Firefox Goes Mobile

Given that Firefox has over 160 million active users, we’re surprised Mozilla’s taken so long to release a mobile version. Finally, the company is releasing Firefox for mobile, its first browser for phones, codename Fennec. It incorporates Firefox 3’s browsing engine and will become available for Windows Mobile and Linux phones worldwide at the end of the year. We asked Jay Sullivan, who oversees the project in Mozilla’s labs, to give us the scoop.

LAPTOP: Why is Firefox just now entering the mobile broswer space?

JAY SULLIVAN: The devices and the networks are getting to the point where you can have a complete and compelling browsing experience on phones. And that hasn’t been the case up until the last six months to a year, in terms of hardware, the speed of the networks, the screens. The timing is good.

L: How will Firefox for mobile stand out in a already crowded mobile-browser market?

JS: I wouldn’t say it’s crowded with good browsers. At the low end of the spectrum you have WAP browsing, which is a simplified experience. It won’t support the kind of Web applications that people like to use. We’re going to promote a no-compromises experience. That means compatibility with the real Web. We’re using the same browsing technology that’s in Firefox 3. [There will be] full Ajax support, our standard plug-in API. So things like Flash will work. It’s going to stack up at the high end of that browsing experience.

L: How would you say Firefox for mobile compares to Opera Mobile, Skyfire, and Safari on the iPhone?

JS: Fennec aims to provide a complete, rich browsing experience using the same browsing engine that powers our desktop versions. So, in that sense, it’s most like Safari on the iPhone, but with much broader compatibility with the Web and the industry-leading security and performance in Firefox 3. We’ll also have support for Firefox add-ons.

L: What features will the desktop and mobile versions share?

JS: We’re trying to solve a lot of the usability problems that remain on the mobile Web. A lot of people can’t get beyond typing basic URLs. And then once you’re on those pages, either it’s a dumbed-down version or it’s too hard to navigate. In Firefox 3, we have this great new feature called the Awesome Bar. You click on it, type whatever occurs to you, and boom—that page shows up. We’re going to bring the Awesome Bar experience to mobile phones.

We also have a small database engine in Firefox 3 called SQLite that’s going to come to the phone as well. That’s important because when you think about mobile phones—building entire mobile applications in the browser—you have to be able to handle this disconnected mode, where you’re on a plane or you lose your connection momentarily.

L: So SQLite caches content?

JS: It’s a core technology that lets a developer stash information locally so that if you do leave that network connection, Web apps can continue to run. That’s really important for mobile phone applications because network connections can be flaky. But it’s an infrastructure, so it’s up to Web developers to take advantage of that.

L: Do you think developers will embrace this browser?

JS: One of the frustrations that developers have had when developing for mobile phones is the fragmentation of platforms. Let’s say I have some great ideas and I want to build a mobile phone application. Am I gonna build this thing for Windows Mobile or Symbian phones? Already, I’m limiting my power to get to people. Just like the desktop, with people living their lives through the browser, we believe the Web should be the platform for developing good mobile applications.

L: Is Firefox for mobile going to have tabbed browsing?

JS: If you look at the desktop, you’ve got two metaphors: You can have multiple windows open and/or multiple tabs open. We want to have multiple pages open at the same time. But we’re trying to figure out how to represent those tabs in a mobile environment. We have a whole bunch of mock-ups. They’re all coming from the community; people all over the world are proposing designs. We’re trying to make your tabs—and also things like your bookmarks and history—more visual and easy to get to when you come back to them later.

L: Will Firefox for mobile have native flash support?

JS: For plug-in authors like Adobe, if a plug-in is ported to the underlying operating system, it’s going to work with Fennec. In fact, the Nokia Internet Tablets like the N810, which use a Mozilla-based browser, support Flash out of the box.

L: How much will it cost?

JS: We’re generally reluctant to charge end users for our software, and I expect that we’ll go down that road with the mobile browser as well.

L: When will it be available for platforms other than Windows Mobile and Linux?

JS: The big thing we’re evaluating right now is Symbian. The community has expressed a lot of interest. It’s much more popular in Europe than it is here in the States. I don’t have a date to announce that. And we haven’t decided whether or not we’re going to do it yet. Some community members are already hacking on it so it might be done regardless of what I say.

L: Which Linux platforms will Firefox for mobile support? Will it be available on Google Android handsets? What about LiMo?

JS: Nokia has already shipped a Mozilla-based browser on their Maemo platform, which is Linux-based. We’ve joined the LiMo Foundation, which should get wide adoption, and there will be others. We don’t have plans to launch on Android at this time.

L: Will any manufacturers ship Firefox for mobile on their phones?

JS: Firefox never had any significant distribution deals. People got the browser on their own through viral community marketing, friends, and family recommendations. And we expect people are going to go out of their way to get it themselves.