Free For All: Fennec Alpha2


markScreen01 Well not exactly for all, but Mozilla are edging towards a beta release of Fennec/FireFox Mobile. Why I say not exactly free, The cab install file is 9.6 Mb and ram and processor consumption is off the wall. I actually backed up twice before I installed the Alpha, and I installed it to device, something I rarely do with trial software.

The problem here is the size of the file and the specs of your device. If you are still using an older WinMo device like me, there’s not a lot of hope for you with this Alpha. It just hangs and doesn’t offer any options. If Fennec is going to be a viable option, it will have to be a lot less resource hungry. Just the start up/load time of the app was an indication that this wasn’t going to work for me.
markScreen04 Even though it graphically looks good, at this stage, this load screen appeared for about eight minutes. Not a good omen in anyone’s books. Basically, it would load the start page, and then do very little else. So I’ve uninstalled it. Even though I’ve posted optimistically about this before, we are looking at an app that will need a device with specs to boot.
Remember that film where they say “ if you build it, they will come!”. Windows Mobile devices are probably evolving at a rate that will accommodate this application, but for now, it’s a wee bit sketchy.
How ever you want to take it, it’s still nice to see the development progressing.Check out the  latest change logs for the current alpha here, and give it a try if you want! I’m a bit uninspired, and disappointed that this update didn’t take this browser up a level, that makes it useable on windows mobile. Try it out for sure!


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