The newest version of the Mozilla Firefox 4 beta for Android was announced yesterday, bringing with it improvements in speed, size, and stability. The new version also boasts support for 10 languages and several UI improvements, such as a new theme and the ability to undo the closing of a tab.
The Mozilla Blog post asserts that their new version of Firefox on Android 2.2 outperforms the stock Android browser by about 25% in a SunSpider Javascript benchmark. The size of the program has also shrunk from ~43MB to ~17MB, and they say that "there is still room for improvement and we’ll continue to make the install size smaller."
Other new features include a "Feedback" button in the Browser Vontrols panel, as well as the ability to share links with friends through the Site Menu
Looking into the future, the Mozilla team promise that they will "add hardware acceleration to make scrolling and zooming even faster and will enable HTML5 video to bring a more rich browsing experience to your phone."
Android Central comments that they are "impressed with Firefox 4, and it's giving me lofty expectations as to what I can expect from a final build. It's still a little rough around the edges, but, closing gap between experimental and stable build."
Interested in trying out the newest version of Firefox for Android on your Android 2.0+ phone? Head on over here to get ahold of the .apk file. Users are also encouraged to get involved in the beta release.
AndroidandMe notes that "Mozilla is also encouraging developers to begin building add-ons for Firefox 4 Beta for mobile."
If you already have a version of the Firefox 4 Beta, it is recommended to uninstall the old version first, otherwise the reduction in size of the program will not be noticed.
Other Sources: AndroidandMe, Android Central
Images from The Mozilla Blog and Android Central
You must log in or register now,
to submit a comment!
As a logged in user, you can also change the order of the comments.