From the Desktop to Mobile Devices - Mozilla Prepares Minimo

[Darius Wey]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5483683.html' target='_blank'>http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5483683.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Mozilla is hoping to move on from its success in the browser desktop market to tackle browsers on consumer devices such as phones, PDAs and television set-top boxes."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20041210-Minimo.jpg" /><br /><br />Earlier in the year, we <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=24846">posted</a> on the Mozilla <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/minimo/">Minimo</a> project - a browser primarily targeted at mobile devices. However, at its early stages, it was only compatible with Pocket PCs running Linux ports, making it available to only a very small consumer market! However, with the success of their final releases of their Firefox browser and Thunderbird email client, Mozilla are looking to build on this success by providing a browser for a greater range of mobile devices. Minimo 0.3 is expected in January 2005 and will feature many enhancements since the earlier 0.1 release. There's no mention for support of Windows Mobile just yet, but it's certainly a step in the right direction nonetheless. What do you think? Are any of you looking forward to having a Mozilla browser on your Pocket PC?

[marcm]

Hopefully it supports Windows Mobile soon... I'm using Firefox now, and it's so much better than IE. PIE is a little dull, but we've had help from some developers to enhance it... :mrgreen:

[Munky]

Are any of you looking forward to having a Mozilla browser on your Pocket PC?

YES!

[Darius Wey]

YES!

You know, I've grown to love Firefox and Thunderbird, so I can easily see why you're excited. :mrgreen:

[dunos]

I don't think I could get excited about having Mozilla on a WM2003 PPC, however I could get excited about Firefox or Opera.

Dan.

[Darius Wey]

I don't think I could get excited about having Mozilla on a WM2003 PPC, however I could get excited about Firefox or Opera.

Dan.

Uh...Firefox is a Mozilla browser? :|

[dunos]

I don't think I could get excited about having Mozilla on a WM2003 PPC, however I could get excited about Firefox or Opera.

Dan.

Uh...Firefox is a Mozilla browser? :|

Not exactily. If you are talking about project names then Mozilla the browser is the big bloated brother of Firefox which is a lean mean browsing machine.

[Darius Wey]

Not exactily. If you are talking about project names then Mozilla the browser is the big bloated brother of Firefox which is a lean mean browsing machine.

Oh - I get what your post meant now. Well, I was referring to projects of the Mozilla company; not exclusively referring to the big brother that is Mozilla. ;) But the Mozilla browser does constitute a Mozilla project. :) Either way, the Mozilla project of interest in this instance is Minimo.

[NLS]

I don't think I could get excited about having Mozilla on a WM2003 PPC, however I could get excited about Firefox or Opera.

Dan.

FIREFOX RULEZ!

[medic119]

Firefox for PocketPC would rock. Especially tabbed interfaces....

[gorkon280]

OO man I can't wait! I HATE PIE! I am also a cheapskate as well as a open source advocate! :D :D :)

[Silencer]

Firefox, yes!

[Darius Wey]

I don't mean to depress anyone's spirits here, but I just thought I'd note: Minimo is in no way meant to be a Firefox replica. Yes, they are both projects of Mozilla, but they are very different concepts indeed. One is targeted at the desktop, while the other is for mobile devices, so you can expect that the feature set of both applications will be very different. Minimo is aimed at improving the "browsing experience" on mobile devices, so ultimately, you won't find all of Firefox's stand-outs in Minimo, and vice versa when (if?) Minimo becomes a major entity in the mobile browser market. One assurance that can be provided is that you're receiving more of the same open-source goodness that Mozilla is renowned for. :mrgreen:

[gorkon280]

Firefox for PocketPC would rock. Especially tabbed interfaces....

I YEARN for the day of having a good browser that can have multiple tabs or heck even multiple windows on PPC. PIE and and enhancemnets that allow for multiple Windows sucks. I also have no money to blow on a browser.

[Jonathan1]

I really hate to say this. Really. But I’m not expecting Pocket PC compatibility anytime soon. I think the project’s primary focus at this time is phones. And while this may very well include MS smartphones I don’t think the browsing experience they would provide would be in any way better if you could run the app on the Pocket PC. A lot of apps that run on the smartphone are neutered or more accurately optimized for that screen size.

