The Inquisitr » fennec

Mozilla Releases New Version of Fennec Mobile Browser

JR — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:48:36 +0000

Mozilla’s long-under-development mobile browser, Fennec, is now in its second alpha phase. Fennec Alpha 2 was officially released this week, taking the focus away for a brief moment from the Firefox 3.1 beta progress.

The Mozilla team says the updated Fennec contains huge performance updates, with faster startup times, better panning and zooming, and better responsiveness while pages are loading.

“We’ve re-factored a significant amount of the front end code resulting in substantial speed improvements as well providing a much better base for extension authors to build upon,” says Stuart Parmenter, Fennec engineering manager.

The Fennec Alpha 2 release is accompanied by an updated desktop version with support for Windows, OS X, and Linux. The desktop version is designed primarily with third-party extension developers in mind, to make testing easier.

Mozilla says its Windows Mobile build is seeing “great progress,” and work is now also beginning on a Symbian version of the program.

More information as well as download links can be found here.

Update: Mozilla Mobile To Hit Alpha Within Weeks

JR — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:30:16 +0000

Mozilla’s mobile browser, long-under-development with the codename Fennec, should be available in alpha release within a matter of weeks. Engineers released Milestone 8 of the tool at the end of September and have previously said the utility will be finished and ready for use by early 2009.

Mozilla chief executive John Lilly now indicates things are progressing quickly. In a new interview with the San Jose Mercury News, Lilly says:

“We want to make sure that the Web on mobile is more like the Web than what the mobile industry offers today, which is closed, separate networks and not a very good information-getting experience for the user. The first thing is to bring Firefox to mobile devices. We’re working on that, and we’ll see some alphas in a few weeks.”

Fennec’s early versions have been tested with Nokia models, but Mozilla intends to have the browser support multiple platforms by the time it’s ready to roll.

Mozilla Mobile Reaches New Milestone

JR — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:01:22 +0000

Mozilla has reached a new milestone with its upcoming Firefox mobile browser, codenamed Fennec. The development team has announced the release of Fennec Milestone 8, or M8 for short. As we reported earlier this month, the program is targeted to be finished and released by next year.

“Fennec is being tested pretty hard now, and by people who love to find bugs,” Mozilla’s Mark Finkle says.

The updated M8 version boasts an updated look that’s still being tweaked:

Other improvements include a new support panel with an add-on manager and download manager; sidebars that slide in and out of view; support for kinetic scrolling; and overall performance enhancements. Features set to debut in future builds include expanded tab capabilities and potential camera input support.

As of now, Fennec is being developed specifically for the Noxia N8×0. Engineers say they’ll start working on other platforms soon.