Last night on the DL Show, we quickly discussed the many options that Android users have in terms of Internet browser applications. In fact, there are a ton of good choices out there. You have Chrome, which has become very popular for syncing between multiple devices, Dolphin for its large list of features, Opera for its speed, and the list goes on. Each seems to have its own unique characteristic that people are drawn to.

Let us know down below which one you’re stuck on.

Thursday Poll: What Is Your Most Used Android Web Browser is a post from: Droid Life

Firefox users, it’s time to upgrade your Android tablet version to the latest and greatest that is now available on the Google Play store. According to the Firefox team, all of the “dramatic improvements” that made the phone experience so delightful, are now available on this new tablet build. Everything should be noticeably quicker, including page load times, panning, zooming, and web app performance.

Anyone using Firefox as their daily Android browser? If so, sell me on why.

Play Link

Newly Redesigned Firefox for Android Tablets Released is a post from: Droid Life

Choice in browsers has been an integral part in the history of computing. Mozilla has been at the heart of the push for choice in browsers from its inception out of Netscape to the introduction of Firefox in 2004. Since 2004, Mozilla has been dedicated to giving users a choice in browsers not only on the desktop, but on mobile.

The latest version of Firefox for Android, available in Google Play today, comes in the midst of heavy competition in browsers for Android with Dolphin HD, Opera Mobile, Opera Mini, and Firefox each having been downloaded more than ten million times. Perhaps even more dauntingly, Google is in the process of making Chrome the default browser in Android. Chrome made headlines in the last six weeks as it surpassed Internet Explorer to become the most used browser internationally on desktops. Mozilla is keenly aware that by developing Firefox for Android they are competing with Google in a way that is much less obvious on the desktop.

I had the opportunity to ask Jonathan Nightingale, Senior Director of Firefox Engineering, some questions about Mozilla’s vision for Firefox on Android. Despite the risks of competing with Google on their own platform, Nightingale remains optimistic:

“It’s important for users to have choice. Web use on mobile devices is growing at massive rates, and the values that drive our investment in building Firefox as a desktop browser apply just as readily to mobile. Competition and choice in mobile browsers is deeply important to the health of the mobile web.”  

When Mozilla first released Firefox for Android way back in 2010 (then called Fennec) it went through several evolutions. Through each evolution Mozilla seemed to struggle with finding a balance between offering something that was powerful like a desktop browser, yet simple enough to use on a phone. Mozilla seems to have hit their stride with this latest release.

A browser may have great animations and special features, but if it can’t load web pages quickly then those fancy features are for naught. Nightingale noted that following the release of “the first version of Firefox for Android, we heard from users the things they wanted most were Flash support and better performance, so we redesigned the product to deliver a better experience.” To test the latest version of Firefox against eleven other browsers I used a GSM Galaxy Nexus running stock ICS on the same WiFi network. Below you’ll see the average time it took for the twelve different browsers to launch and how long it took to load Droid-Life with the fastest load times on top:

Though the new Firefox doesn’t top either of these lists, it’s no slouch either. It’s clear that Mozilla still has some work to do, but overall these slight differences in load times is indistinguishable in regular browsing. In fact, it’s in general performance and usage that the new Firefox really shines.

Manipulating web pages is an area where Firefox exhibits definite superiority over Browser and Chrome. Scrolling is smooth, especially on the desktop view of websites, whereas both Chrome and Browser scrolling can be a little jittery. More importantly, Mozilla has done a great job replicating text zoom levels that Safari for iOS offers. While Browser and Chrome simply blow up an area when it is double tapped, Firefox, like Safari, zooms in to make the text below your taps centered on the screen. This may seem like a little flourish, but it actually makes a significant difference in the user experience.

In the same way, pinch to zoom works better in Firefox than it does in Browser or Chrome. Don’t get me wrong – pinch to zoom works very week in both Chrome and Browser, but Chrome and Browser have the occasional stutter, especially if pinch to zoom is initiated right after scrolling. Firefox, on the other hand, is able to consistently pinch to zoom smoothly, even after scrolling through a web page.

Like Chrome, Firefox syncs your bookmarks and your browsing history between your phone and desktop. Unlike Chrome, however, Firefox does not differentiate between websites viewed on the desktop versus those viewed on your phone. This decision wasn’t because engineers were lazy; it is a manifestation of Mozilla’s vision of one Firefox across different screens. Mozilla believes that it can provide the same great experience across all three screens in your life.

When I asked Nightingale about the difficulty in providing a desktop-class experience on a mobile device, he emphasized the importance balancing both expectations. “We work with our designers and UI engineers to build a user interface that is simplified, and well adapted to the mobile experience. We build that on top of the same Gecko rendering engine we use on desktop, to ensure that our users on Android are getting a complete, mature, and modern HTML5 browser.”

Part of extending a desktop experience to mobile meant bringing extensions to Firefox. As of this writing there are only four extensions available, but Nightingale assures me that like Firefox on the desktop, Mozilla expects the community to develop extensions that help create a truly personalized experience. The extensions available don’t create a personalized experience as much as they augment an already great browser. URL Fixer, for example, gives suggestions to the user when common typos in URLs are present before loading the page while Phony lets users impersonate other browsers to get web pages to load differently.

