21 September 2008

Mozilla to Launch Firefox Mobile In 2010!

As I've mentioned a while back, Mozilla is apparently working on a mobile version of its popular desktop web browser and now Mozilla Foundation CEO Mitchell Baker has set goals for the development of the open source project over the next two years and confirmed Mozilla's plans to develop a Firefox mobile.

Baker says that developers are working on the long awaited mobile browser and she is expecting the mobile version (recently codenamed as 'Fennec') of the Firefox browser by 2010 but without any further details or information about mobile platforms that will be initially supported.

I know it sounds kind of cliché but Firefox mobile is based on the same core as the Firefox 3 and will 'bring a true web experience to mobile phones and other mobile devices' according to the foundation. It will also allow users to easy migrate user data like cookies, bookmarks, forms data, and various other information from their desktop browsers to their mobile devices.

A mobile version of Firefox would compete with versions of Opera and Internet Explorer and would adopt the same desktop feel as its desktop cousin - if the goal of demonstrating that "'mobile' is part of one, unified, open web" is anything to go by.

I am really curious how the mobile version of the Firefox would stack up to Opera Mini , and especially Skyfire, its cloned and improved version, or to other big players like the great Safari based browser forced by Apple and Nokia and offers the best mobile browsing experience nowadays.

From other hand the desktop version of the Firefox has a huge users base and most of them are so called power users and when it comes time to choose a mobile browser they’ll probably choose the portable version of its favorite desktop solution or maybe I am wrong?!?