Mozilla has released an official Alpha version of its mobile Fennec browser for users of Google’s Android OS.
According to Mozilla dev Stuart Parmenter, the latest iteration of the browser was designed to create a “single,” fluid Web experience between the traditional desktop and mobile devices.
“[For example], Fennec Alpha [offers integrated] Firefox Sync, which provides seamless access to Awesome Bar browsing history, bookmarks, passwords, form-fill data and open tabs,” he explained.
“[The browser] also increases performances and responsiveness to user actions. This is being implemented using two major technologies: Electrolysis and Layers.”
Indeed, Fennec Alpha supports Electrolysis – which allows the browser interface to run in a separate process from the one rendering Web content.
This facilitates faster response to user input while pages are loading or CPU intensive JavaScript is running.
However, the Layers feature will be implemented in a future beta release and is expected to significantly accelerate graphic intensive actions such as scrolling, zooming, animations and video.
“We’re also working to optimize these actions using the hardware-accelerated graphics rendering capabilities showing up in today’s mobile devices,” he added.
