Mozilla's Fennec lands for Windows Mobile

Although Mozilla issued a pre-alpha in February this year, the firm released the browser in its first official alpha yesterday, with an announcement on Fennec developer Jason Lassey’s blog.

“We are pleased to announce that Fennec Alpha 1 for Windows Mobile 6 is available for download by developers and testers,” he wrote.

“This is an early developer release intended for testing purposes only. We would like to invite interested Windows Mobile developers and users to join with Mozilla’s developer and user community to help develop, test and refine the product.”

Accordint to Lassey, Fennec is now able to manage memory more efficiently, and user interface controls are now totally CSS-based, allowing the development team to more easily adjust the UI according to the different screen sizes and resolutions of individual handsets.

This version of Fennec also supports Add-ons, which Lassey argued are “integral to promoting openness and innovation on the web”.

“The look and feel will continue to evolve as we develop the product, but this release should give uses a sense of the direction its going in,” he added.

The current alpha of Fennec has been developed with HTC Touch Pro device in mind, and it is not recommended to use the release for daily browsing tasks beause of performance problems, acording to Lassey.

Support for further devices will be added in the future, he said.