Mozilla Fennec Alpha 3 for Windows Mobile: Unuseable Right Now But Worth Waiting For

Windows Mobile is in dire need of a decent web browser. Opera Mobile is pretty good. Opera mini is not very good. Skyfire’s most recent release is promising. But, I think it is safe to say that a lot of people are waiting for a Firefox for Windows Mobile to emerge. Fortunately, there such a project underway. Unfortunately, it is still in an alpha release state. An Alpha 3 release emerged a few days ago…

Fennec Alpha 3 for Windows Mobile

None of my other Windows Mobile devices could run the earlier Fennec releases. Fortunately, my recently purchased HTC Touch Pro2 is compatible. So, I downloaded and installed Fennec Alpha 3 on it.

Here’s what I found. And, please keep in mind that this is an alpha release version:

- The release information notes that there is a new fast start daemon that takes effect after a Windows Mobile soft reset. It seems like it still took well over a minute for Fennec to start up after a soft reset of the TP2, however.

- As you can see in my screenshot above, I was able to browse and render this MobileContentToday site. However, I was unable to do anything after the page rendered. I could not scroll, type a new URL, or even exit the app.

- A soft reset was required just to launch Fennec for a second try.

It is good to see the Fennec project making steady progress. But, it is completely unusable on a TP2. But, again, keep in mind this is an Alpha 3 release. I’m definitely looking forward to the first beta release which I hope will be much more functional for the casual user (me).

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