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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.
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Location bar
Tapping at the location bar shows your top visited sites, bookmarks, and history.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Welcome Screen 2
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Firefox Sync
The above screen shows the steps to setup Firefox sync on your phone.
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Menu options
The
menu displays options to bookmark, save the page as pdf, share, and
some other “under the hood” options. Really neat features.
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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.
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