Firefox Beta for Android now Available with native UI on Google Play

Mozilla Firefox for Android has taken a welcoming step towards enhancing user experience, with the introduction of native Android UI in place of of XUL, which they were using in the previous versions of Firefox Beta. The new version is much faster, and stable compared to the previous releases and the UI is absolutely loveable.

We decided to download the latest build and see the real thing for ourselves. The page load times have been significantly improved and the UI is much more fluid and snappy. Websites load much quicker now, and any kind of interaction within the browser is also snappy. As avid fans of Dolphin browser, we were ready for disappointment, but Mozilla has finally managed to get it right with their Android browser.

The stability and load times were much faster than the ones we have experienced on Dolphin browser, and the user interface is much more inviting and easy to understand. The on-page text is definitely more smoother and crispier compared to other browsers available for Android. The new build uses hardware acceleration to improve performance, as quoted on the Mozilla blog, “This beta uses hardware acceleration to improve performance with your favorite Web apps, games or photos.”

Firefox for Android Beta has all of the features you know and love like Firefox Sync, add-ons and tabbed browsing, plus a new Awesome Screen and enhancements to startup and response time, graphics performance and panning and zooming,” Mozilla said in a blog post. The browser is also compatible with flash and does not get stuck in between.

                                          

Firefox Beta Welcome Screen

The welcome screen shows your top visited sites, options to setup Firefox Sync, and recommended add-ons for the browser.

Location bar

Tapping at the location bar shows your top visited sites, bookmarks, and history.

Page View

The above screenshot shows how a page is generally viewed on the browser. The page’s title appears in the location bar instead of the fairly common URI location. New tabs can be opened using the “+” button right besides the location bar.

Search suggestions

We absolutely love the search suggestion feature. It is very much like what we have on the desktop version but with the Android feel.

Downloads window

The above screenshot shows the downloads window. The number “5″ beside the location bar shows the number of tabs currently opened in the browser.

Opened Tabs

On tapping the “5″ button, a window slides down displaying the opened tabs with their previews. Another feature we really love about this browser.

Welcome Screen 2

Firefox Sync

The above screen shows the steps to setup Firefox sync on your phone.

Menu options

The menu displays options to bookmark, save the page as pdf, share, and some other “under the hood” options. Really neat features.

Available Add-ons

Few apps are only available for Firefox Beta at the time of writing of this article, but we expect the list to grow quickly as the browser enters final release phase.
The latest Firefox Beta can be downloaded from here or from Google Play on your Android smartphone.