Yet another Fennec mobile browser beta - Mozilla needs to get a move on

Following hot after independent mobile browser Bolts recent European win, Firefox has released the newest in a long line of beta’s for it’s own mobile browser. Fennec Beta 5 is the fifth beta version of the browser since it’s launch in March of this year.

Who in the what now?

The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organisation that maintains the free, open source web browser Firefox. After Internet Explorer, which is the undisputed giant in the room when it comes to web browsing, Firefox is the most widely used browser.

Fennec is the mobile version of Firefox that the Mozilla Foundation is preparing for smaller devices - not just mobile phones, but also PDAs and other mobile computers. Although they would want to stop preparing pretty soon and start launching, because there is hot competition in the mobile browser space.

And as this is the fifth beta for Fennec since March of this year, don’t worry if you don’t like this one. There’ll be another in a couple of minutes.

What’s new?

Before we go any further, I should stress that beta 5 has only been developed for devices running the Linux-based Maemo OS from Nokia. So only people with an N900 then. Well, it’ll run on certain Nokia tablets as well, but the N900 is the main device.

The actual performance features for Fennec beta 5 are pretty good, I must say. You can see the full list here, but here’s what I would call the highlights:

New for Beta 5:

•    Enabled plugins - one of the best things about Firefox, and the reason it’s my browser of choice. Plug-ins are basically applications for your browser. I love them. I use plug-ins to search Google, Wikipedia and IMDB. I use them to manage my RSS feeds, Digg and Stumble. Having these integrated into Fennec is like a whole new source of mobile applications.
•    Form assistant to make filling forms easier - again, a great feature from Firefox
•    Improved panning and zooming
•    “Numerous” other bug and polish fixes.

Aaaaand… that’s it, really.

What we think?

Honestly, I’m a big fan of Firefox. I preferred Netscape to IE back in the day, and I prefer Firefox to IE now. But honestly, there are strong contenders in the mobile browser market at the moment. You’ve got independents like Skyfire and Bolt; other web search transplants like Opera; or device specific browsers like Safari for iPhone and the new, not-awful, web browser for Blackberry. Most mobile internet users have already chosen their web browser. Mozilla is late coming to the table on this one, so they would want to have a pretty spectacular proposition when they sit down.