Not a heck of a lot to report on this one, but a picture is worth a thousand words, no? The Mozilla team has posted a couple teasers pictures, on their Facebook page, of the Fennec mobile browser running on the HTC Nexus One and Motorola DROID. No word on a release time line or when a public build of the mobile Mozilla offering will be available to the masses. We’ve got the DROID picture queued up for you after the break.

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We’re not sure if the good people at Mozilla have been drinking the same Kool-Aid® as the folks developing Chrome OS or if they are just out of their blessed minds. Mozilla is touting that its mobile version of Firefox, currently codenamed Fennec, could be the beginning of the end for mobile app stores like Apple’s App Store and Android’s Market. Mozilla VP of mobile Jay Sullivan told PC Pro, “Anyone who knows JavaScript and HTML can develop a great app without having to learn a specific mobile platform.” Now, our memories aren’t that great, but didn’t Apple already try this when the iPhone first came out? Isn’t this what Palm’s entire SDK is made of? Didn’t one Steve Jobs upon launching the first iPhone proclaim, that we don’t need native applications, web apps will do everything we want? So as it turns out, he did, and they didn’t. Sullivan continues, “in the interim period, apps will be very successful. Over time, the web will win because it always does.” Are they visionaries or is it a pipe dream from a company whose bread and butter revolves around the browser?  We will see.

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We’re getting closer, WinMo fans. Mozilla has just released the second Alpha build of its highly, highly anticipated mobile version of Firefox. Still dubbed Fennec for the time being, Windows Mobile users who aren’t infatuated with Skyfire can now head over to Mozilla’s website and download the official Alpha 2 version of the browser. This latest version is still a testing version as the name might suggest, and it’s quite rough around the edges. Nonetheless, progress is steady and this latest version includes the following improvements:

• Improved panning performance
• Newly designed theme
• JavaScript error console is now built in
• Improved add-on support
• Numerous bug fixes
• Improved UI polish

This release is available for anyone running Windows Mobile 6 — not just HTC Touch Pro users like the last release. Woo hoo! If anyone takes the plunge and installs this alpha version, hit us in the comments section with your first impressions.

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Ok, we’ve got good news and we’ve got bad news. First the good news: it looks like Mozilla is on track to push out a very early alpha build of Fennec, Firefox Mobile, for Windows Mobile. Now the bad news: Just as with early builds for Nokia internet tablets, this build looks pretty unusable. It doesn’t look anywhere near as slow and unstable as the tablet version when it first popped up but it’s definitely not in any state ready for prolonged usage. In fact, we should probably consider it a proof of concept. For the time being it’s look but no touch but Pocketnow provides a pretty thorough preview video to give you a taste of the app in its current state. In all likelihood this is a pretty good indication that Mozilla is on track for an alpha release very soon, as was reported last week. Are you guys as excited as we are to see Firefox make its was through Nokia tablets and onto mobile phones?

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Windows Mobile users have a lot going for them lately but truth be told, most of the good news still falls in the rumor category for the time being. Windows Mobile 6.5 might be introduced at MWC but we don’t know for sure. We also don’t even know if it will be worth the wait. The honeycomb UI looks interesting but videos show it might just be a TouchFLO-like band-aid. The rumored cloud-based suite looks nice but we still have nothing from Microsoft regarding SkyBox, SkyLine or SkyMarket. Now however, we’ve got some good news that you might not have to wait long for. According to an update to the Firefox Mobile wiki, HTC Touch Pro owners could be looking at an initial release as soon as next week. Woo! Internet Explorer is, umm, not so good, and Firefox Mobile is poised to do for Windows Mobile what Firefox did for Windows: Fix web browsing. For all the people out there without a Touch Pro this is still great news as it marks the first time a version of Firefox Mobile will be released in any state for a device other than a Nokia Internet Tablet. We can’t wait.

[Via IntoMobile]

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The mobile browser wars are on. The competition is between Opera, Mobile IE, Safari, Chrome, and the Blackberry Browser. So far, even iPhone haters would agree, Safari has yet to be touched. It only makes sense that one of the most popular browsers out there, Firefox, and their creator, Mozilla, would want to jump in on the mobile browser battle. A few weeks ago, Fennec, Mozilla’s upcoming mobile browser, was released to some beta testers but was only available for the Nokia N810 Internet tablet. While the programmers testing it out found a lot of bugs, they also felt there is a lot of promise for Mozilla’s latest browser offering. Jay Sullivan, vice president of the mobile division at Mozilla, says the reports from testers were positive and that JavaScript performance was on par with the browsers on Android and the iPhone’s Safari.

If anyone knows how to make a browser powerful, but user-friendly, it’s Mozilla. Fennec is going to be no different in terms of their end goal for the mobile browser. First, they intend to use every last bit of screen real-estate to the browser, removing all controls, tabs, and buttons that would take away from the body of the page. Sullivan says they want to “give over the entire screen of the device to the Web content, removing all user-interface controls entirely.” How will a user navigate, you ask? Certain screen controls and finger swipes (for touchscreens) will activate the UI controls in a snap. If that isn’t cool enough for you, future versions may also include support for haptic feedback. While this is all cool and snazzy, Fennec has its work cut out because the others (Safari, Opera, Blackberry, Symbian) have established themselves and are still making progress. For more info on Fennec and what its future holds, hit the link!

Thanks, Chris!

[Via UnwiredView]

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Well lookie what we have here. It looks like Mozilla stepped it up and decided to release a shiny new tablet version of the Fennec (Firefox Mobile) browser. N810 and N800 owners running Chinook or Diablo can now enjoy the fresh new 1.0 alpha 1 version of Fennec, complete with a laundry list of changes:

Easy navigation to Web content:

• Bookmarks, including tags
• Smart URL bar ("awesome bar")
• Tabbed browsing with thumbnail images
• Integrated Web search – built into the URL bar
• Easy access to multiple search engines

Web content:

• Maximize content by auto-hiding controls and URL bar
• Zoom in and out

Security:

• Instant Web site ID ("Larry")
• Password manager
• Popup blocker
• Clear private data

Devices services integration:

• Click on a phone number to initiate a call
• JavaScript API to get device location
• Popup blocker
• Clear private data

Also:

• Searchable download manager
• Preferences pane

We’ve played with it for a while and while the look and functionality are fantastic, it’s still slow. When we say slow, we mean sloooooow. The tabbed browsing (pictured above on the left) implementation and navigation controls are awesome – swipe right with your finger or stylus right to open the tabs bar or left to open the navigation menu. Tablet owners can hit the read link to install Fennec or if you’re reading this on your N800 / N810 just click here for the .install file.

[Via nokiAAddict ]

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Just last week we got word that a Firefox Mobile alpha version might be coming down the pipe a lot sooner than expected. Low and behold, screen shots have been leaked. As many could have guessed, the first version we are seeing is sitting pretty atop Windows Mobile. Sure we would love to see Firefox Mobile, codenamed Fennec, on some other platforms but let’s be honest – Windows Mobile is definitely in need of some browser love more so than most other competitive smartphone platforms. Hopefully there are some other versions in the works as well; BlackBerry and S60 could surely use the help, especially from a mobile browser that manages an Acid3 Test score of 88/100! Long story short, it looks hot and we want it now. According to the source there will definitely be a version of Firefox Mobile available to the public before the year is out so all you Windows Mobile users out there should get ready to make the rest of us slightly jealous.

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