At long last, Mozilla has released the final version of its mobile browser, Firefox for Android. You can download it in the Android Market right now for free. In the past we’ve seen Firefox Mobile as “Fennec” as it was in beta for a couple of years. It looks like the Firefox was worth the wait: Firefox for Android is as full-featured as they come in terms of Android web browsers, potentially more so than Skyfire, Opera Mobile and Mini, Dolphin HD, and the many other browsers that you can download for Android. Overall, we’re looking at four major features that you should know about.
The user interface: Mozilla did a great job with providing an intuitive interface to the user. A gesture to the right will reveal tabs, and gesture to the left will reveal settings, plugins, and forward/back, and the normal pinch-to-zoom gestures that you know from other Android browsers are there too.
Firefox sync: If you use Firefox on your desktop computer, you can set up a free sync account which will make your passwords, open tabs, and bookmarks available from Firefox for Android.
Plugins: Like Firefox on the desktop, Firefox for Mobile has plugin support to add functionality to the browser. Plugins currently available include Adblock, TwitterBar, and others.
Personas: With the Personas plugin for Firefox for Android, you can skin your browser to make it have a different look and feel.
What’s bad about Firefox for Android? Performance isn’t amazing. Mozilla claims a three times increase in performance compared to the stock Android browser, and we didn’t find that to be the case. Also, pinch-to-zoom wasn’t as smooth as the built in Android browser. Finally, Firefox for Android doesn’t support Flash.
Give the Firefox browser a try and let us know what you think!











