Every time Mozilla announces that a new Firefox beta has been released (this time to the Play Store), a part of me hopes that it is nothing short of awesome. And not that I’m all that willing to give up on Chrome, but competition is good and having used Firefox on a PC for so long before Chrome became such a powerhouse, it would be nice to see it carve out a niche on mobile as well. Then I install it and always immediately say, “Ugh.” Such is the case again today with the latest beta that introduces a new UI and Flash support.

The changelog got me excited, especially with the “user interface has been completely re-designed.” Unfortunately, the good news seems to stop there. It’s still buggy, clunky, and freezes up during the simplest of tasks. Once you get it rollin’, it can open pages fairly fast, but the way multi-touch and scrolling work are odd enough to give you a headache. The Flash support is welcomed though. I guess I’ll just have to wait for the next release.

Play Link

Via:  Mozilla

A presentation by Mozilla’s Madhava Enros has surfaced online, giving us a look at the future of their popular browser, better known as Firefox. In the slides, you can quickly figure out what the goal is here – to create a browser that looks and feels the same across all platforms, hence the “distinctive and unified” mention at the top of the first slide. Over the last few months, they merged their mobile and desktop teams to hopefully make this dream come true.

The motto for this new project seems to be “soft, friendly, and human,” and that makes sense. After cruising through the slides, I sort of see what they are getting at with the curves, soft colors, and simple approach (wait, is that human?). In the presentation, you will find a number of pictures that represent the Firefox team’s ideas for the future of the browser. Be sure to check it out at the source link below.

Folks hoping for Firefox to make its optimized way to their Android tablets have received another early Christmas present.  The hardworking people over at Firefox have recently pumped out a completely revamped version of the popular web browser just for tablets.  Along with the new look you will also notice minor bug fixes here and there and as an added nice gesture, you should also see a faster start-up time for the app.

On a separate note we would like to add that it should be a crime to Photoshop HTC’s Sense UI over a Galaxy Nexus.  What were they thinking? 

“Why people want that buggy plugin still floors me today, but Mozilla’s heard you loud and clear.” That’s how Firefox feels about Flash on a mobile browser yet has still found a way to bring it to you in their latest nightly build. I’d attempt to give you some sort of review or first impressions on it, but it appears to hate my DROID RAZR and Bionic. In fact, I’m almost wondering if we shouldn’t swap out “plugin” in that quote for “Firefox nightly.”

Download:  fennec-11.0a1.en-US.android-arm.apk

Install as you would any other non-market app.

Via:  dknite, Android Central

If you have been waiting to get your hands on Firefox for your tablet, then now would be an excellent time to download the new nightly build that has just been published by the Mozilla team. The browser app is still in development so you can’t expect perfect results, but you are more than welcome to test it out and report and bugs you come across to the Mozilla team to help aid future development.

The major question everyone has for the Firefox app is, “Does it have Flash?” No, unfortunately it still does not support Flash. So don’t go reporting that as a bug. If you really need Flash there are plenty of alternatives such as Dolphin, or even the Stock browser – but Firefox just looks so gangster. Go try it out.

Firefox for Tablets Nightly APK

Via: Android Guys

I. Want. This. Now.  Yes Firefox, you have impressed me enough in a single preview post of your tablet-specific browser that I feel like I can no longer live without it and I don’t even have it yet.

In a blog post by one of Firefox Mobile’s developers, we get a look at the UI decisions that have been made for their tablet browser, along with some of the goodies that have carried over from the phone version.  The Awesomebar is included, a new tablet theme, and top/side tabs depending on which way you are holding your tablet.  This looks impressive.  And at this point, anything is better than the stock, crashmaster Honeycomb browser, right?  

Not too long ago, Firefox started a march for a better web experience. Today, Firefox has taken it’s first true step towards that goal. They have updated their Android application, and have given Firefox for Android a very nice face lift, and more importantly, have given developers the tools to build better web applications, and websites.