Firefox Mobile pre-Alpha released

Like a lot of folks, I have been waiting for the chance to play with the Firefox Mobile browser, code-named Fennec, and a very early pre-Alpha (whatever that means) version is now available.  This early version has some caveats as it has only been released for the HTC Touch Pro.  Some have claimed success running it on other VGA Windows Mobile phones, so YMMV if you try it.

I immediately tried to run it on the HTC Advantage running Windows Mobile 6.1, without success.  It installed fine but does nothing when I try to run it.  Note that the install takes a whopping 24 MB of system memory.  This early build is not optimized so try it at your own risk; those who can run it state that it takes a long time to load and page loads are slow.  Nonetheless it is great to see Mozilla getting this much closer to reality; it’s taken a very long time.

Opera Mobile is still my Windows Mobile browser of choice, it simply rocks on the HTC Advantage.  I am also currently testing another browser under NDA that I’ll be able to talk about soon.

CAB file download

(via Gizmodo)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks