Just last week Mozilla took to Twitter to announce something big for Android was coming our way. Of course, the Firefox logo being used in the promotional material was a dead give way but that didn't stop the speculation from happening. With it now being "next week", Mozilla has taken the covers off what they had to announce and sure enough (as some guessed and was earlier confirmed) it's a revamping of Firefox for Android.
Moving out of beta status, the latest Firefox for Android boasts plenty of improvements over previously available versions. In fact, the Firefox development team has gone ahead and redesigned the whole thing. Faster browsing, better security, better memory management plus, much more. To put it simply -- a completely re-engineered Firefox for Android.
Having put previous versions to the test and living the re-engineered version for the past few days, it's easy for me to say this latest release is more in line with what one would have expected from the Firefox team with their Android offerings. Pages render much better now thanks to the code being native and Firefox making use of the GPU directly, while text looks as it should even on smaller screened devices and crazy zoomed in rendering no longer happens even on larger devices, like the Samsung Galaxy Note.
If you've given Firefox a go before and ended up ditching it for lack of flash (which by the way, is now included), poor memory management or bad rendering, go ahead and give the latest release a try. The update is available for download right now in the Google Play Store and let us know your thoughts on how the Firefox for Android team did with this version. If you need some video it in action, jump below where you'll a overview video along with the full press release from Mozilla.
Download: Firefox For Android
Mozilla Launches a Speedy and Powerful Upgrade to Mobile Browsing with Firefox for Android
As a pioneer of the Web, Mozilla unlocked the Web experience on the desktop with Firefox and we are doing it again in mobile. We’re proud to announce a new Firefox for Android is now available for download in the Google Play store. The new Firefox for Android is a snappy and dynamic upgrade to mobile browsing that makes it faster and easier to get where you want to go on the Web.
Super Fast - We redesigned Firefox for Android to make it a screaming fast and personalized upgrade to mobile browsing that lets you take your Web experience everywhere you go. You’ll notice dramatic performance improvements that make Firefox on your Android phone super fast with everything from startup and page load times to panning and zooming and Web app performance when you just want to play Mozilla’s BrowserQuest game with your friends.
Firefox for Android is significantly faster than the stock browser that ships on Android phones according to the leading industry benchmarks, such as Sunspider. In addition, we developed a new benchmark, called Eideticker, that measures the actual user Web experience and we built Firefox for Android to it, yielding an experience that is two times faster than the stock browser.
Upgrade to Mobile Browsing - Firefox for Android has a fresh, streamlined look with a personalized start page that saves you time getting where you want to go on the Web. The new Awesome Screen powered by Firefox Sync delivers all your browsing history, bookmarks, passwords and form data to your Android phone. We also optimized your favorite features like tabbed browsing, Firefox Sync and Firefox Add-ons to deliver the best mobile browsing experience possible.
Firefox for Android supports Flash so you can watch videos, play games and interact with more Web content on your Android phone.
Based on the same open technology platform as the desktop version of Firefox, Firefox for Android offers the highest level of privacy and security features in mobile browsing. Firefox respects your privacy and protects your security with features like Do Not Track, Master Password, HTTP Strict Transport Security and more.
Upgrade to the Web Platform - New HTML5 capabilities in Firefox for Android enable developers to create rich Web apps and websites based on HTML5, JavaScript, CSS and other open Web standards. As the advocate for the Web, Mozilla exposes new Web APIs and submits them to standards groups to move the Web forward as a platform. Among the standards that Mozilla helped build are Camera API, Vibration API, Mobile Connection API, Battery Status API, Screen Orientation API and Geolocation API.
You can play Mozilla’s HTML5 BrowserQuest multi-player role playing game across desktop and mobile Web experiences to see just how powerful, fast and fun the Web can be.
