Mobile/Platforms/Android

Firefox for Android

Firefox for Android is part of the Fennec project to bring the Firefox web browser to mobile devices. For more information about Fennec, see the Firefox Mobile web site.

• Latest Version: Beta 1
• Optimized for: Nexus One, other phones with ~1 GHz ARMv7 CPU and 800x480 display
• System Requirements: Android 2.0 or higher, OpenGL ES2.0, 256 MB RAM, 40 MB phone storage available

Status

Firefox for Android is in very early development. Stay tuned and follow us on Twitter and Facebook to hear about new releases and other announcements. Or read our developer blogs to follow our progress.

We have not yet set a date for the first release of Firefox for Android, but we are tentatively planning for a release before the end of 2010, with beta releases earlier in the year. See Mobile/Planning/2.0 for more information.

Download Beta

The first Firefox beta for Android is now available.

1. Check the system requirements below. This beta is available for ARMv7 only, and requires Android 2.0 or higher.
2. If you installed unofficial or nightly Fennec builds, you will need to uninstall Fennec before installing the Firefox beta. This will erase your profile.
3. Download Firefox 4 beta for Android.

Download Nightly Builds

If you want to develop, test, or preview the next release of Fennec, you can download a nightly build:

1. If you have already installed a version of Fennec that is not a nightly build, you will need to uninstall it first. This will remove your profile and settings.
2. Download the nightly build directly onto your Android device by scanning the barcode below, or by entering the URL in the Android browser.
3. Open the fennec.apk file when it finishes downloading.

You can also try out Fennec on other platforms, including on your Mac, Windows, or Linux PC.

ARMv7

For Android devices with ARMv7 (Cortex, Snapdragon, Hummingbird) processors, like the Motorola Droid, HTC Desire, HTC Evo 4G, or Samsung Galaxy S. (See below for a longer list of phones.)

• Short URL: http://bit.ly/b52meS
• Full URL: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/nightly/latest-mobile-trunk/fennec.apk

ARMv6 (experimental)

For devices with ARMv6 processors, like the HTC Hero, Legend, Droid Eris, Wildfire, or Samsung Moment. (See below for a longer list of phones.)

Note: The ARMv6 build is new and not widely tested. Many older Android phones do not have enough RAM or storage to run current Fennec builds. Fennec's visual design is not yet optimized for lower-resolution displays (bug 590777).

• Short URL: http://bit.ly/aQ22MP
• Full URL: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/nightly/latest-mozilla-central-android-r7-nothumb/fennec.apk

Known Issues

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

Installation and Add-ons:

• Fennec requires around 40 MB of internal storage. Like all Android NDK apps, Firefox must copy its native libraries out of the APK file before loading them, so they end up installed twice. We have plans to work around this problem and reduce the installed size by at least 50% (bug 588607).
• Adobe Flash and other plugins are not supported yet.

Performance and stability:

• NEW (2010-10-06) Fennec causes the Motorola Droid and Droid 2 to freeze completely when loading certain web sites, or at other random times (bug 602252).
• Fennec's JIT compiler is disabled on Samsung Galaxy S phones because it caused frequent and unpredictable crashes. This means that web pages that use JavaScript will be slower on Galaxy S phones than on other devices (bug 601222).
• Fennec takes a long time to start the first time because it needs to extract its libraries and set up a profile directory. After that, startup should be much faster.
• Speed, responsiveness, power efficiency, and memory use are all being improved as part of our Fennec 2.0 effort.

User Interface:

• Text does not wrap to fit the screen after zooming in, as it does in the Android browser (bug 578179). The Bigger Text add-on addresses this problem in a different way.
• Fennec does not yet include copy and paste commands (bug 585875).

Keyboard:

• You might need to hold down SHIFT or ALT while typing numbers/symbols/capitals on a hardware keyboard (bug 583327?).

See also the complete list of open Android bugs and release blockers in Bugzilla.

System Requirements

Fennec requires Android 2.0 or later. Installation requires about 40 MB of available internal storage.

Release builds of Fennec require a phone with an ARMv7 processor. Compatible devices include:

• Acer Liquid E
• Dell Streak
• HTC Desire
• HTC Desire Z (T-Mobile G2)
• HTC Droid Incredible
• HTC EVO 4G
• HTC Google Nexus One
• Motorola Droid 2
• Motorola Droid X
• Motorola Milestone (Verizon Droid)
• Samsung I9000 Galaxy S (AT&T Captivate, Verizon Fascinate, T-Mobile Vibrant, Sprint Epic 4G)
• Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 (Won't match system requirements until it gets update to OS)

The following devices are not compatible with our ARMv7-optimized releases, but might be able to run the experimental ARMv6 nightly builds:

• Android SDK emulator
• Augen GENTouch 78 Tablet
• HTC Aria
• HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1, Android Dev Phone 1)
• HTC Droid Eris
• HTC Hero (T-Mobile G2 Touch)
• HTC Legend
• HTC Magic (T-Mobile myTouch 3G, T-Mobile G1 Touch)
• HTC Tattoo
• HTC Wildfire
• Huawei U8230
• LG Ally
• Motorola Backflip
• Motorola Cliq
• Motorola Dext
• Samsung M900 Moment
• Samsung i5700 Galaxy Portal (Spica)
• Samsung Transform

Support

If you need support for Firefox for mobile please see our dedicated Mobile Support site.

Feedback

If you have comments or ideas please post them in the Mobile Ideas Forum.

Development

See Mobile/Fennec/Android for build instructions, developer documentation, and more project status.