Jul 8, 2011 09:11 GMT  ·  By

Owners of handsets running under Google's Android operating system have now the possibility to enjoy a brand new flavor of the Firefox mobile browser, namely version 7 Aurora.

The new iteration of the mobile browser is the first to arrive in the Aurora channel as part of the rapid release system that Mozilla adopted for their browsers.

Previously, the company made available Aurora flavors of the desktop browser, along with new beta and final flavors, and they decided several weeks ago to adopt the same rapid release system for the mobile application too.

The first pre-beta release of Firefox 7 is now available for download for Android users, along with a beta version of Firefox 6, and the final release of Firefox 5.

The new Firefox Mobile Aurora 7 comes with a wide range of features that were included in the Desktop version of the browser.

Among them, the development team notes new memory optimizations, aimed at making Firefox on Android much faster than before, while the experience it delivers is more pleasant.

The release notes for the new Firefox 7 Aurora include:

- Text selection in web content: Long tap in a web page and start selection text using the familiar Android-style drag handles. Since Firefox does not use Android widgets, we had to implement this feature ourselves and there is still some additional work to do in order to make it more robust.

- Session history within a tab is saved and restored: If Firefox needs to restore the session, each tab’s back/forward history is restored as well.

- Language selection at initial startup: Choose you language right away, instead of wading through screens in a language you might not be able to read. If the Android OS is set to a language Firefox has bundled, the selection screen is skipped and you are taken to the Firefox Home page. If you really wanted to pick a different language, there is a “Choose Language” button on Firefox Home too, but only on the initial startup.

- Added a ‘Quit’ action to the Android menu: This was a frequent feature request and low risk to the UI so we added it.

At the same time, the new Firefox Mobile Aurora 7 comes with all the features and improvements that were included into the Firefox for Mobile 6 Beta release (which is not officially available as of yet).

When installing it, users will enjoy startup and painting speedups, a new Gingerbread theme, along with various Android menu improvements, and some other enhancements as well.

Firefox Mobile Aurora 7 was not made available for download via the Android Market, though the development team is considering the option, so as to have it there along with the Beta and Final releases.

Until that happens, you can download and install the new Mobile Aurora 7 from Softpedia, via this link. The beta release can be downloaded on Windows-based desktops as well, from here.

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