Fennec alpha arrives on Windows Mobile

 

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Posted on 19 May 2009 at 09:42

Mozilla has released the first alpha of its mobile browser for Windows Mobile 6 based smartphones.

A pre-alpha version of the mobile browser, dubbed Fennec, first appeared on Windows Mobile 6 back in February. However, the OS was riddled with memory-management bugs that have now been ironed out thanks to the JeMalloc memory management library currently used in Firefox.

According to Brad Lassey, a senior software engineer at Mozilla, the alpha was designed for use on an HTC Touch Pro, but he claimed the interface could scale to work on a variety of devices.

"Fennec's user interface controls have been rebuilt to be entirely CSS-based," Lassey says on the developer blog. "This will allow us to more easily adjust our UI for various screen sizes and resolutions in the future.

"It also demonstrates how web technologies can be used to create compelling user interfaces. The look and feel will continue to evolve as we develop the product, but this release should give users a sense of the direction it's going in."

The alpha now also supports add ons, one of the big draws of Firefox. Among those already available for the browser are touchscreen gesture support and an autocorrect function when typing in URLs.

Development of Fennec on Windows Mobile will now shift to performance, with the team focusing on graphics rendering.

Fennec is already available in alpha for Nokia's N810 internet tablet.

Author: Stuart Turton