The Start Screen has been overhauled to show frequently visited sites and tabs from your last session. Unfortunately, while the new Start Screen has indeed been overhauled, it is not a huge improvement over the previous iteration of Firefox. Instead of focusing on the most important data when starting a browser, the new Start Screen tries to do too much. Add-ons are not something that I want to see every time I start Firefox. Instead, it would be nice if Mozilla finished its copy of Chrome’s launch page and just showed me the websites I tend to visit the most.

Mozilla’s decision to use the same layout as Chrome wouldn’t be a bad thing if they hadn’t tried to hide it with the curved layers lining the top of the browser. While the colored layers fade in well on the start screen, they rarely match the look of the website you’re actually viewing. Hopefully in a future release Mozilla will simply use the faded black used for the menu button across the top to make the UI look much cleaner.

One of the most frustrating parts of the Start Page is the URL bar (what Mozilla calls the Awesome Bar). Entering a website is simple enough (especially with URL Fixer), but Firefox only populates the Awesome Bar with websites you’ve already visited as suggestions. While this is fairly normal for most browsers, Chrome has set a new standard with Google Instant. On Chrome, as soon as I start typing Google begins suggesting search queries and websites. This feature is a huge time saver, but more importantly, it makes browsing on a mobile device much less reliant on precise typography.

Managing tabs in Firefox hasn’t evolved much. Taping the plus button next to the address bar gives the user three options: Top Sites, Bookmarks, and History. Once several tabs are loaded they can be accessed by tapping on the number that replaces the plus button. Tabs load in the background and the preview in the tab view refreshes live so it’s easy to check if a website has updated with new data or finished loading. That said, I still prefer Chrome’s borrowed card metaphor to a drop down list.

The latest version of Firefox still has the option to save pages to PDF, which can be shared or used to browse pages offline. While the feature certainly isn’t a replacement for Pocket or other offline readers, it does provides an option to save a website at a fixed point in time. Mozilla may not want to compete in the offline reading space, so perhaps Mozilla should add support for offline readers right in the browser (i.e. not through a plug in). Being able to long press on a link and send it directly to an offline reader in one press is a fantastic feature.

Is Firefox the best browser on Android? In my opinion Firefox is slightly better than Chrome, though it’s a close call. Chrome lacks any offline reading mode (despite the fact that Browser includes it), doesn’t support Flash, and offers few customization options, but it still starts the fastest, loads pages the fastest, and is integrated with Google Instant. Though Mozilla claims that Flash is a commonly requested feature, I find Flash less and less necessary and often more frustrating than useful.

All things considered, Firefox is a very competitive browser, but the sloppy, borrowed design, lack of Google Instant, and Chrome’s use of the card metaphor to manage tabs keep Chrome in the number one spot in terms of design and UI. Mozilla is right about one thing, though – Firefox can be and certainly is a force for innovation in the browsing space. The performance of Firefox compared to most other browsers on Android is incredible. For most users Firefox will provide a fantastic experience on Google’s platform, rivaled only by Google’s own browser.

Review: Firefox for Android is a post from: Droid Life

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

Brand New Firefox Beta Released on Android, Say Hello to a New UI and Flash Support is a post from: Droid Life

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.

 Phone version:

Tablet version:

I hate to be that guy, but it looks a bit Chrome-ish. And not that that’s a bad thing, since Google is trying to do something similar with their browser, by making the experience seamless between platforms. Some of the look or features has been taken from previous mobile versions though, but the overall look is quite a bit different. What are your thoughts on Firefox? I know that Chrome has become the #1 browser for many of you – are you willing to give Firefox another shot, though?

Via:  Ars Technica | SlideShare

New Firefox Aims to Create Uniform Experience Across Desktop, Phones and Tablets is a post from: Droid Life

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? 

What’s in this version:

1. New tablet UI and features
2. Faster start-up time
3. Camera input support: developers can integrate camera functionality directly in Web sites
4. HTML5 form validation
5. More: www.mozilla.org/mobile/9.0/releasenotes

Market Link

Click here to view the embedded video.

Via: Mozilla

Firefox On Android Redesigned For Honeycomb Tablets is a post from: Droid Life

“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

Flash Support Makes Its Way Into Firefox Nightlies is a post from: Droid Life

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

Firefox For Android Tablets Now Enters Nightly Status is a post from: Droid Life

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?  

Landscape and Portrait Modes:

Awesomebar:

Just guessing, but would doubt that this will have Flash support.  Since the phone version doesn’t, I cannot imagine that they would all of a sudden see the light and take their tablet version into the light.

Other than Flash, anyone else as excited to try this out as I am?

Via:  Ian Barlow, Android Central

Firefox for Tablets Gets a Brief Preview is a post from: Droid Life

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. 

