Mozilla is set to finish development of its mobile Firefox browser Fennec for Symbian-based phones by the middle of next year.
In a blog post, Christian Sejersen, Mozilla's director of mobile engineering, said the open source firm had "kick-started" development to get Fennec on Symbian the open source operating system now owned by Nokia.
Sejersen said Mozilla is focusing on Symbian because it has nearly half the market share for smartphones. "So in order for Mozilla to be relevant in the smartphone space we need to have a presence on the Symbian platform," Sejersen wrote.
But Firefox isn't headed to the iPhone, BlackBerry or Google phone anytime soon. "There are a few other platforms: iPhone, RIM and Android that have or are gaining market share, where we for technical or licensing reasons can't be deployed," Sejersen said.
Sejersen laid out a plan which he admitted could be changed for Fennec's Symbian development. Compiling and linking will finish by the end of January, while basic browsing will be sorted by the end of February, with full browsing by the end of April. Testing and turning it into a consumer product would happen after that, but dates were not yet confirmed.
The long-awaited Fennec has only been seen on tablet devices so far, when an alpha version was quietly released earlier this year.
Click here for our predictions on what the mobile world will look like in 2010.
-
Should AI PCs be part of your next hardware refresh?AI PCs are fast becoming a business staple and a surefire way to future-proof your business
-
Westcon-Comstor and Vectra AI launch brace of new channel initiativesNews Westcon-Comstor and Vectra AI have announced the launch of two new channel growth initiatives focused on the managed security service provider (MSSP) space and AWS Marketplace.
-
Mozilla to cut 250 jobs as part of major coronavirus restructureNews The reorganisation has been made so the company can become faster, more innovative, and find more revenue streams
-
Mozilla re-hires veteran Mitchell Baker to serve as CEONews The interim chair and CEO formally rejoins the organisation after Chris Beard stepped down in December 2019
-
Mozilla fixes two Firefox zero-days being actively exploitedNews Critical vulnerabilities allow attackers to execute arbitrary code or trigger crashes
-
Firefox angers users with alarming Mr Robot pluginNews The opt-out extension led many users to believe they had been hacked
-
Mozilla doubles the speed of its browser with Firefox QuantumNews The browser is faster and makes use of your system resources better
-
Mozilla’s rebrand confuses web browsersNews Chrome, Safari and Firefox struggle with moz://a
-
Firefox ditches 404s in favour of archived pagesNews Mozilla's browser is trialling showing older versions of a webpage instead of an error message
-
Mozilla’s bid for Tor hack used in child porn case rejected
News Firefox maker will not be granted access to an exploit the FBI uncovered in Tor
