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Firefox browser preparing to hit smartphones soon

Posted by Al Warmington on Mon 13 Oct 2008

Sorry, Opera. We know you got there first.

Mozilla has been ruminating about a mobile version of Firefox for a while. Now it looks like it's starting to gear up for a launch of a test version of the software in the very near future.

CEO, John Lilly, expects alpha protoypes to be coming out in a few weeks, but in the meantime, screenshots taken from an unknown Windows Mobile device have surfaced. It's already shaping up nicely and when it's launched it will hopefully make default mobile phone web browsers take a long hard look at themselves, before keeling over in embarrassment.

Right now, the superb Opera Mini leads the way in mobile browsing thanks to its excellent compression techniques, swift download speeds and user-friendly interface. Arguably, Firefox Mobile can't really hope to better it significantly, but that has never held it back in the mainstream browser market either. Although purists will swear by Opera, Firefox versions have always included a healthy amount of inspiration 'borrowed' from Opera, coupled with some neat ideas of their own. We hope the same will be true here.

The same values that have seen Firefox shoot to stardom on proper computers could really help Firefox Mobile too - the mobile platform will open up new opportunities for mobile browser add-ons and the fact that it is open-source and completely free will help it build up a user base. Who knows, it may even replace default browsers in handsets someday.

The ongoing build up of information behind it seems to point to a pre-Xmas release of some kind of prototype build, possible even a beta that we can all try out. At the moment, it's expected to be compatible with Windows Mobile, but we'll be hoping for Symbian and other versions too. We doubt Apple would be too happy about releasing a Safari competitor onto its tightly controlled Phone App platform, but we'll be keeping an eye out.

(via the::unwired)