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News Mozilla Fennec for Android pre-alpha released

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by CardJoe, 29 Apr 2010.

  1. CardJoe

    CardJoe Freelance Journalist

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  2. eddtox

    eddtox Homo Interneticus

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    Fennec on the N900 has some nice touches, but ultimately, the lack of any decent way to zoom (double tap is patchy and the volume rocker doesn't zoom) coupled with the dismally slow start-up meant that I've stuck with the default microB browser (which is probably the best default browser I've ever seen on a phone).

    If the FF team fix those niggles (maybe implement the 'swirl' zoom) I think it has a good chance of making it big in the mobile space. I doubt apple will let them into the iDevices ecosystem, though.
     
  3. rickysio

    rickysio N900 | HJE900

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    @eddtox

    Hint : Use Ctrl + up/down buttons.

    I do agree with the other points, though!
     
  4. DriftCarl

    DriftCarl Minimodder

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    just installed on my HTC desire and posting this message from it. it seems quite fast and well done for a pre alpha
     
  5. l3v1ck

    l3v1ck Fueling the world, one oil well at a time.

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    I'll give it a try, if it's stable, I'll use it.
     
  6. l3v1ck

    l3v1ck Fueling the world, one oil well at a time.

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    I can't get it to work on my HTC Desire at all. All I get is a black screen.:sigh:

    Edit

    It seemed to crash the phone when turning it off. I had to uninstall it. I'll wait for the beta.
     
    Last edited: 29 Apr 2010
  7. ffjason

    ffjason What's a Dremel?

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    You also need Open GL 2 at the moment so no hero support :( (even on the 2.1 rom's)
     
  8. VictorianBloke

    VictorianBloke Man in a box

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    It takes a while to load the first few times, i thought it'd killed mine at first. Once it's open though it's pretty quick.

    I'm impressed with weave, easy to setup and popped up with all the tabs currently open in firefox on my pc.

    Main issues so far - I've not worked out how to zoom yet, and the desire keyboard doesn't pop up in landscape, you have to flick back to portait mode to type anything, a promising start though, should keep me amused messing at work tomorrow :)
     
  9. Zurechial

    Zurechial Elitist

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    Did anyone else read the bit about poor memory usage and snicker, thinking of how it just reflects the desktop version of the browser? :p

    I'm running CyanogenMod on my G1 so I doubt it'll work for me yet, but I'm eager to see it finished.
    The default browser is quite good but not perfect so more choice will be welcome.
     
  10. DriftCarl

    DriftCarl Minimodder

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    i double tap for zoom on my desire, shame there is no multi touch yet but I am sure that will come.
     
  11. rickysio

    rickysio N900 | HJE900

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    Poor memory usage? Firefox had been benchmarked and it consumes the LEAST amount of RAM by quite a few sites, no? While admittedly the performance advantage only kicks in with high amounts of tabs, but in a desktop environment I often have more than 10 tabs open at once, so it IS in fact, the least whalish of all browsers I have.
     
  12. eddtox

    eddtox Homo Interneticus

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    Fennec 1.0.1 just hit maemo5. I got really excited when I saw it in the update manager, but it turns out its just a security update. Still, i spent some time playing about with it and I found it much more sluggish than microb
     
  13. rickysio

    rickysio N900 | HJE900

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    Probably because Fennec has lesser people working on it than MicroB. Nokia does after all employ staggering amounts of people, and Mozilla can't afford to reach that scale.
     
  14. fabler

    fabler What's a Dremel?

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    I've already installed it on my N1. The browser seems to be fast. Very clean and a good designed interface. Swipe left for preferences and swipe right for tabs, a nice concept. But the only problem is space. It is 10MB of .apk file and after installation it occupy 30MB of space on device. This is really higher than the other competitors like skyfire.
     
  15. bionicgeekgrrl

    bionicgeekgrrl Minimodder

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    would try this if my X10 wasn't stuck at 1.6 :/ mozilla FF with weave on a phone would be rather good :)
     
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