Firefox for Mobile makes Maemo its first home
By Vlad Savov 
posted January 30th 2010 11:44AM
posted January 30th 2010 11:44AM
[Thanks, Ross M.]
posted January 30th 2010 11:44AM
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That's really cool. Makes me want an N900 and I am the biggest apple fan
@nicholas1987ucsb
Big apple fans hate nokia phones and likes the ipad
@nicholas1987ucsb
Sure agree...I wouldn't mind have Firefox on my iPhone, just so I could "choose". Way to go Mozilla and Nokia! And yes, I'm a huge Apple fan as well;)
@Acey It'd be reallllly nice to have Firefox and Flash.
@Acey
I used to have a Nokia phone. The iPhone just made more sense for me and what I do with it, but once again, that's an opinion. Even though I love Apple, I do not hate Nokia, on the contrary. Competition IS key for us consumers btw. So please, stop generalizing.
@Alln1ght3r
I didnt mean to generalize, I probably just exaggerated a bit with all these ipad posts and nokia vs apple lawsuits..
Firefox must do it right to gain good place in the mobile browser market
@Acey,
Most "big Apple fans" have never been outside of the US, haven't ever seen or used a Nokia smartphone, multitasked, or used homebrew or privately distributed apps, and know very little about mobile computing, and the iPhone is their first "smartphone".
@christexaport You are very stereotypical. I like best when you infer that ONLY you know best in several categories. You're a douche, go away.
@Alln1ght3r,
"It made more sense"... Care to explain? How so? I hear this as if its a PR response from Apple for all iPhone users, but no one can really give an explanation for why they prefer an inferior web experience, no Flash, a purposely crippled web browser (lacking Flash forces the necessity of many apps, and having a YouTube app covers up that glaring functionality hole), a low res screen, fingerpad only UI, and limited codec support from one of the most expensive devices on the market. Can you?
@nicholiservia'
The 5800 XM is Nokia's low end smartphone, and only costs $289 without a contract! But "it sucks"?! More like it has every feature and function of the iPhone, plus many the iPhone lacks. The OS and the UI are two different animals. S60 is just the UI skin of the OS, much like Sense UI and MotoBlur are UI skins for Android. There was also MOAP, UIQ, and other Symbian UI layers. The underlying architectural infrastructure is still far more advanced than everything on the market, save Maemo and WinMo (which has a horrid UI layer itself). For those that prefer their devices do more, there is no better option, and once the new UI layer is released in late 2010, it will be much more obvious.
@christexaport Hell of a generalisation there. I am a big Apple fan. I was born and lived in England till I was 27, I have owned 20-30 phones since 1998 (Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, iMate, HTC and Apple, using a variety of OSes). I have flashed a WinMo device, downloaded all kinds of crazy crap, and tinkered till the cows came home.
I think the issue is, a lot of anti-Apple boneheads want their technology to be as complicated as possible out of a false sense of superiority. The average person doesn't give a damn - they just want their device to do what they bought it for without breaking, slowing down or needing continual maintenance.
@christexaport Neither have they given up their IMEI to some random dude in China to install the apps they want. In academic circles nearly everyone I know has traveled or studied abroad. So stop perpetuating your closed-minded perception of Americans.
@nicholas1987ucsb,
Read my comment carefully, and explain how I infer anything. I just merely stated facts anyone can find online. 40% of all iPhones are sold in the US, and before 2007, smartphones weren't popular with consumers, just corporate users. The majority of iPhone users claim the iPhone to be their first "smartphone" (I still don't consider the iPhone a smartphone without multitasking or supported homebrew app installation, but that's another debate I'll leave alone...).
What stereotype do I fit? I'm Black, but I reserved my Ebonics for that comment. Not sure what you mean. I don't think only I know what's best for you, the US, or anyone else. I'm not Steve Jobs. I think you decide what's best for you, and no one else.
I think the iPhone is perfect for most Americans, since they usually just started using smartphones, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and mobile email. The iPhone is the perfect starter device for that market. As the US market matures, it will begin favoring some of the more advanced devices and OSes, but that will take time.
