Firefox Home Coming To iPhone, Browser Next?

siliconbits writes "Mozilla has launched an iPhone app called Firefox Home that gives iPhone users instant access to their Firefox browsing history, bookmarks, and the set of tabs from their most recent browser session. What's more, it provides Firefox Awesome Bar capability that enables people to get to their favorite websites with minimal typing." With the Mozilla blog promising "There will be more to come," can the full browser be far behind?

You think that's surprising?

[pizzach]

Today on Mac Rumors they posted a story saying that Steve Ballmer will be at the next WWDC keynote with Jobs showing "The new version of Visual Studio will reportedly allow developers to write native applications for the iPhone, iPad and Mac OS."

Re:Desktop?

[The MAZZTer]

There is an extension you need called Firefox Sync. Just install it and it walks you through the sync process. IIRC you just need to set up an account with a password and choose what to sync. The data is encrypted by YOUR password which they don't know (so they can't peek at your data). Works with Firefox for desktop and Firefox Mobile. It was called Weave when it was in development.

Keep an eye on labs.mozilla.org, cool stuff on there.

Re:Desktop?

[BZ]

> Will it require something on my desktop that then sends all the information from my
> browser to their servers?

Yes (though note https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Weave/Crypto [mozilla.org] for details; the only data the server sees is an encrypted blob).

> Does firefox do that currently now?

Only if you install the relevant extension. See https://mozillalabs.com/sync/ [mozillalabs.com]

Awesome Bar

[Richard_at_work]

Please, not more 'Awesome Bar' stuff, its the bane of my life. Heres my problem with the 'Awesome Bar':

1. I start typing 'stackoverflow', with the intent of tabbing to 'stackoverflow.com'
2. At 's' I get one URL suggested, but not the front page. I have visited this page once before in living memory. Its not in my bookmarks either.
3. At 'st' I get another URL suggested, but not the front page. Again, I have visited this page only once before and its not in my bookmarks either.
4. Repeat the last two steps until I get to 'stackoverf' when it finally suggests the front page of Stackoverflow.com to me

And theres no way to turn it off. Fantastic. Highlighting the options in the url bar and hitting delete doesn't get rid of them either. Fantastic.

Re:application development layer

[jmpeax]

Opera Mini is different - pages are rendered (and JavaScript executed) on Opera's servers and sent back to the device for display. No rendering happens locally.

Re:Awesome Bar

[Anonymous Coward]

You just have to learn to train it. I removed my bookmarks toolbar shortly after the awesome bar came out.

In your situation, type until you get stackoverflow.com, tab complete, hit enter. Do it a couple more times, s will tab complete to stackoverflow.

Re:Why the iPhone?

[BHearsum]

Because the full featured Firefox browser is coming to Android.

http://blog.vlad1.com/2010/02/02/android-progress-more-pixels-edition/ [vlad1.com]

Re:Awesome Bar

[Anonymous Coward]

And theres no way to turn it off. Fantastic

about:config
browser.urlbar.maxRichResults - value=0

Highlighting the options in the url bar and hitting delete doesn't get rid of them either. Fantastic.

Highlight and delete definitely removes entries from the Awesome Bar database, just confirmed in 3.5 and 3.6.

Just blame the software for your inability to use it. Fantastic.

Re:application development layer

[dzfoo]

Opera Mini does not render HTML nor processes JavaScript. This is done on Opera's servers, and streamed down to the client for display using the native framework.

        -dZ.

Re:Awesome Bar

[HockeyPuck]

Add tags to your bookmarks, tags come up before cache hits.

No

[netsharc]

From their Wiki [mozilla.org]:

Does this mean Firefox will be available on the iPhone?
No. We do not have plans to ship the full Firefox browser for the iPhone. Due to constraints with the OS environment and distribution, we cannot provide users the full Firefox browsing experience on the iPhone. For details, see Mobile/Platforms.

Reading is so passé, why have YouTube if you have to read? 3-step instruction? Don't read, listen to some nerd with dweeby voice ramble about it for 10 minutes on YouTube!

Re:Awesome Bar

[owlnation]

"Please, not more 'Awesome Bar' stuff, its the bane of my life."

Couldn't agree more. Awesomebar is the single reason I have not, and will never, upgrade Firefox. I'm running the version previous to its addition, and am staying with it.

Were it not for the plugins, Firefox would have been deleted off my system the moment they released the version with awesomebar. Once another browser develops a plugin system as good as that available for Firefox, it will most surely be gone.

Awesomebar is symbolic for all that is wrong with Firefox. The fact that Mozilla seems to view it as a success, still touts it as a feature, just shows how totally out of touch they are with their userbase.

It better stop hogging memory first...

[pbhogan]

If they intend to bring FireFox to the iPhone, they've got to get a handle on it's memory gobbling first. It has gotten better over the last while, but leave FF open for any length of time and you suddenly have several hundred megabytes of RAM chewed up, especially on OS X where it stays resident even if you close all tabs.

Re:Awesome Bar

[Richard_at_work]

about:config browser.urlbar.maxRichResults - value=0

Suggested every time I mention this - it does not turn off the 'Awesome Bar', it just cripples it in some ways. It does not accomplish what I want.

Highlight and delete definitely removes entries from the Awesome Bar database, just confirmed in 3.5 and 3.6.

Just blame the software for your inability to use it. Fantastic.

Wow, I've been getting it so wrong all these .... wait one moment, still doesn't work. Just confirmed it.

Do you really think I hadn't actually tried what I posted? Really? You really think there is *any* possibility of user error in 'highlight and delete'?