Mozilla Fennec Browser Is Firefox for Mobile Devices

The new Mozilla mobile Web browser called Fennec is similar to Mozilla's open-source Firefox browser for laptops and desktops. The early beta version of Fennec, launched on March 17, is intended as a way of collecting feedback and raising interest in the mobile browser. Mozilla says the Nokia N810 Internet tablet is the best mobile and wireless device for experiencing Fennec 1.0, but users can also download Fennec to computers running Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Mozilla's Firefox Web browser has a new mobile sibling—Fennec.

Mozilla released the first beta version of Fennec on March 17. Mozilla describes it as being for testing purposes only, to get feedback and to encourage developers to port existing add-ons and invent new ones for mobile use.

"One of the main themes of Fennec was to try to minimize the amount of typing you have to do as you make your way around the Web," Madhava Enros, the lead user interface designer for Fennec, says in an introductory video on the blog of Mozilla developer Stuart Parmenter.

With Fennec, Parmenter wrote, Mozilla increased zooming speed, improved start-up performance, enabled plug-ins that let users watch videos, and "improved bookmark management and support for bookmark folders."

Fennec also makes it easier to search the Web, remembers pages where users have been, optimizes screen space for mobile content and remembers passwords, reducing typing and doing more work so the user doesn't have to.

Fennec 1.0 was designed for the OS2008 Maemo software platform running on the Nokia N810 Internet tablet. Everyone, however, with a computer running Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X or Linux is encouraged to download Fennec and get it running.