Mozilla unveils new Fennec releases

Mozilla Fennec logo

Mozilla has taken the wraps off two new releases of its mobile browser Fennec, one designed for Maemo and the other aimed at Windows Mobile users.

At the same time as unveiling Fennec 1.0 beta for Maemo and Fennec 1.0 Alpha for Windows Mobile, Mozilla announced that users are now also free to get their hands on desktop builds of the browser for Linux, Mac and Windows operating systems.

The new arrivals make use of the same code, but they've been labelled as an Alpha and Beta respectively because, according to Mozilla, they currently have different usability levels.

"For these releases we have worked on improving the user experience, replacing our old theme with a much nicer looking one and fixing numerous usability issues. We've continued to increase performance and responsiveness," Mozilla said in a blog post.

"We've revamped how you install Add-ons, improved our download manager and the whole look of the application. We've started work on making forms on web pages easier to use, providing a nicer combo box UI than before."

Fennec Add-ons are already starting to flow into the development community, according to Mozilla. These include GeoGuide, which makes use of location aware APIs and a Twitter client dubbed GraffiTwit.

"We'll continue to polish the user experience and improve performance, and are already hard at work on some changes that will make big performance improvements," the blog post claimed.

Maggie Holland

Maggie has been a journalist since 1999, starting her career as an editorial assistant on then-weekly magazine Computing, before working her way up to senior reporter level. In 2006, just weeks before ITPro was launched, Maggie joined Dennis Publishing as a reporter. Having worked her way up to editor of ITPro, she was appointed group editor of CloudPro and ITPro in April 2012. She became the editorial director and took responsibility for ChannelPro, in 2016.

Her areas of particular interest, aside from cloud, include management and C-level issues, the business value of technology, green and environmental issues and careers to name but a few.