14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla has just made available for download a new flavor of their Firefox for Android mobile browser, namely Firefox 11 Aurora.
The new release was previously available in the nightly channel, with a wide range of enhancements brought to the user interface, and is now available in a more stable release in Aurora.
Just as previously noted, the new Firefox release marks the move to a native UI on devices based on Google’s Android operating system.
This change is expected to result in faster performance for all Android users, since the application will need shorter periods of time to load than before.
The start page on Firefox 11 for Android has been modified, and it now features Top Sites. Moreover, the new app release will make it easier for users to access Top Sites, Bookmarks, and History from the Awesomebar.
The release notes for the new Firefox for Android include:
- "Request Desktop Site" menu option added - The CSS text-size-adjust property is now supported - The outerHTML property is now supported on HTML elements - SPDY protocol support for faster page loads is now testable - XMLHttpRequest now supports HTML parsing - Files can now be stored in IndexedDB - Websockets has now been unprefixed - Blinking characters in form fields - Reloading a page increases the zoom level
Since it is only in Alpha at the moment, the application sports a variety of bugs, all of which should be resolved before the release of a stable flavor. One of them, for example, affects the use of Adobe Flash and other plugins, which Mozilla claims that are not yet supported.
The development team also notes that the application uses the same storage for bookmarks and history as the default Android browser, which means that, when backing up files from the device, the bookmark and history data will be backed up to Google's servers.
Previously, data was stored internally to Fennec and only the use of Mozilla Sync would have made it available for access from other devices.
The new Firefox 11 Aurora for Android is available for download from Softpedia via this link. The latest stable and beta releases are also available there.