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Mozilla releases Firefox 4 for Android
By Hanleigh Daniels 30 March 2011 | Categories: newsAfter successfully launching Firefox 4 for the PC, crushing first day download figures that Microsoft received with Internet Explorer 9, Mozilla has turned its attention to its mobile browser. The company has now released Firefox 4 for Android-powered devices (video posted below).
Firefox is available from the Android Market for Android-running smartphones and tablet PCs, as well as being available for download for the Maemo-running Nokia N900 smartphone.
Firefox 4 for Android and Maemo is built on the same technology platform employed in the desktop PC version, incorporating such modern web technologies like HTML5. According to Mozilla this new browser is up to three times quicker than the stock browser utilised on Android-powered devices.
Firefox 4 for Android requires Android 2.0 or higher to be installed on a user’s device, as well as around 17 MB of storage space to be available on the device’s internal memory or SD card and 512 MB of RAM.
New features in Firefox 4 for Android and Maemo:
- Features like tabs, one-touch bookmarking and browser controls that stow away when not in use assist in keeping the focus on web browsing
- Type less with easy access to history, bookmarks and open tabs
- Save to PDF: capture important websites, like directions or a boarding pass, to view offline
- Share Page: share websites via apps including email, Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader
- Add Search Engine: users can customise their search engine list
- Firefox Sync: access Bar history, bookmarks, open tabs, passwords and form data across multiple PCs and mobile devices with secure end-to-end encryption
- Firefox offers thousands of ways for users to customise the features, functionality and look of users’ mobile web browser with Firefox Add-ons
- Firefox improves existing tools like CSS, Canvas and SVG to enable developers to make exciting web pages
- HTML5 support in Firefox for Android and Maemo includes location-aware browsing, device orientation, accelerometer, desktop notifications
- The JavaScript engine incorporates the new JägerMonkey JIT compiler, along with enhancements to the existing TraceMonkey JIT and SpiderMonkey’s interpreter for faster page-load speed and better performance of web apps and games
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