Mozilla Releases Fennec Alpha 1

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Osiris

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Mozilla Releases Fennec Alpha 1

Mozilla has released its first public preview of its mobile browser Fennec. The alpha release is for testing purposes only, aimed at developers, testers and those brave people that like messing around with alpha software....you know, people like you.


The focus of development so far has been on building a new user interface that reflects Firefox's design principles, and adds touch screen support and other features that are appropriate for mobile phones and other handheld devices.
 
Wtf is the point of this? The download is a Win32 port of a MOBILE browser. Why would I want to run Fennec on my desktop? I want to run it on my PDA! After all, it's kinda OBVIOUS that a MOBILE browser is for a...mobile device...and not a desktop. Gah, back to the compiling board, was hoping to get out of having to compile my own version of this but no, stupid Win32 only download.

Having said that, it runs nicely on my desktop (well...laptop, but you know, not WinMobile device). Useless, but it runs nicely. Interface looks pretty cool.
 
^ I thought the download said:
This first alpha release is available for the OS2008 ("Maemo") software platforms that runs on the Nokia N810 Internet Tablets. If you're viewing this on an N810, install Fennec.

Then it goes onto say if you dont, then try it on your desktop OS. I could be wrong though.
 
Yeah, so if you have one specific device, yay you get teh internets on your mobile device. However, for the 99.9% of the rest of us who have other mobile devices, you're stuck with running it on a desktop? I hardly call that alpha state! A mobile browser is only going to work if it ...works on mobile devices. I don't know why they didn't just post the Windows Mobile binary that clearly works at least to the point of displaying pages (screenshots posted a week ago or so).
 
Well, if a mobile release of anything by Mozilla is just as terrible as FF3 or Minimo, i'd stay away. Prior to getting an iPhone, I had a BlackJack II. I had installed minimo on a bus ride from starbucks. by the time I got home from work, (about 30 minutes), I had uninstalled minimo. It was horrible in every respect. Worse yet, minimo is heavily funded, and yet mozilla still can't get it right prior to a canned release.... Winmobile would "crash" ... cell would turn off... seriously... all from a freaking browser. I'm not going to even get started with FF3, yeeesh :(

I think that they should go into a serious pause in certain productions to fix what is already out there.
As because of fresh... recent experience, they could ask Microsoft about certain OS rollback strategies and then point aim with those strategies at their rollback from FF3 to FF2
 
Calc -
This is an early developer release of the mobile version of Firefox, for testing purposes only
Its not gonna be up and running straight away, Its just for testing. I guess they would slowly incorporate more and more devices until they have enough to release a beta, if they even get to that.

@Dr.Ip - Do you like anything? I always hear you banging on about how much you dislike Vista, and now Firefox 3? If we where back in old times it would be pistols at dawn! I have no problems with Firefox 3, in fact I'm using the new Beta.
 
@Dr.Ip - Do you like anything? I always hear you banging on about how much you dislike Vista, and now Firefox 3? If we where back in old times it would be pistols at dawn! I have no problems with Firefox 3, in fact I'm using the new Beta.

Just my own personal experience ... thats all. My minimo experience was based on a 30 minute trial. In that time (single tabbed) it couldn't load a single page (google.com) and crashed shortly after. minimo also took up more memory than firefox typically will take up in a typical one-time use (at the time, it was around 33M if I remember correctly.) For a browser running in WinMobile, thats just crazy.

As for FF3, some have problems and some don't. Again, my experiences have led me to not like FF3. Different problems, different situations, I'm sure. Problems that I don't have in other browsers. If you really want to know why I could spout out a list of things that, again, I personally don't care for and have had problems with. However, your engagement with me right now doesn't seem to be so much set at why ... just at the fact that I'm saying that I don't like something that you may like. I don't know what to tell ya but the likelihood of someone posting constant praises about a product versus what they hate about it is short and nil. I'm happy to hear that you love FF3 and use their beta. Thats awesome! Just in my personal experience though, my expectations weren't met with it and feel that they have had a rough 6 months with releasing things that don't work as well as things that they have released prior.

Pistols at dawn I can handle :p

Let me try to put it another way ... Microsoft has had a VAST history with Office right? Office is a great suite of products with a lot of people that use it for different purposes. The largest increase of users of MS Office was between 2003 and 2005. Then, just as people were getting to know the look and feel really well, in 2007 they make HUGE changes. If you have used 2003 and 2007, then you may or may not agree ... but at least you know what I'm talking about. I've had a lot of random conversations with people that simply wanted to know ... why change it???

Same thing with FF3 versus FF2. Mozilla users increased over 150% in the time between 2005 and 2007 ... easy. FF users sit at almost 45% of browsers used. Thats HUGE! So, why change something now? FF2 was great, it's what people loved and the reason why there was such an increase in the first place. Now, even though the core functions are the same there are a lot of things that need fixing.

So, sorry that it seems that like I hate everything. But in this instance, just like the other posts that you are referring to, it's just my experiences.
 
Sorry Doc but Firefox isnt at 45%. IE still holds almost 80%. So there is no way that Firefox can claim 45%.

Market share for browsers, operating systems and search engines

Of course depending on which site you go to you will see stats that go against this one. But it is still very commonly believed that IE is the main browser for most people cause they dont care to go off the installed browser with Windows.

I am not trying to start a fight. But i am jsut saying that every site reports the stats differently. I just posted one that shows IE at 71% and Firefox at about 20%. Which is less than half. This is also a more independtent source which is not linked to IE or Firefox.

Browser and OS Market Share White Paper

Even this site shows Firefox being much lower.

Web Browser Market Share

This one shows Gecko based browsers much higher.

Browser Market Share and OS Market Share White Paper

This one yet again shows that IE beats out Firefox.

So i wouldnt say that Firefox has a 45% share. 3 out of 4 sites i found say the exact opposite. But like i said i am not trying to argue. Just stating that different stat sites show different stats. I can sit here and claim that Opera has a higher share than both and quote a source from Opera.com as well. ;)
 
Fair enough.

I had a source bookmarked that I'll post as soon as I boot back into Windows. Just can't remember off hand where I got the number from but it's a legit source.

Stated IE 6 at 25%, IE7 at around 25% and FF at 42% ... something like that. But the meat and potatoes of the point wasn't about numbers necessarily ... It was about an increase in popularity at the time of the change.

I'll trust that your sources are more accurate than mine ... I looked at 2 sites to illustrate, to a customer, why I test in multiple browsers when building websites. Didn't really pay attention to where the information was coming from because the customer really doesn't care, was making a one-time point to them.
 
I understand Doc. I was just saying that these stats are iffy at best cause each site can report them differently.

I get yoru point saying that they jumped to FF3 when FF2 was still at its prime. But at the same time i can understand why.

Firefox 3 is using more web standards. FF3 at least passes Acid2. While FF2 does not. The same can be said of IE at this point. But IE8 does pass Acid2 and even Microsoft at this point is making the effort to conform to some of the web standards so that no matter what web site you visit in no matter which browser it will look the same.

Which overall will make things easier for the coders since they will only have to meet the standards to have their page viewed right. Sadly they will still have to add code in for IE6/IE7 cause of businesses and others who refuse to update to the most secure version of each browser.

I fully understand what you are trying to say. I think as well that Firefox 3 should have stayed more like FF2 with many aspects. Change a few things for this release and then make the big changes for Firefox 4. The Address Bar or Smar bar or what ever they call it now didnt need to be changed like it was. The Bookmarks was a nice addition.

Personally i think if they had just updated Firefox 2 to meet the Acid2 requirements they could have stayed with it for a while longer while they worked out more kinks in FF3.
 
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