@christexaport Where are the other 60% sold genius?
@sr1329
Heh release Firefox with flash for jailbroken iPhones plox. TY.
(that would sooo kill app store)
@kickoff I don't know at what point you will understand that Flash itself was a stop-gap necessary evil. It was able to get a hold on the market while web standards were slow to develop to meet users' needs. Flash will be an old paradigm when web standards evolve to meet the needs of modern web users. While marginally acceptable on the desktop, a mobile device with limited battery power and RAM is no place for such a memory hogging, battery eating way to play videos from the internet. Surely there is a better way.
@christexaport iPhone is not the only phone in the world genius. There is the Palm Pre and a whole host of Android phones that are far more evolved than anything Nokia currently has. YOU are the kind of imbecile who makes it iPhone vs. Nokia. It's not about iPhone, it's about everything else that's out there.
@nicholas1987ucsb
Im just a fan of the best tech of the day, could care less what the label says.
@christexaport So do you have a personality disorder or something and forgot to take your meds? You proved yourself wrong after 3 rambling posts. I don't like dealing with narcissistic blog trolls like you who treat consumer electrons like a political cult. You also don't need to make such long posts or reply so many times--the world doesn't revolve around you.
@dansus That's exactly how I am. I've owned iPods, Zunes, Nokias, Sonys, iPhones, and hopefully an soon an Android device. I have a Macbook and have an Xbox 360 on a Sony tv...I don't feel I am loyal to any one brand at all.
@christexaport
I think many of us just want Flash to go away and to be replaced by HTML5. If Adobe doesn't want to support all platforms equally, then it should just be made to go away. I'm happy enough using ClickToFlash so I don't have to see those ugly Flash banners scattered all over creation.
@MosesusedaniPad I get that and I agree. BUT, I want to watch Hulu on my cellphone that would be incredibly useful.
@nicholas1987ucsb Me want! I hate mobile Safari - it takes up half my damn screen with the bars on top and bottom. Mercury browser is way better
@christexaport
You hit the nail on its head. I myself have been to asia, and lived in japan for 4 years.(back in the mid-late 90's) so my perception on whats cool and new is very different from people over here in the states. Nokia is top dog by leaps and bounds. and nokia fans are faaaaaaar more loyal to nokia than any other smartphone users.
@Alexandertron Yeah blind loyalty. I too was like that then I saw the whole world of Android, WebOS, iPhone OS. Nokia was great years ago, but I have no loyalty to any company who exists to make money. Just make a good product and I'm there Nokia or not. You speak as if blind loyalty is something to be proud of. Only cults are proud of that.
@Banksta3
Three years ago called.
They said something about "too late" and then hung up...
@Dale P
I can see where you going with this.. and for the most part you are correct.. but: Flash isn't that advanced of a feature to use and the "less is more" iPhone lacks it for a reason. If it had flash, iPhone apps would really go down in sales.. People would realize (I hope) that half of the apps on the iPhone are already free on web-with-flash. For example, my N900 goes to miniclip.com and plays free games that on the iPhone are not free. I think that's good enough of a reason to ditch the iPhone...By the way, I recently ditched my T-Mobile iPhone 2G for that reason. Apple's mentality is unacceptable to me but their hardware I love..
@Dale P
Are you sure you know the definition of generalization? I don't know how you can make any comment without generalizing, since you can't know most of the readers enough to be specific and personal. However, you can over generalize, and in my opinion, it is you that has done just that. As you said, "a lot of anti-Apple boneheads want their technology to be as complicated as possible out of a false sense of superiority. The average person doesn't give a damn - they just want their device to do what they bought it for without breaking, slowing down or needing continual maintenance."
