Mobile/Platforms/Android

Firefox for Android

Firefox for Android is part of the Fennec project to bring the Firefox web browser to mobile devices. For more information about Fennec, see the Firefox Mobile web site.

• Latest Version: Pre-Alpha
• Optimized for: Google Nexus One, Motorola Droid (will eventually include more devices)
• OS Requirements: Google Android 2.0 or higher
• System Requirements: OpenGL ES2.0, ARMv7 (Cortex) processor

Status

Firefox for Android is in very early development. The browser builds and runs on some devices, but it is not yet ready for daily use.

Stay tuned and follow us on Twitter and Facebook to hear about new releases and other announcements. Or read our developer blogs to follow our development progress. (Vlad's blog is not in that list but also has Android development news.)

We have not yet set a date for the first release of Firefox for Android, but we are tentatively planning for a release before the end of 2010, with alpha and beta releases earlier in the year. Mobile/Planning/2.0 lists some of the work we are doing for the upcoming release.

Download

There are no official releases of Firefox for Android yet, but you can try a nightly build.

Enable installation of non-Market applications in the "Applications" section of Android's Settings activity. Then download the nightly build directly onto your Android device by scanning the QR Code, right, or by pointing your device's browser to http://bit.ly/fennecapk. Open the fennec.apk file when it finishes downloading.

If you have problems with that FTP link, try the HTTP link instead: http://bit.ly/b52meS

You can also try out Fennec on other platforms, including on your Mac, Windows, or Linux PC.

Known Issues

We are working on fixing all of these bugs.

Installation:

• Adobe Flash and other plugins are not supported yet. The "YouTube Enabler" plugin will not work because it requires Flash.
• Fennec takes over 25 MB of internal storage space after install. Current goal is below 20 MB installed. (Because Firefox is an NDK app, it copies its native libraries out of the APK file and they end up on the disk twice. We are looking into ways to fix this.)
• Most add-ons are not yet tested for compatibility with Fennec 2.0 alpha builds. You can try installing them anyway if you go to about:config, create a boolean preference called "extensions.checkCompatibility.2.0a" and set its value to "false".
• New (2010-05-20): Add-on installation and management is broken because the dependencies for bug 562495 are not yet merged onto the Android branch.

Performance:

• Initial start-up takes a long time (up to 20-30 seconds on some phones). The first time you start Fennec, it returns to the home screen briefly before it finishes starting.
• Fennec is slow to respond at times, especially while images or pages are still loading. The Electrolysis project aims to fix this.
• Fennec uses large amounts of memory, and may cause Android to stop other running activities on your phone, especially phones with 256MB of memory or less (like the Motorola Droid). In extreme cases this can cause your phone to become unresponsive until it is rebooted.

User Interface:

• Fennec may display a black screen when you return to it from the Home screen. You can work around this by forcing Fennec to quit in the "Manage Applications" section of Android's Settings activity.
• The only way to zoom is by double-tapping. Future builds will support multi-touch "pinch" zoom gestures (bug 437957).

Keyboard:

• The software keyboard may not appear on the first click, particularly on HTC Sense ROMs.
• In landscape mode, the software keyboard does not update when deleting characters.
• You will need to hold down SHIFT or ALT while typing numbers/symbols/capitals on a hardware keyboard.

See also the complete list of open Android bugs in Bugzilla.

System Requirements

Fennec requires Android 2.0 or later.

Installation requires about 30 MB of available internal storage.

We are using these devices for development:

• HTC Google Nexus One
• Verizon Droid (Motorola Milestone)

Other users have successfully installed Fennec on these devices:

• Acer Liquid E
• HTC Desire
• HTC Droid Incredible
• HTC EVO 4G
• HTC Legend
• Motorola Milestone (Droid) from Expansys + AT&T
• Samsung Galaxy Spica

Current Fennec builds will not run on these devices:

• Android SDK emulator
• HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1, Android Dev Phone 1)
• HTC Droid Eris
• HTC Hero (T-Mobile G2 Touch)
• HTC Magic (T-Mobile myTouch 3G, T-Mobile G1 Touch)
• HTC Tattoo
• Samsung Moment

We will test and support more Android 2.0 phones soon.

Support

Firefox on Android is not officially supported yet, but we'd like to hear your bug reports, comments, and questions at our Android pre-alpha forum.

Development

See Mobile/Fennec/Android for build instructions, developer documentation, and more project status.