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Mobile Firefox nears launch

Stephen Shankland CNET News | December 9, 2009 6:58 AM PST

Summary

Mozilla is wrapping up work on its first version of Firefox for mobile phones, bringing the second most popular PC browser to an area where a rival project holds more influence.

Topics

Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Corp., Mobile Firefox, Web Browsers, Internet, mobile, browsers, Stephen Shankland CNET News
Mozilla is wrapping up work on its first version of Firefox for mobile phones, an important step in bringing the second most popular PC browser to an area where a rival project holds more influence.

"Our goal is to have a release candidate next week," said Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's vice president of mobile. "If things go smoothly, we'll have a (final) version out in the next few weeks," with the debut planned for this year, he added.

The first mobile Firefox version will run on Nokia's powerful but relatively obscure new N900, a $569 hybrid computer and mobile phone that uses Nokia's Linux-based Maemo operating system. A Windows Mobile of mobile Firefox is set to arrive next year, and Mozilla has begun working on an Android version now that Google released a native developer kit.

Firefox has one big thing going for it, though: it's a close relative of the PC-based browser that today is used by about a quarter of people on the Web.

For more, read "First Mobile Firefox enters home stretch" on CNET News.

Talkback Most Recent of 8 Talkback(s)

  • BlackBerry
    Why in holy hell would they not make a BB version?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    the.moog
    9th Dec 2009
  • They are making it for Nokia first....
    Because Symbian has the largest installed base. But Windows Mobile over Blackberry? SERIOUSLY?

    HELLO!!! Mozilla. Blackberry rules the roost in the US. Wake up!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    condelirios
    9th Dec 2009
  • Actually . . .
    . . . the N900 runs Maemo Linux, not Symbian. Just an FYI.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Whyaylooh
    9th Dec 2009
  • thanks you
    what the hell? where is firefox for blackberry? i
    would download this in a heartbeat if they had one
    .

    if you haven't already, try BOLT for blackberry.
    bolt runs fine and renders webpages very nicely on
    my bold
    ZDNet Gravatar
    blackhawk556
    9th Dec 2009
  • Because . . .
    . . . to quote Nicole Loux at Mozilla:

    "Third party applications for Blackberry are generally developed in Java, and Fennec uses the Gecko rendering engine, which is developed in C/C++. We have beta and alpha versions available for the Maemo and Windows mobile platforms, and will continue to explore others as the Project evolves."
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Whyaylooh
    9th Dec 2009
  • Just what I was thinking. NT
    NT
    ZDNet Gravatar
    clfitz
    9th Dec 2009
  • Will It Run On IPhone?
    I bet there's no app for that!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    itanalyst2@...
    9th Dec 2009
  • RE: Mobile Firefox nears launch
    No Blackberry support ever, makes me sad.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Socratesfoot
    10th Dec 2009

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