By Jessica Dolcourt, 18 May 2009 08:46
NEWS
On Friday, alpha 1 of Mozilla's mobile version of its Firefox browser - Fennec as it's been codenamed - arrived on Windows Mobile 6.
For months, Fennec has been in first alpha, then beta modes on two Maemo-run Nokia internet tablets that few people owned, now it has hit a device much more widely used.
As with Fennec beta 1 for the Nokia N810 and N800, Fennec alpha 1 for Windows Mobile 6 has been tailor-made for the HTC Touch Pro, with an intention to expand to more handsets in future releases. The flashiest feature to expect is support for add-ons and a tab to start searching for more extensions.
The user interface looks identical to that on the Maemo devices, with the Awesome Bar search field front and centre, which serves up suggested search terms in addition to showing off your search history. Users can flick the screen to the left to see bookmarking tools and the add-ons manager in a gutter on the right. A flick to the right exposes the icons that comprise "tabbed" browsing experience. The rest of the screen is devoted to web pages.
Mozilla built its interface for Fennec Alpha 1 for Windows Mobile using CSS. This will help the app adjust to various screen sizes and resolutions, says Mozilla. The company also divulged that this Fennec build shares Firefox's memory management library, JeMalloc. This resource-sharing is another indication that Mozilla is striving to create a mobile product as identical to its desktop offering on its back end as is technologically possible.
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