Mozilla is currently readying an Alpha version of Fennec 2 for both Android and MeeGo.
The latest iteration of the Firefox mobile browser is expected to include a number of new features and back-end changes, including the introduction of Electrolysis (a.k.a “e10s”) and an updated Layers platform.
According to Mozilla developer Matt Brubeck, e10s allows the Fennec user interface (UI) to stay responsive while pages are loading by moving content rendering and JavaScript into a separate process.
“[But] after the alpha release, the next big platform changes will be related to Layers…Fennec currently handles panning and zooming by dividing pages into ’tiles’ and rendering them on HTML canvas elements.
“[Yes], this works, but it is complicated and not as fast as we’d like. The new layers system will let us replace Fennec’s custom tile management with hardware-accelerated rendering and compositing built into the Firefox 4.0 platform.”
Additional Fennec 2 features are slated to include:
- Integrated Firefox sync.
- Find In Page command available via the site menu.
- Link sharing through Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader, email or native apps.
- Multi-touch gestures, such as pinch-zoom and swipe.
- Alert-bar notifications and new visual themes (Android).
- Improved APIs for add-on authors.