Let's break that down. To paraphrase the first part of what you said, many who aren't a fan of Apple's iPhone want the technology to be complicated to feel superior. Where do you get that inference? I would strongly disagree. It is more like using Windows from 3.2 to Vista/7. If you've grown up using it, and it is the standard for you, using a Commadore 64 will be a downgrade, no matter how pretty or fancy the graphics are. The point of the OS is a gateway to services and functions, and most aren't willing to lose any services or functions for eye candy.
And nothing familiar is complicated. I admit, for a newb or first time smartphone user, S60 can be a maze, but give a user a month or two, and he'll have it mastered, and probably would find it no trouble at all. This is true for any UI. I bet all the Space Shuttle pilots can fly Cessnas as well, but doubt they'd say they prefer the light aircraft over the spacecraft. Once you have knowledge and experience, features and productivity may become more important.
I never made a statement about anyone in particular or in general. I just stated what the market proves. The Symbian OS is favored by 40% of the planet, mainly because of its feature set and familiarity. Others may be prettier or easier, but none are as capable or have more features. Just a fact. To say the "average" user doesn't care about such things is far from the truth. 40%, or most of the market, does care, and prefers Symbian OS, just to remind you. So the average user is a Symbian user. Unless you generalize "average" to mean American, you are far from correct about the average user. We are behind the world in mobile tech, and far from typical or average. Globally, consumers have a wide variety of device choices, and usually choose the Nokia smartphones over the competition, and usually for the reasons you suggested: Functioning as designed, with durability and speed.
Weave Sync? Nothing Opera hasn't done already, called Opera Link, synchronizing my desktop even with my old Nokia with Symbian S40...
@Kaboof
Thankfully, almost no one cares about Opera.
@Kaboof Actualy this goes one step further from synchronizing passwords and bookmarks and also synchronizes tabs, having used opera mobile for a while I can say that this is a really great addition
@Ragarnok oh yeah, synchronizing tabs is new, I even think HAVING tabs is new and something i still miss on my mobile.
@Kaboof Opera Mobile has tabs
@PhoenixFox thanks, i never tried Opera Mobile as I have no phone able to run it, means I'm stuck with Opera Mini on my BB Bold :/
@Kaboof
The new Opera Mini has tabs:
http://www.opera.com/mini/next/
Opera should come to Maemo as well, since it's already there for desktop Linux. The Android version is coming too (or is it already available?).
Firefox is cool and all, I've used it for a year or so. But now I can't switch back to it from Opera. Some things in Opera are just well implemented and work very smoothly (eventually it depends how picky you are).
@Tegeril
You don't sound very smrt.
@Tegeril Maybe you don't but Opera beta 10.5 is the fastest rendering browser out there.
@Kaboof Sync is much more comprehensive than Link. A big thing is the syncing of your history, so the awesome bar gives the same results.
@sr1329 Too bad 10's UI is PAINFULLY AWFUL. I had to go back to 9.7, it was so bad.
Glad they managed to finally get fennec out of extras-devel.
Hope they managed to solve that memory allocation problem they had a month ago.
@MikeZ
What memory problems? in Firefox?... NO way .. you lie !!
/sarcasm
Whatever is the case, it is still my favourite web browser and it will remain to be.. Much better than IE and one of the most customisable browsers. I hope to bring the mobile version to other OS!
@MikeZ It's still slower than microB but yeah they did fix it
The bigger question I have is if AdBlock is available.
@daytripper
Good point. Now that would be sweet. No ads, less battery sucked and less loading time...
@daytripper - it supports extensions, so it should work...
@daytripper FF on N900 supports AdBlock.
@daytripper, it's available and works for both, MicroB (the default, speedy gonzales Gecko-based browser) and Fennec (which is Mobile Firefox 1.0). Greasemonkey, too...
@Schizo Thats enough good news to buy the N900
I'm dieing to have this on WinMo. PIE is almost unusable, even in the newest builds. Opera Mobile is really the only choice we have right now, and it's pretty slow in rendering.
I'm happy about this. I don't really use the browser, but IE is terrible. And Opera just doesn't work with my phones onscreen keyboard, so I have to use the default winmo one which has to be a joke.