Calling all Android Phone Users!
Firefox Mobile 4.0 beta 1 was released last week for Android and Maemo platforms. This is the first released beta of Mobile firefox on android, so we are looking for feedback and test coverage. How can you help?
First, download the beta here. If you’re feeling more adventurous, skip the beta and go straight to our amazingly stable nightly builds. (grab the “fennec.apk” file)
Secondly, read Mark Finkle’s blog about the features that it comes with. Highlights are AwesomeScreen, Integrated Sync, Badging, Sharing a site with others, and many more..
Lastly, help us test on your Android Device! With the emergence of new Android phones coming out every week it seems, the Mobile team here is looking for more development and Test coverage across all these platforms. Action steps:
- Visit the Firefox for Android wiki for supported devices and list of known issues. You can also look up mobile support.
- Let us know which device you have! Give feedback through our UserVoice forum and Firefox Input channels for feedback and bugs. (Note: Input will be available in beta 2 directly through the options menu)
- Run our manual mobile tests! Create an account in http://litmus.mozilla.org and run our functional tests right here.
- Finally, find us on irc.mozilla.org, #mobile channel for any real time chat.
Enjoy!
Update: Some of you are experiencing issues after installing where Firefox will start up, run for about 5 seconds, and then close and navigate back to the home page. Please double check first if you are on a device that’s not running ARM7 architecture (non thumb instruction set). (See supported list HERE)
If you are running an older processor like ARM6 and below, we’d still love to hear feedback on performance and usability by running a nothumb nightly build. Go HERE for that.
October 11, 2010 at 8:05 pm
not running on Samsung Galaxy i9700 with Android 2.2 Firmware(gaosp)
October 11, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Samsung Galaxy i7500 not i9700 😉
October 11, 2010 at 8:20 pm
can you comment on what you’re seeing? (hang on startup, crash, won’t install, etc..)
October 11, 2010 at 8:45 pm
installation ok,
after starting 5 seconds of black screen then back to home screen
October 11, 2010 at 9:28 pm
the i7500 is an arm6 processor, which beta 1 does not support. For nothumb builds, please visit the nightly builds at http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/nightly/latest-mozilla-central-android-r7-nothumb/, and give us feedback on performance. (i’ll update the post to say this)
October 12, 2010 at 8:54 am
unusable because very very slow, but the nothumb builds is running
October 11, 2010 at 9:44 pm
[…] We’ve been hearing a lot about Firefox mobile the past couple of weeks, and now that it’s officially available for beta testing, the Firefox mobile team at Mozilla needs you to test things out. Some of us are loving the fact that we can use Firefox on our Android phones, some not so much, but we all agree there’s some improvement needed. That’s where we come in — hit the source link where you can download the beta, or if you’re the adventurous type one of the nightly builds, then start checking in and asking questions with the developers in the Mozilla Firefox developer forum right here at Android Central, where Mozilla’s own Matt Brubeck is staying on top of things. [dknite's blog] […]
October 11, 2010 at 10:28 pm
I installed it and tbh its a very good start, load more work needs to be done on it but you can see its going to be great.
I love the interface and sync is a killer feature.
Its worth installing just so I have my tab list from my other computers.
—
Issues:
Pinch to zoom is wonky. Text reflow doesn’t.
—
Should offer to use master password
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=592772
“Please allow us the option of using a master password, make the default “off”
by all means, but empower your users with the ability to control their security
and privacy.
I have my whole internet life in those passwords and deliberately chose to
protect them on the desktop, this beta1 just blew a huge whole in my security.
At a minimum you need to advise users of the security implications so they can
make an informed choice and not get carried away with the coolness of the beta.”
October 12, 2010 at 4:55 pm
It looks promising, but is not anywhere near ready. At least it has a performance such that it can be used, which the alpha didn’t have.
I cannot get remember password to work. I have synched passwords from my PC, and on a given page the page menu has an item saying “forget password”, so I guess the password is stored somewhere. There is however no apparent way to fill out the login form with the stored username and password, and then storing passwords does not make a lot of sense.
When panning it sometimes locks to only horizontal or vertical panning, which can be nice, however it does it too often, and I find myself panning down, then right, then down, then right, lifting my finger each time. That is annoying.
The left and right arrows for exiting and entering the options/addons/downloads screen seems to indicate that you can exit is by panning left, but you cannot. Why are the arrows there when they aren’t true?
Running on HTC Desire.
October 14, 2010 at 9:04 pm
@freakm941, not sure if you filed this bug, but if not, there is a related crasher on the i7500 tracking here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=602819. Feel free to comment there further, since you’ll get more attention on it in bugzilla.
@Silverwave, i see you’ve already commented in the master password bug, so thats the right place to track the issue. However, as the previous comment mentioned, master password work is closely tied into what Sync is doing with their service; so much of that development and timing comes from Sync first. If you happen to be a developer, you are welcome to contribute a patch to help.
@Jesper, Thanks for the feedback.
yes, remembering username and password after syncing from desktop should work. Since you are experiencing issues, please file a bug with repro steps and your sync & mobile platform you used to help us track it down. Also, one thing to try is right after syncing to mobile, visit about:sync-log and parse through the log file to see if there’s anything worth noting that calls out your password was not correctly sync’d. That will help narrow if its the syncing, or fennec itself.
Agree on the panning and zooming, its still flaky with pinch zooming and text reflow still takes a few seconds to complete. We’re working on that for beta 2. nice observation about the arrows. please file a bug on it since its not clear and see if UX team can comment.
Thanks!
October 14, 2010 at 10:17 pm
After a restart of Firefox the password was filled just fine, so I cannot really reproduce, unfortunately. There are lots of info in about:sync-log, but I don’t know if anything is useful. Rendering doing panning is however quite bad on that page.
After I posted my comment, I saw the mockups linked from https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Notes/13-Oct-2010 and there the arrows are gone, so I guess it is not worth filing a bug about that.