The only platform with an official build of Fennec is, interestingly, Nokia’s Maemo. The N900 is the only phone currently running that software. Still, all the pieces of the browser appear to be in the Android build. The different tabs are accessed by sliding to the left, and options are hidden on the right. Bookmarks and double-tap zooming are shown off as well. Load times aren’t looking stellar, but page rendering was good. We also got a look at some extensions for the mobile browser including Near Me, YouTube Embedder, and Weave Browser Sync. The Weave add-on is especially exciting as it allows the syncing of desktop Firefox bookmarks, passwords, history, and even open tabs with Fennec.
Mozilla has history of delayed software releases. While this preliminary community-driven release is certainly interesting, it doesn’t look like it will be anyone’s regular browser. But being reminded of the feature set Fennec brings leaves us really stoked for a real release. If you want to try this pre-release version, you can get it here. Most users are reporting the best results with phones running Android 2.0 or higher. Let us know if you’re brave enough (and have enough storage space) to try it.
Image credit MartinSchirr and Mozilla