Firefox Preps Fennec
Mozilla’s successful Firefox Web browser is making significant headway into the mobile arena with its impending release of a very alpha version of its "Fennec" browser.
The Fennec fox is “a small nocturnal fox found in the Sahara Desert of North Africa which has distinctive very large ears,” according to Wikipedia on Monday.
Fennec, the codename of the mobile Firefox project, is expected to be released next week.
There is, of course, a catch.
You have to be a developer selected by Mozilla to be able to test the mobile browser out.
Screenshots surfaced on the Web earlier this week and shows a design that is not too different from the desktop-based version of the browser.
Fennec will have most of the same “guts” as Firefox 3, and will be made available first on Nokia’s N810 Internet Tablet, and then on Windows Mobile at an unspecified later date.
The mobile browser won’t reach beta status until some time next year.
Mozilla is, of course, headed in the right direction. However, many of its announcements lately seem to be reactions to Google Chrome’s arrival on the scene. While Chrome (in beta) has not gobbled up the market share that some expected it would, it clearly challenged Firefox’s reputation as the go-to, non-IE browser.
Chrome’s clear intentions for the mobile game are now unveiled, so it is hardly surprising that Mozilla is headed towards a Fennec future.
Consumers will win, regardless.
Sources:
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/10/mobile_firefox_1.html
http://www.appscout.com/2008/10/firefox_for_windows_mobile_scr_1.php
http://apcmag.com/Content.aspx?id=3074
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennec_Fox
