Firefox 4 Mobile Beta Brings Big Improvements

Posted 11/04/2010 at 2:35pm | by Ryan Whitwam

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Mozilla has announced the new beta version of Firefox 4 Mobile is available for download on both Maemo and Android phones. The last version was a little rough, and the developers claim to have taken user suggestions to heart in this release. Among the improvements are a much reduced install size on Android devices (17MB instead of 43MB), improved text rendering, and lower memory usage. The app also supports app2sd storage on Froyo phones.

The visual look has been refreshed, and the UI is generally much more snappy. You're really looking at speed improvements across the board; panning and zooming is much better than the previous version. However, page rendering still feels slower than the stock browser. Mozilla pointed out that the SunSpider benchmark showed this version of Firefox has 25% better JavaScript performance than the stock Android 2.2 browser, but it still feels slower in practice.

With features like slide out toolbars, Firefox Sync, and future hardware acceleration, Firefox Mobile could really be a great browser upon completion. If you have an N900, or high-end Android phone, check out the beta.