A First Glimpse of Firefox Mobile

The Mozilla Corporation is hard are work on a version of Firefox for smartphones, and has some proposals for what the different versions this web browser will look and act like.

There will be two versions, one for devices with a touchscreen, and another for devices without one.

The design elements of this browser are still in development, and Mozilla welcomes comments on its proposals.

For Touchscreens

One of the hallmarks of Mozilla's upcoming browser will be a design that fingertip friendly, so no stylus is required.

Other goals are:

• One or two taps for most frequent activities
• Familiar (to desktop users) where possible
• Intuitive

Firefox Mobile will support having multiple web pages open simultaneously, and allow the user to switch between them by displaying thumbnail images of all open pages. 

Like many browsers, it will have bars across the top and bottom of the screen with web page information and controls (see image at right). Unlike many others, though, there won't be a "full page" mode, so most of these can't be hidden.

Naturally, this browser will allow users to store bookmarks, though under the current plan it won't allow users to organize these in sub-folders.

More details and screen shots of Firefox Mobile for touchscreens can be found on the Mozilla web site.

For Non-touchscreens

Despite being a different version of the same application, the version of Firefox Mobile devices without touchscreens will appear quite different, as this one will forgo a control bar across the top of the screen, and the one across the bottom will be much simpler.

To allow users to browse the Web on devices without touchscreens, it will include a cursor controlled by the D-pad.

More information on this version can be found on the Mozilla web site.

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