First Look - Mozilla just released the
first Beta of Firefox 9 for Android, which comes with an updated version
of the browser that especially targets tablets and is a massive
improvement over previous Firefox for Android versions. In an ironic
twist, this may actually be the UI model Mozilla should pursue for its
desktop browser.
For the past two years, Mozilla has been playing catch-up with its
browser rivals, especially Chrome, and is struggling to keep the pace of
Google’s capabilities to advance its software. However, it appears that
Mozilla has quietly surpassed its competitors in the tablet space. The
latest beta of Firefox for Android is, without doubt, the most
compelling browser for mobile devices and especially tablets available
today.
Here is why.
Past Firefox versions had a seemingly infinite appetite for memory.
This new version is still somewhat hungry, but is much more constrained
than its predecessors. With one tab open (google.com), the memory usage
of Firefox was 75 MB, compared to 69 MB of the default Android browser
on my Android 3.0, Acer Iconia 501 tablet (1 GB DDR2, Tegra 2 platform
with a dual-core Cortex-A9 1 GHz CPU). Overall performance is a mixed
bag, depending on the applications you are running, Sunspider came in at
1880 ms, versus 1908 ms that was posted by the Android browser. In
Google’s V8 benchmark, Firefox fell behind with a score of 603 versus
682 and is not quite as capable in Canvas2D renderings: The browser
scored 189 points (4 fps) in the Asteroids benchmark, while the default
browser came in at 283 (6 fps). I also noticed some rendering issues as
fountain fills were not rendered as seamlessly In Firefox as it was the
case in the default browser.
The Firefox Mobile user interface reduces the browser control items
such as the back/forward/menu and bookmark buttons as well as the URL
bar to just one line. Tabs are shown on the left side of the screen,
which makes sense, as the widescreen layout of tablets typically wastes
quite a bit of screen real estate – at least on large-screen tablets
with a horizontal resolution of more than 1024 pixels. There is an
option to expand the screen to the left (which is a feature addition
over the previous Nightly version of the browser) and create a small tab
shortcut in the menu bar. All other popular browsers, including
Dolphin, require at least two lines and allow less space for content.
Compared to the default browser, Firefox main feature downside is the
lack of an incognito browsing feature, which may be desirable for many
users, given the fact that tablets are not quite as personal as
smartphones in their user scenarios. However, there are several
advantages over the default browser. There are now 160 add-ons for
Firefox Mobile, an effective integration of Sync to synchronize items
such tabs and bookmarks between multiple devices as well as support for
do-not-track. Firefox Mobile is, to my knowledge, the only browser that
runs WebGL applications, which makes it a very unique, even if the WebGL
implementation isn’t perfect, shows display errors (such as in the
FishIE GL benchmark) and could really use some hardware acceleration.
My subjective impression is that Firefox feels lightweight, which is
mainly supported by a very simple interface that avoids visual
experiments. In fact, I hardly noticed the main menu bat while browsing.
The adjustment of the interface with displayed and hidden tabs is fluid
and the Awesomebar is nicely integrated with search options that
include Google, Amazon, Wikipedia and Twitter. There is still some room
for improvement, though, as a simple entry of a search term in the field
(without the selection of one of the four default search options) still
allows the search query to be hijacked – especially subscribers to
Comcast’s cable service are aware of this problem (Comcast cable service
requires adjustments in Comcast’s Internet account options to allow
direct access to a search engine such as Google).
The big challenge for Mozilla will be to keep Firefox relevant as
there are more and more apps that replace simple websites and the web
browser as a result. On the tablet, using a browser is much more
enjoyable than on a smartphone, though, especially if the screen
resolution goes beyond 1024×768 and offers a 1280 pixel width such as
the latest crop of Android tablets. Firefox Mobile 9 is clearly ahead of
anything else in this market, at least until Google releases Chrome for
Android. It is about as close as you can come to a desktop browsing
experience and, in some cases, exceed it. My personal opinion is that
the lightweight tablet UI would be a nice touch on the desktop as an
option. As touch will become a more important way to input data, Mozilla
may be able to leverage the advantage it currently has to a much
greater extent.
However, there is also a clear notion that Firefox Mobile feels, in
some instances, somewhat empty, as you launch it. The user is left
somewhat alone when the first page appears and every time a new tab is
opened. This beta version gives users only 3 ways to define a start page
– the Firefox Beta page, a blank page as well as the current page. What
is missing is a dedicated new tab page with options to start the
browsing process much faster, as well as the home tab app, which is
expected to arrive with Firefox 10 or 11. Once those features are
available, Firefox Mobile will feel much richer than it does today.
On the way to reinvent itself to prepare Firefox as a web application
interface, this new mobile browser is a promising step. Mozilla now has
an advantage and is leading the segment in most relevant criteria.
Mozilla now needs to keep this lead and build on it: Google isn’t far
behind and Microsoft will have a very capable IE9/IE10 for its tablet
platform. A question is Apple at thsi time: Safari has been a fantastic
browser on the iPad, but it appears to be falling behind at this time.
Wolfgang Gruener in Products on November 11
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