New Firefox for Android beta launches

Mozilla has made available for the first time a beta version of its mobile browser for Android devices.

Called, unsurprisingly, Firefox Beta, the new app shows off a version of Firefox 5 which is still in development.

The beta offers a load of new features, including improved load speeds, better panning, improved compatibility with SwiftKey and a better display of images and video.

More add-ons

Mozilla has also revealed that there are now over 150 add-ons for Firefox for mobile, with 100 of those compatible with the latest beat version of the app.

This makes sense, considering Mozilla is using the same browsing engine as its desktop to power the mobile app.

The new app also adds support for over six menu items in the Android Menu and images downloaded to the Android Gallery are now immediately visible.

If you have an Android device running on Android 2.0 or higher, then you can go to the Android Market and download the app now.

List of Compatible devices:
Firefox requires Android 2.0 or later and an ARMv7 processor. Installation requires about 17 MB internal or SD card storage. Firefox runs best on devices with at least 512 MB of RAM.


These devices are compatible with Firefox:




Acer Iconia Smart (untested)
Acer Iconia Tab A500
Advent Vega (P10AN01)
Apple iPhone 3GS, 4 GSM, CDMA Models
Dell Streak, Streak 7
HTC Desire
HTC Desire Z (T-Mobile G2)
HTC Desire HD
HTC Droid Incredible/HTC Droid Incredible 2
HTC EVO 4G, EVO Shift 4G
HTC Glacier (T-Mobile myTouch 4G)
HTC Incredible S (untested)
HTC Inspire 4G (untested)
HTC Nexus One
HTC Thunderbolt 4G
Huawei Ideos S7
LG Optimus 2X
LG Optimus Black (P970)
LG Optimus Z
Motorola Atrix 4G
Motorola Bravo
Motorola Cliq 2 (untested)
Motorola Defy
Motorola Droid 2, Droid 2 Global
Motorola Droid Pro (Motorola PRO)
Motorola Droid X
Motorola Xoom
POV Mobii Tegra Tablet
Samsung Continuum (i400)
Samsung Droid Charge (untested)
Samsung Galaxy S (i9000, Captivate, Fascinate, Vibrant, Epic 4G)
Samsung Galaxy S II (untested)
Samsung Galaxy Tab, Galaxy Tab 10.1
Samsung Infuse 4G (untested)
Samsung T-Mobile Sidekick 4G (untested)
Sharp Galapagos 003SH, 005SH
Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc
Sony Ericsson Xperia Play
Toshiba AC100 smartbook
Toshiba AS100 tablet
Viewsonic gTablet


The following devices have compatible hardware, but may have software problems when running Firefox. These bugs may be fixed in future versions:




Acer Liquid E - Firefox crashes on startup with Android 2.1 (bug 637424)
Acer Liquid (Liquid A1) - Firefox crashes on startup (bug 606194, fixed in Firefox 4.0?)
Archos 101 Internet Tablet - Firefox freezes or crashes (bug 621645)
Motorola Charm - does not have the suggested amount of RAM.
Motorola Droid (Milestone) - Firefox crashes/freezes while running (bug 602252)
Samsung Galaxy S 4G - installation error?
Samsung Nexus S - Firefox crashes/freezes while running (bug 624652, fixed in Android 2.3.3)
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 - does not have the suggested amount of RAM (384Mb).


These devices have ARMv6 processors and are not compatible with Firefox for Android:




Android SDK emulator
Asus Garmin nuvifone A50 (T-Mobile Garminfone)
Augen GENTouch 78 Tablet
Coby Kyros Internet Tablet (MID7015)
Geeksphone One, Geeksphone Zero
HTC Aria
HTC ChaCha
HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1, Android Dev Phone 1)
HTC Droid Eris
HTC Espresso (T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide)
HTC Hero (T-Mobile G2 Touch)
HTC Legend
HTC Magic (T-Mobile myTouch 3G, T-Mobile G1 Touch)
HTC Salsa
HTC Tattoo
HTC Wildfire
Huawei Ascend
Huawei Ideos U8150-B (T-Mobile Comet)
Huawei U8110 (T-Mobile Pulse Mini)
Huawei U8230
LG Ally (Apex) (LG VS740)
LG GW620 (Eve, InTouch Max, LinkMe)
LG Optimus, Optimus M, Optimus T, Optimus S, Optimus V
LG Vortex
MAG iMiTO iM7
MAG iMiTO iM7S
Motorola Backflip
Motorola Citrus
Motorola Cliq (MB200)
Motorola Dext
Motorola Devour
Motorola i1
Motorola Spice XT300
Motorola Quench XT5 XT502
Pandigital Novel
Samsung Behold, Behold 2
Samsung GT-S5570 Galaxy Mini
Samsung i5500 Galaxy 5 (Corby)
Samsung i5700 Galaxy Portal (Spica)
Samsung i5800 Galaxy 3
Samsung i7500 Galaxy
Samsung Intercept
Samsung M900 Moment
Samsung S5830 Galaxy Ace
Samsung Transform
Sanyo ZIO M6000
Sony Ericsson Xperia X8
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro
Superpad 10.2" Tablet PC
Viewsonic ViewPad 7 Tablet
Velocity Micro T103 Cruz tablet
Vodafone 845
ZTE Blade / San Francisco
ZTE Light / V9


Known Issues
These are some of the bugs in the latest builds. We are working on fixing them.


Installation and Add-ons:


Adobe Flash and other plugins are not supported yet (bug 630007).
Starting the app for the first time takes a while while it installs some files and sets up a profile. Later startup times are much faster.
Performance and stability:


Firefox causes the Motorola Droid to freeze completely when loading certain web sites, or at other random times (bug 602252).
Firefox causes the Nexus S to freeze completely when loading certain web sites or opening many tabs (bug 624652, fixed in Android 2.3.3).
Firefox's JIT compiler is disabled on Samsung Galaxy S phones running Android 2.1 because of a bug in their 2.1 kernel, making Firefox slower than on other devices. Galaxy S phones already running Android 2.2 "Froyo" are not affected. (bug 601222, bug 603624).
User Interface:


Copy and Paste do not yet work for text in web pages (bug 652168).
The SwiftKey keyboard crashes when used with Firefox (bug 617298, fixed in Firefox Beta; fix will be included in Firefox 5).