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Firefox Mobile version 1.0 now available for the Nokia N900

As I stated in my Nokia N900 review the Nokia N900 has the best web browser of any mobile phone. This statement was made about the default web browser and now we have a final version of an alternative web browser that works amazingly well. Firefox for Mobile version 1.0 is now available for the Nokia N900 and if you have a N900 I highly recommend you download and install it now. It is a free web browser with the very compelling Weave Sync support to keep your Firefox experience synced across multiple computers.
Written by Matthew Miller, Contributing Writer

As I stated in my Nokia N900 review the Nokia N900 has the best web browser of any mobile phone. This statement was made about the default web browser and now we have a final version of an alternative web browser that works amazingly well. Firefox for Mobile version 1.0 is now available for the Nokia N900 and if you have a N900 I highly recommend you download and install it now. It is a free web browser with the very compelling Weave Sync support to keep your Firefox experience synced across multiple computers.

Mozilla has been actively working on the Firefox for Mobile project and as I mentioned on January 1st, Release Candidate 1 was released with support for mobile add-ons, Flash, and more. I tried it out on my N900, but it was quite slow and couldn't bump me off of the outstanding default microB browser already loaded on the N900. We then saw Release Candidate 2 and Release Candidate 3 over the last few weeks. Mozilla just made the final release available yesterday and I quickly installed it on my N900. It is now much faster than the previous Release Candidates (aka public beta) and I plan to try using it as my primary web browser.

One thing you may notice is that the Flash plug-in is no longer installed by default in the browser. You can still enable the experimental Flash plug-in if you desire, but the Mozilla folks stated this is at your own risk and you may see reduced battery life and slowing down of the browser. Flash is supported in the default Nokia N900 microB browser so you can always use this browser if you need Flash. I personally only use Flash for YouTube and there is a cool YouTube add-on for the Firefox browser that addresses my need just fine.

As stated on the Mozilla site, these are the features of the Firefox browser:

  • Awesome Bar – Go to your favorite sites in just a couple of keystrokes with intelligent and personalized searching
  • Weave Sync – Sync your Firefox tabs, history, bookmarks and passwords between your desktop and mobile device for a seamless browsing experience
  • Add-ons – Customize your Firefox by adding small pieces of functionality, like games and news readers, that help make the mobile Web browser your own
  • Location-Aware Browsing – Get maps and information relevant to your location
  • Tabbed browsing – View open tabs as thumbnails to easily identify and select the Web page you’d like to go to next
  • Safe Browsing – Get an Instant Web Site ID and easily access and edit security settings
  • Available in more than 30 languages and counting

Visit firefox.com/mobile in your N900 web browser to install the latest version.

There are currently over 40 Firefox mobile add-ons for the N900 and I personally have the following loaded on my device:

  • Weave
  • TwitterBar
  • Lazy Click
  • URL Fixer
  • Hold4Tab
  • YouTube Enabler
  • Google integrated search
  • Amazon integrated search
  • Twitter integrated search
  • Wikipedia integrated search

If you want the best web browser experience on a mobile phone, then the N900 is clearly the leader in this area and even has browsers better than the recently announced Apple iPad.

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