back to article Firefox 4 Android beta gets stomach stapled

Firefox 4 for Android has emerged from the fat farm, and it's 60 per cent less beefy. On Thursday, Mozilla released a second Firefox 4 mobile beta for Android and Maemo, and the size of the Android install has dropped from 43MB down to 17MB. "There is still room for improvement and we’ll continue to make the install size …

COMMENTS

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  1. Gary F
    Heart

    Keep going Mozilla

    When you get down to under 10MB call me. Until then keep your lardy backside away from me.

    Okay, that was harsh, I'm sorry, darling. Normally I do go for curvy girls but my mobile phone just has a single bed, it's not a king size if you know what I mean. And if you consider all the other apps I like to fool around with it doesn't leave much room for you. Yes, I can be a tart too, always endulging myself, playing around for a bit and then dumping apps when I get bored.

    You look good laid out on my desktop though, I won't deny you that. You've got a lovely skin and as for your add-ons - whey hey, I'm in heaven! My plug-in is so compatible with that. Even though you are a chunky chick, you do it for me on my PC! But I can't take you around with me on my mobile. It's not that I'm embarassed to be seen out with you, but there's just not much room for you at the moment. x x

    1. Rex Alfie Lee
      Happy

      You are now famous to me...

      Best post I've seen in a very long time Gary, loved it. Only problem here is that I've given up being a floozy so I can't associate with you. Sorry...

  2. Rattus Rattus

    I've tried the new beta

    and found it still too big and slow,as well as rendering pages somewhat ugly. I've already uninstalled it, which is a shame really as I have been waiting to put Adblock plus on my phone. I actually really like the default Webkit-based browser and wouldn't see a need for mobile Firefox at all if it were not for all the damn advertising. It's slowly driving me insane given I've become used to an ad-free web on the desktop.

    1. censored

      Try Dolphin HD

      It's got tabbed browsing and an Adblocking add-on

  3. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    So

    Tried installing it - aparently my phone is under the required minimum specs.... (i have 256MB swap it could have used!) fine fsck firefox mobile :(

  5. MattW

    Shame

    My Hero doesn't meed the minimum spec...

  6. petur
    Go

    no longer a debug build then ;)

    Looks like they removed the debug symbols and enabled some optimization...

  7. Greg J Preece

    Re: Maemo Version

    Is it optified? I'd like to try it out, but if it's going to take up all the root space, no ta.

    Though I suppose I could optify it myself.

  8. JDX Gold badge

    Why would you want FF on Android?

    Is there no built-in browser, or semi-integrated Chrome-like browser?

    1. Rafael L
      FAIL

      IE

      Why don't you use IE on your PC? ;)

      Instead of just accepting software in tech world, we look for alternatives, better interface, functions, more features, etc... That's why we want to use browsers like Opera or Firefox on our PCs.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Why would you want FF on Windows?

      Is there no built-in browser, or semi-integrated Trident-like browser?

    3. Rex Alfie Lee
      Thumb Down

      Add-ons turkey, add-ons...

      ...the add-ons in FF make it still the best browser. Yes there are faster ones & ones with a lot of stuff they've copied from FF & some of FF was copied from Opera but the add-ons still make FF the best browser in the business & Chrome's copied add-ons don't match up to FFs. I await the day...

  9. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Meh.

    With Opera for Android out likely today weighing in at 6MB, and including hardware acceleration, why should I be interested in a browser than gobbles up all my memory and takes 30seconds to start.

    Firefox is a bloated mess, not only on desktop, but on mobile too.

    1. MarkOne
      Thumb Up

      Opera 10.1 for Android out Nov 9th.

      full blown Opera for Android out November 9th.

      6MB memory requirements.

  10. Giddy Kipper

    Slimmer version?

    To quote;

    "Installation requires approximately 32MB internal storage, plus 12MB SD storage."

    Duh.

    1. Sid James
      Thumb Down

      no thanks..

      Hmm indeed...a mobile browser that needs high system specs? no thanks!

  11. Matt Hawkins
    FAIL

    Firefox Mobile Bloatware v4

    As a Firefox user/fan I went to install this yesterday as I liked the idea of sharing bookmarks with my phone and desktop.

    It wanted 32Mb of storage space. 32Mb !!! WTF?

    The Portable version on my desktop is only 20Mb. How the hell can you take something that's 20Mb, create a "mobile" version of it and end up with 32Mb?

    As Gary F said, when it's under 10Mb let me know and I'll give it a try.

  12. Tom Chiverton 1

    N900 fail again

    Once again, the N900 repository they add to install from is FUBAR, GUI says "unable to install", multiple errors just running 'apt-get update' from the command line. Sigh.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Could not recreate.

      Really? I went to the page, clicked the fat finger friendly link and it installed.

      It takes it quite a while to lever it's lardy arse off the storage, but once it's up and running it actually seems rather nice.

  13. PaulR79

    Progressing fast, seems better

    I'm reserving judgement based on people with lower spec. phones since the first beta seemed smooth and relatively responsive on my Desire HD so the second beta seems similar with a few changes. I like it but if it ends up like the PC version, sluggish due to add-ons, I'll be back to the stock browser which is pretty fantastic in my opinion.

    Someone above asks why you'd want to try it when Opera blah blah blah. Opera isn't out yet, this is out. When Opera comes out I'll test that too, it isn't the same game as the desktop. On my computer I hate Opera no matter how many people claim it's fast but on mobile I want the fastest app with the lowest footprint and features. If that's Opera then I'll use it, if it's the built-in WebKit browser then I'll use that. Having choices is nice.

  14. John Sanders
    Linux

    Firefox is...

    A Desktop over-engineered piece of software, in whose original design goals there was no mobile version at all.

    It is then natural that trying to create a "direct" mobile port will result in an over-engineered desktop application in a phone environment.

    isn't there an Opera for Android? That's what I would try if I had an Android phone.

  15. alviator

    Opera WTF

    Nice job on going obese to overweight. Keep trimming the bloat and it might be worth a look.

  16. Steve the Cynic
    FAIL

    Fat or thin, does it load quicker than FF for Windows/PC?

    I double-clicked the FF 3.6 icon yesterday, still waiting for it to appear...

    (And another thing: why does it pop the blasted "update firefox now" box while you are typing, with "update now" as the default button? I accidentally updated 3.6.9 to 3.6.11 because of this.)

    1. AlexV
      Boffin

      On the off-chance that this is a serious question

      Firefox Mobile 4.0b2 loads in about 4s on my android device.

      Firefox 4.0b6 loads in slightly under 1s on my desktop. (not properly benchmarked, just stopwatch from when I hit the shortcut icon)

      So, not faster than desktop for me. Not fast enough to be a viable replacement for the android browser yet, unless you've the memory spare to leave the thing running in the background.

      Quite possibly faster than older versions of Firefox on the Desktop, particularly if it's a version prior to them fixing the 'scan all files in the temp folder on startup' bug, and you've got a typically far-from-empty temp folder.

  17. This post has been deleted by its author

  18. Rex Alfie Lee
    Alien

    Add-ons for Android...

    Lets face it, no-one wants bloat-ware on a phone but once FF trims down it will regain its former glory. It's about the add-ons as well as being a great interface to the net. It's secure as these things go & the add-ons. Did I mention the add-ons...

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