Firefox Mobile for Android this year, Windows Mobile... later?

Filed under: Windows Mobile, Mozilla, Browsers, Mobile, Android

The folks at Mozilla have been working on a mobile version of the popular Firefox web browser for much of the past two years. A lot of that work has been focused on Windows Mobile and Nokia's Maemo platform. But in October, we found out that a version for Google Android devices was on its way. We even saw an early screenshot earlier this month. Now we have something resembling a time frame.

Mozilla Mobile VP Jay Sullivan tells TechRadar that Firefox for Android should be ready "later in 2010." Sure, it's not a precise date. But it's better than sometime "later this decade," right? Basically Mozilla was held back by Google's insistence that early Android development take place on Java, but last year it became possible to program for Android using C and C++, which is what Firefox Mobile is currently based on.

There are already pre-release builds of Firefox for Windows Mobile. But with Microsoft recently announcing that Windows Phone 7 Series will be a completely redesigned OS (that will likely be incompatible with many Windows Mobile 6 and earlier applications, the folks at Mozilla are still trying to figure out whether to continue focusing on the current Windows Mobile platform or to turn their attention to the next-generation mobile operating system from Microsoft.

Of course, Windows Mobile 5, 6, 6,1, and 6.5 devices aren't going to disappear overnight, so I kind of hope that Firefox Mobile for those devices eventually sees the light of day. But I'm not actually involved in building the browser, so my vote might not count for that much.

[via MobileCrunch]

Firefox Mobile for Android this year, Windows Mobile... later? originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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