Although an alpha build of Fennec was available for download for Android 2.0+ devices since a few months, it wasn’t really the most stable pieces of software. Today, Mozilla have officially released the alpha version of Fennec for Android 2.0+ and Nokia N900. It features much of the features that we’ve come to love in the desktop version of Firefox. It’s loaded with features such as awesome bar, Firefox Sync, Add-ons support and much more
This release also implements Electrolysis and Layers. Electrolysis allows tabs to to run in separate processes just like in Google Chrome. This helps save tabs from crashing and keeps the browser reactive even in slowdowns due to intensive JavaScript loading or Add-ons. Layers provides improved performance in graphic intensive scenarios like scrolling, zooming, animations and video. These scenarios will take full advantage of hardware-accelerated graphics rendering.
Add-ons can be installed and uninstalled on the go allowing you to customize and enhance the browsing experience. A start page is also included which lets you resume your browsing from where you left it off from Firefox desktop. A new ‘awesome screen’ pops up by tapping on the awesome bar. It’s a smart list of history items and bookmarks and allows to create customized search engines with just a few taps, again, like Google Chrome.
Here are a few other features in Fennec Alpha:
Keep in mind that this is just an alpha build and there are some known issues where some add-ons might not work and graphics performance might be slow. Fennec Alpha is optimized for Nexus One so far so your mileage may wary with other Android devices.
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