The new welcome page helps users discover browser tools and features (like Firefox Sync, add-ons, tabbed browsing and bookmarks) that are conveniently stowed away in the side panels. Many users will notice faster zooming, crisp text and reduced pixelation due to enhanced image rendering in Firefox for Android.

Firefox for Android adds support for tools that help developers create rich, compelling mobile Web apps and websites. With the single touch events API, developers can build Web experiences that detect touch events and gestures. Imagine mobile Web apps that enable users to swipe their finger to pan around a map and mobile Web games that let you swipe a finger to swing a baseball bat or pull a slingshot to launch an angry bird. Support for multi-touch events will be added in future releases.

Which mobile browser people tend to use is a big deal for some, and with a seemingly never ending list, it is hard to make a definite choice. Has everyone given Firefox’s previous attempts a chance? Definitely check out the newest version and see if it is on par with Dolphin Browser or Opera Browser. Let us know if it’s better and if this new makeover was a good move.

Market Link

Which mobile browser is everyone rocking these days?

Via: Mozilla

Firefox For Android Receives Makeover, Starts Delivering Tools For Developers To Create Richer Web Experiences is a post from: Droid Life

Mozilla has officially started on their newest venture called Boot to Gecko, a “complete, standalone operating system for the open Web.” They’re diving into the project with all the best intentions, looking for uniformity in application development and to streamline the complete experience provided to users. No more “fragmentation” across different devices. What works on your laptop, would work seamlessly on your mobile phone, tablet, etc.

They will be using the Gecko engine which shall now be completely open source, and all work moving forward shall be updated in real-time for further development. Looks like no double standard will be coming from the workers at Mozilla who will in fact be using Google’s Android kernels, and boot drivers to initially power a device running the mobile OS. Mozilla has said that they want to take as little from Android as possible though. So this is not an OS based on Android, but merely Android is helping get this project off the ground, so in later days, it can stand on it’s own.

This will in turn rival Google’s Chrome OS which has been so far limited to their line of netbooks. I have had no issue while being able to play Angry Birds or Plants Vs. Zombies at my work station using Chrome, so imagine that, but with all applications you currently have. Will people even need to leave their houses? Some time ago, a video was released by Mozilla showing a concept of not only a device, but possibly of the future.

Will we welcome the next mobile OS as friendly competition, or is Mozilla being naive in thinking they can compete with Google at their own game? Let us know.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Source: Mozilla, PC World

Mozilla Working On Their Own Mobile OS To Make Life Easier, With A Little Help From Android is a post from: Droid Life

Users of the beta Firefox Mobile for Android can feel much more secure after today with the introduction of a “Do Not Track” feature which gives them more control over the way their browsing behavior is tracked and used online.  By simply toggling the DNT to “Yes”, users are sending a ”DNT: 1″ signal to each website they visit – prompting that site to stop tracking them.  Not a bad feature, right?  Now, how about we ad support for Flash next?

Market Link | More Details

Via:  Mozilla Blog

Firefox Beta for Android Introduces “Do Not Track” Privacy Feature is a post from: Droid Life

Mozilla just popped out an announcement for Firefox on Android, making the current version in the market the official version and that’s really all that has changed since the release candidate that dropped last week.  In fact, it’s changed so little, that my market hasn’t even asked me to update the version from last week to make it really official.  Weird, I know.

So yeah…ummm, this is official Firefox.  Anyone using it?  I was most definitely high on the browser last week when it came out, but after spending an entire week and weekend with it, I’m not longer using it.  It’s just not ready to compete with the Dolphins of the world yet, although it could be at some point down the road.  It has some really great features built into it with a superb UI and PC browser syncing (wait people use Firefox on PCs?), but the lack of Flash support plus some other little annoyances (like awful zoom rendering) have me back to a much lighter browser.  I promise to be back for version 4.1 though.

Intro video after the break.   Download Link.  

Click here to view the embedded video.

Via:  Mozilla Blog

Firefox 4 on Android Is Officially Official, Still Doesn’t Support Flash is a post from: Droid Life

Firefox 4 on Android has finally hit “release candidate” status and is pretty damn awesome when compared to previous builds.  Well, aside from lacking support for Flash that is.  It has speed to compete with any other browser, is no longer riddled with performance hogging bugs, and with its side panels, is one of the easiest to use on the market.  While I’m not a huge fan of Firefox on a PC, I’m definitely a big fan of their mobile version.  

Download Link

Click here to view the embedded video.

Via:  Mozilla Blog

Firefox 4 Release Candidate for Android Available, Most Polished Version to Date is a post from: Droid Life

Firefox for Android received a shiny new update today that might actually be worth your time.  According to its makers, this is the fastest version yet and crushes the stock Android browser in every single speed test.  It also supports Firefox Sync, the Awesome screen, and includes over 200 add-ons just like the desktop version.  I’m actually really liking this latest build, but the fact that it still lacks Flash support is killing me.

Fancy new video walk-through after the break.  

Via: Mozilla Blog

New Firefox for Android is Fastest Version Yet, Now Offers Over 200+ Add-ons is a post from: Droid Life