber-popular browser its character. It seems obvious that making the mobile version of Firefox extensible and customizable will allow it to get the same popularity that was bestowed on Firefox for pretty much the same reasons, and will threaten the dominance of Opera Mini and Opera Mobile in the mobile browser market. Being a Opera 9.65 user myself, I can clearly see how the interface of Fennec is much better than Opera’s. But the real test will be about how Fennec can handle prolonged browsing sessions and how well it can work on a variety of mobile platforms, especially the non-touchscreen ones.