14 DAY TRIAL // The guys over at Mozilla have just made another step into delivering the final version of Firefox mobile for Maemo-based devices. The mobile variant of Firefox, which is known around the world as Fennec, has just reached the beta 5 stage, which suggests that it shouldn't be too long before the final variant of the mobile browser is released into the wild.
As with the previous releases of Fennec for Maemo, the new beta 5 flavor is made available mainly for testing purposes, so that the developing team can receive feedback on the changes and improvements the browser includes. Moreover, Mozilla also says that the purpose of Firefox beta 5 for Maemo includes attracting add-on developers towards porting their solutions for mobile devices, and encouraging them to come up with new ones for Fennec.
The release notes for Firefox beta 5 for Maemo show the following changes: - Enabled official branding, with Firefox name and logo - Support for localizations, currently including Spanish, German, French, Italian, Dutch, and Russian - Enabled plugins - Viewport meta tag support - Fixed a number of sites that resize their content after the page is loaded - Added a form assistant to make filling forms easier - Improved panning performance and behavior - Zooming doesn't jump around anymore - Numerous other bugs and polish issues addressed.
The new release can be used on the Maemo OS2008 and Maemo 5 software platforms, Mozilla states. The operating systems, as many of you might already know, can be found on handsets like the Nokia N810 and N900 Internet Tablets. However, those who do not have such a device but still want to enjoy the features of Fennec can download and try out the browser to their computer, no matter whether they are running Windows, Linux or Mac OS.
Some of the issues the fresh version of Fennec comes around with include some problems with the re-enabled Flash, some plugins do not work properly, and the fact that Fennec needs at least 128 MB of RAM to run. More details on the new release of Firefox for Maemo can be found here.
Firefox beta 5 for Maemo can be downloaded on a Nokia N810 or N900 from Softpedia too, just follow this link (the latter should be put on sale shortly).