Firefox for Android

Name

The codename used for Firefox for Android is Fennec. It comes from the fennec fox, a small desert fox (just as the Fennec browser is a small version of Firefox browser). Firefox for Maemo Beta 5, released in 2009, was the first release to have official Firefox branding, with Firefox name and logo.

History

Plugin support was initially disabled by default, removing compatibility with popular web content types such as Adobe Flash. In September 2011, Flash support was implemented in pre-release builds for pre-Honeycomb versions of Android. Flash support for 4.x has been enabled for most smartphones in version 14.0.

The browser's version numbering was bumped from version 2.0 to version 4.0 to more closely match desktop releases of Firefox since the rendering engines used in both browsers are the same.

In December 2014, Mozilla announced it was designing a version of Firefox for iOS, that has since been released. Due to Apple's application review policies, Firefox has to use the built-in iOS WebKit-based rendering framework instead of Mozilla's Gecko web engine. In April 2013, then-Mozilla-CEO Gary Kovacs had however said that Firefox would not come to iOS as long as Apple required the use of the WebKit layout engine to do so. Still, in 2015, Mozilla announced it was moving forward with Firefox for iOS, first with a preview release made available in New Zealand in September of that year.

Platforms

Firefox for Android is currently only available for Android devices running Android version 4.0.3 and later (a different version Firefox for iOS, and of course the desktop version, is also available). Support for Android devices that run Intel x86 processors was added in December 2013.

Platforms previously or unofficially supported

Previously, Firefox for Android, was available under a different name, Firefox for mobile; and supported other platforms.

Official support for the Nokia N900 Maemo device ceased with version 7.

Firefox mobile was available for MeeGo through the third party OpenRepos repository.

An alpha of version 1.1 (1.1 Alpha 1) for Windows Mobile, released on February 19, 2010, is the last build for this operating system. Following the Windows Phone 7 announcement and Microsoft's decision not to release a native development kit, as with Android and other systems, development for Windows Mobile was put on hold. If Microsoft releases a native development kit in the future for its Windows Phone OS, then Mozilla will consider again developing Fennec for the platform.

Tristan Nitot, president of Mozilla Europe, has said that it's unlikely that a BlackBerry OS version will be released, citing BlackBerry's limited operating system as the reason. Mozilla has no plans to develop Firefox for the Symbian platform, or webOS. An unofficial port to WebOS was made, but is no longer maintained as of 2011.

An unofficial port is available for the OpenPandora handheld console.

Add-ons

Firefox for Android allows installation of themes and extensions.

Reception

The main criticisms of the browser pre-version 14 were slow browsing speed, lack of plugin support and performance issues. To address these concerns, Mozilla redesigned the browser in version 14.0, adding Flash support, improving start-up speed, as well as other enhancements. This update dramatically improved Firefox for Android. As of September 2014, the average user rating of Firefox for Android on the Google Play Store is 4.4.

Compared to stock Android browser and Chrome on Android, Firefox has a small market share; for the month of November 2015, Firefox for Android usage share of all mobile/tablet browsers was just 0.81%. Despite that, Firefox for Android enjoys a high Play Store rating, has over 100 million downloads, and continues to be developed. The latest version supports Android 4.0 and higher (as Android 2.3 support was dropped in version 48).

In its 2015 Android browser comparison, Spanish software news and reviews site Softonic.com awarded Firefox version 37.0.1 the Best of 2015 nod, with reviewer Fabrizio Benedetti citing good design, efficient memory consumption, the browser's open source nature, and independence.

Security advantages

For various reasons, a number of devices run older versions of Android: some would not be upgraded to newer versions because of insufficient technical knowledge by users, or their lack of access to mobile data; some devices cannot be upgraded because of low system resources, or the manufacturer and telecoms operator have failed to provide an update. People in developing countries and low-income people in advanced economies are less likely to upgrade to newer smartphones with newer built-in Android versions, which may entice them to choose Firefox as the more secure browser, thus contributing to Firefox marketshare.

As of early 2015, Google has stopped issuing its own patches for Android 4.3 and earlier to the WebView browser component and the WebKit rendering engine therein, which are used by the native/stock and often default AOSP browser in a large number of Android devices – thereby shifting the patching responsibility to device manufacturers. In time, the native browser or browser components become outdated, increasingly insecure, and unable to properly render modern websites.

As a workaround, a Google engineer suggested using the separately-installable and updateable Google Chrome or Firefox browsers. In case of Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.x), Google stopped supporting that branch of Android with updates to its Chrome browser after Chrome 43, and move up to Android 4.1 as the oldest release supported by Google Chrome.

The open-source nature of Firefox has made it possible to maintain its development for operating system versions that are past their product support lifecycle, and has resulted in Firefox having stronger security and better support for modern web standards. This in effect extends the useful lifetime of devices stuck on older major versions of Android.

IceCatMobile

GNU maintained fork of Firefox for Android with all proprietary binaries removed. Replaced Fennec F-Droid on F-Droid repository.

Fennec F-Droid

On 1 February 2015 and beginning with version 35.0, the open-source F-Droid app repository hosts the Fennec F-Droid package. This is a FOSS-only version of the browser, pulled from the unbranded Firefox source code, licensed under MPL2, and based on the latest Firefox releases. Part of the package's name comes from the mobile Firefox's Fennec code name.

Maintainers of this version strive to keep out all proprietary binaries used in Firefox. As of version 38.0.5, the following items have been removed:

This build was later discontinued.

Adblock Browser

On 20 May 2015, Eyeo GmbH, the maintainers of Adblock Plus, released Adblock Browser 1.0 beta, which is based on Firefox for Android. The browser uses a similar blocking/permitting model as Adblock Plus, wherein acceptable ads are allowed. A major drawback compared to Firefox for Android is Adblock Browser's lack of support for Firefox Sync.

Initial reviews have been mixed: On one hand, users would be happy to have less ads and resource consumption on their devices; on the other hand, web services, publications, content creators and bloggers rely on advertisements for their revenue and income.

Adblock Browser 1.0 was released on 7 September 2015. It's compatible with Android 2.3 or greater, and has about the same system requirements as Firefox for Android.

Orfox

On 30 June 2015, The Guardian Project announced a stable alpha of Orfox, the new mobile counterpart of the Tor Browser. Orfox is built from Fennec (Firefox for Android) code and the Tor Browser code repository, and is given security hardening patches by the Tor Browser development team. Some of the Orfox build work is based on the Fennec F-Droid project.

The project removed in Orfox the WebRTC component and Chromecast connectivity, and app permissions to access the camera, microphone, contacts (address book), location data (GPS et al.), and NFC.

Orfox is to supersede the Orweb browser project, which used the WebView engine.

LibreOffice

Firefox for Android (Fennec) front-end code was taken as a base for the new development in the LibreOffice project for Android (along with the pre-existing cross-platform LibreOffice document engine). Further work made that Fennec code the core component of LibreOffice Viewer for Android, which was released on 28 May 2015 for Android 4.0 or newer.

Release history

Release dates: