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Firefox's tablet UI looks promising

By | August 30, 2011, 4:02pm PDT

Summary: Mozilla outlined some UI choices for Firefox for tablets.

Mozilla’s Ian Barlow on Tuesday outlined a version of Firefox for tablets and the biggest takeaway is that the browser isn’t merely being ported over.

In a blog post, Barlow, a UI designer for Mozilla, outlined a few key design items for Firefox for tablets. Barlow described the Firefox tablet UI as “an evolution of its phone based predecessor.”

Indeed, there are some nice features to ponder. For instance, Firefox for tablets blends in well with the Android 3.0 operating system. Barlow also outlined a tabbed menu for its “Awesomebar,” which synchronizes bookmarks, history and desktop browsers.

Barlow added that Firefox is bringing back tabs, something hidden on the phone version, because tablets offer larger screens.

Couple the tablet version with the new Firefox beta for Android and it’s clear that Mozilla is stepping up its mobile game.

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Mozilla Firefox, Tablets, Web Browsers, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Internet, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

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Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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RE: Firefox's tablet UI looks promising
marco5811 5th Sep
It identifies that a plugin is needed and leads you to the marketplace to download it, but it never actually showed up in FF. sazkove tipy
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Let's hope they add
thx-1138_@... Updated - 30th Aug
a native sandbox mechanism. (Actually, they should do that on all versions). .. just sayin'.

That aside, it looks good.
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RE: Firefox's tablet UI looks promising
ScorpioBlue 31st Aug
@thx-1138_@...

Nobody cares about the sandboxing hype except the obsessive geeks here on zdnet. The average user out there would probably care less and not know what you're talking about.
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RE: Firefox's tablet UI looks promising
SbySW 31st Aug
Indeed... looks promising.

But... "Awesomebar"???? Couldn't they find a grownup to come up with a name for that feature???
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RE: Firefox's tablet UI looks promising
GulleyJimson 31st Aug
"RighteousBar"!
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RE: Firefox's tablet UI looks promising
sbf95070 Updated - 1st Sep
I am using Firefox on my Acer A500. While I like some of the UI, I still find myself using the built in browser more often than FF.

One of the biggest issues is that FF on Android 3.1 doesn't do a great job of handling plugins. It identifies that a plugin is needed and leads you to the marketplace to download it, but it never actually showed up in FF. The plugin in this case was Adobe AIR, so we aren't talking some minor tweak from a small player. I have had the same issue with other plugins.

Other issues are simple things like "where the heck is the back button????"

FF has not crashed or been unstable. Just doesn't recognize plugins and has some flukey UI issues.
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RE: Firefox's tablet UI looks promising
Zc456 4th Sep
Testing it out on my tablet with the latest alpha build. Very promising!
0 Votes
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RE: Firefox's tablet UI looks promising
marco5811 5th Sep
It identifies that a plugin is needed and leads you to the marketplace to download it, but it never actually showed up in FF. sazkove tipy

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