Mozilla's pretty convinced that its official mobile version of Firefox is going to fundamentally change the game, and carriers appear ready to buy into the hype. We use the term "buy" here loosely, since
mobile Firefox will be free just like every other version of Firefox out there -- a key selling point (again, forgive our nomenclature) against rival
Opera in the battle for the hearts and minds of the mobile internet warriors running WinMo -- and that's what's got carriers so intrigued. On the one hand, any full fledged browser puts a carriers own profitable content deck at risk, but on the flip side, a fabulous browsing experience potentially leads to higher data revenues. At any rate, VP of engineering Mike Schroepfer says Mozilla's peeps are actively engaging manufacturers and carriers around the world in an effort to get them engaged, interested, and at the very least, unopposed to the idea of allowing it to be used on their devices. As Mozilla well knows, they're late (
way late) to the mobile browser game, but we're still all about choice; let's hope carriers are, too.
[Via
the::unwired]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
CB17 @ Mar 3rd 2008 4:27AM
Jee...I wonder which carriers are giving them a hard time. Wow, this should be hard to narrow down. Lets think here...which carriers are known for locking down their devices and not letting any software other than that which they specify run on them. Here, I'll let everybody else answer for once, c'mon don't all jump at once.
Here I'll give you a hint, carriers should instead be (a single) carrier and I guarantee you I'm not talking about Boost.
CB17 @ Mar 3rd 2008 4:30AM
Oh it should be noted that I'm referencing the linked article not Engadget's summary of it (and also Ars' version).
Ayle @ Mar 3rd 2008 4:48AM
Verizon?
Head Scratcher @ Mar 3rd 2008 6:35AM
Data revenues?
What are those?
With all the major carriers now offering flatrate-everything, measured-ANYTHING is useless and a waste of money to even try to do accurately.
Anthony @ Mar 3rd 2008 7:52AM
Except things seem to be moving to 'sort of unlimited' with companies like verizon capping unlimited data at 5Gb.
henry @ Mar 3rd 2008 7:47PM
they can't do this fast enough. mobile IE sucks, opera isnt worth the money it costs (and i wont even get into the worthless opera mini)....
genaldar @ Mar 3rd 2008 9:02PM
PIE does suck for full web browsing, but is great for mobile sites (what its really meant for). Opera Mobile sucks even worse.
But Opera Mini 4 is the shit. Blows the doors off every other browser (when it comes to full web browsing). And I've tried pretty much them all (including deepfish but not that new one making the closed beta rounds). My only knock against it is its a little hard to navigate on smaller screen devices (my Cingular 3125 for example). But on a bigger device its great (my T-Mobile Wing). Its great on both once you zoom, its just a little hard to figure out where to zoom on the tiny screen (unless its a site you go to a lot).
Johny R @ Mar 3rd 2008 8:14PM
original article
I do not get why they did not use the actual original...
Johny R @ Mar 3rd 2008 8:15PM
Crap anchor tag not allowed. Full url:
http://www.cellformer.com/stories/2008/Mar/01/Firefox-in-talks-with-carriers-to-bundle-Mobile-Firefox-on-handsets-22.html
Jason Peterson @ Mar 5th 2008 9:55AM
Anyone check out skyfire yet? Go to www.skyfire.com and sign up for the free beta. They will text you a link in about one week.
Best mobile browser to date on winmo. Full web pages, flash, plugins, and super fast.
Check it out.