We show you the first Fennec screenshots of the pre-alpha versions (M6). Now Fennec has reached Milestone 9, which means the first alpha release is out, and here you have all you need to know from Fennec, Mozilla´s mobile browser.
Fennec propose an interesting way of managing tabs, favourites and options, as this screenshot suggests.
First, you have to take into account that these working alpha versions are specially optimized for Nokia Internet Tablet N810, so the feeling its a kind of iPhone landscape mode browsing.
The website gets scaled to the device wide, so you can only browse the website up and down. Shall you pull right, your opened tabs will appear on the left. Pulling left, the toolbar with Favourites, Back/Forward and Options will show up.
You would like it or not, but it´s undeniable that its simple and clean. Perhaps we missed the use of transparencies so the web content won´t need to be moved.
Press the Options button for basic tunning, which includes some cool features like plugins (there are a lot available… there are a lot not working… but hey, this is not even a beta version!) as well as other not-so-cool options, as the one for not loading images which I guess is there more for melancholy of the old times than for testing purposes…
These are the complete set of features of Fennec Alpha 1, extracted from the release notes:
Easy navigation to Web content:
- Bookmarks, including tags
- Smart URL bar (“awesome bar”)
- Tabbed browsing with thumbnail images
- Integrated Web search – built into the URL bar
- Easy access to multiple search engines
Web content:
- Maximize content by auto-hiding controls and URL bar
- Zoom in and out
Security:
- Instant Web site ID (“Larry“)
- Password manager
- Popup blocker
- Clear private data
Devices services integration:
- Click on a phone number to initiate a call
- JavaScript API to get device location
- Popup blocker
- Clear private data
Also:
- Searchable download manager
- Preferences pane
Fennec will officially be released on Symbian, Windows Mobile and Maemo (Nokia´s Linux) and WON´T be released on iPhone nor Android, according to Mozilla.
Fennec will soon be a strong contender for Webkit and Opera based browsers. It will have the developer community support, and Fennec development will increase quickly as Mozilla is working hard from the begining for getting Fennec as known as it could. This open marketing campaign includes demo versions for desktop systems, which you can download and test on the release notes website.
