Sep 20, 2010 07:55 GMT  ·  By

In case there are some Palm Pre users out there who feel that the web browser in the webOS platform is not the best possible choice, a new solution is available for you to try, dubbed PreFox, and being aimed at bringing Firefox on Palm's handset.

According to the browser's developer, PreFox is a mobile Firefox ported to the Palm Pre, and should bring to this webOS device a series of features that its browser lacks, but which are present on Mozilla's solution.

“PreFox is an early proof-of-concept web browser for webOS based on the same source code as Mozilla Firefox for Mobile,” the browser's developer notes in recent post.

The current state of the mobile browser appears to be very promising.

PreFox can run on Palm Pre, while being able to display website, which means that it is usable when it comes to navigating over the Internet, though not all things go as well as one might want them to.

Here's what the developer notes in this regard:

- Startup is too slow. It is probably not possible to equal the startup speed of webOS’s built in browser (which is closely tied to the platform) but it still needs to be faster to be useful. - Memory use is currently too high often giving the “Too many cards” errors. - Sometimes while running PreFox will become slow for periods of time, clearly it is doing something in the background that needs to be identified. - Various UI and functionality tweaks specific for webOS.

Even so, things are promising, since some of these issues, specifically the first three, should be solved through porting to Pre what Mozilla is working on for Android.

The work on this solution took longer than originally expected, mainly because Palm delayed the release of webOS 1.4.5 for its users, it seems.

“I’ve taken it as far as I can which is to say it runs (though not as fast as it could), seems to be stable and the majority of the main features are working,” the developer notes.

“There is still lots of work to do but it is not within my area of expertise and I am hoping to find other people to take on the project and solve the remaining problems.”

Additional info on the PreFox browser can be found on the solution's page here.