That being said I would almost consider selling a major organ on the black market and donating the money to a development program to port FireFox over to the Pocket PC. I want a real browser for the Pocket PC, damn it!! Not this McDonald’s fake Apple PIE BS.
Sorry. I'm calm. Really I am. ;)

[Darius Wey]

I really hate to say this. Really. But I’m not expecting Pocket PC compatibility anytime soon. I think the project’s primary focus at this time is phones. And while this may very well include MS smartphones I don’t think the browsing experience they would provide would be in any way better if you could run the app on the Pocket PC. A lot of apps that run on the smartphone are neutered or more accurately optimized for that screen size.

You'll be surprised. The current Minimo project is actually designed for the Linux/iPAQ devices. While the outlook of Minimo does appear to be support for the phone market, the fact that it started off from a Pocket PC point of view actually shows some promise in the future that we may soon see it support Windows Mobile on the Pocket PC. If Mozilla really wanted to dominate the mobile browser market, WM-based devices are certainly an option worth considering.

[Deslock]

A gecko-based browser for PPC could be really nice... sure, it wouldn't be a feature-rich as FireFox/Mozilla, but there's no way they'd screw it up as badly as Microsoft did with PIE. Here's an interesting quote:
"A lot of browsers ignore frames or have limited JavaScript support--they do terrible jobs," he said. "With Minimo, if it renders OK in Firefox, it will render OK in Minimo."
However, my take on the article is that we shouldn't expect anything for PPC (at least not anytime soon). I suspect we'll see something for Linux-based phones first, and then maybe Symbian and MS Smartphone later.

[Darius Wey]

However, my take on the article is that we shouldn't expect anything for PPC (at least not anytime soon). I suspect we'll see something for Linux-based phones first, and then maybe Symbian and MS Smartphone later.

That seems to be the trend for mobile browsers at this stage. I'm still waiting to see when Opera makes it way to the Pocket PC.

[kanoswrx]

I so hope they release a firefox type browser for the PPC (with VGA support). The IE for the PPC is a joke. Once microsoft won the browser war a few years ago they stoped all work on their browser. Now firefox is the better browser and Netscape/Aol need to realise they need to push it out as fast as possible on as many devices as possible to beat back M$. Would be so nice to have a download manager and tabbed browsing for the PPC.

[Darius Wey]

I so hope they release a firefox type browser for the PPC (with VGA support).

I'd like that too. But as an FYI, if anyone's after a browser that supports tabbed-browsing, it is actually already available. NetFront is worth having a look at if you're after such a feature (and many other features, if I might add).

[jasondearyou]

havine firefox on the PPC would rock man. I have firefox on my computer and I don't bother with anything else. I tried opera but i'd have to buy the final version in order to fully enjoy that option.

:D 0X

[gibson042]

Are any of you looking forward to having a Mozilla browser on your Pocket PC?
With a burning passion. Give me a REAL rendering engine please. And built-in tabbed/multi-window browsing (basically the same thing on PPC), if you can squeeze it in :wink:.

[mattp]

I YEARN for the day of having a good browser that can have multiple tabs or heck even multiple windows on PPC. PIE and and enhancemnets that allow for multiple Windows sucks. I also have no money to blow on a browser.


. . . as an FYI, if anyone's after a browser that supports tabbed-browsing, it is actually already available. NetFront is worth having a look at if you're after such a feature (and many other features, if I might add).

ftxPBrowser also supports tabbed browsing and allows you to have multiple pages open at the same time. It's also freeware. I don't do alot of browsing on my ppc, but I have noticed that ftxPBrowswer won't support some of the pages that PIE will. Never took the time to figure out the difference.

Nonetheless, I agree that everything to this point is lacking and I'd love to see what Mozilla would come up with.

[David Johnston]

For the curious, screenshots of Minimo on Linux can be found here (it's not entirely obvious from the Minimo page):
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/minimo/screenshots.html

At QVGA, it looks a little squashed... but VGA could make it look a whole lot nicer.

[LarDude]

Firefox for PocketPC would rock. Especially tabbed interfaces....

I YEARN for the day of having a good browser that can have multiple tabs or heck even multiple windows on PPC. PIE and and enhancemnets that allow for multiple Windows sucks. I also have no money to blow on a browser.

I'm not sure what is considered a "good" browser, but there is an option for tabbed web browsing, and it's FREE to boot. See:

http://www.freewareppc.com/docs/ftxpbrowserforwindowsmobile2003.shtml

[SassKwatch]

I guess I'm rapidly turning into THE curmudgeon of the pda world. When I first saw mention of this several days ago, I did big Y-A-W-N-!

Who in their right mind can get worked up about pda 'browser wars' until there's more than half a dozen sites that aren't scrolling nightmares on the pda platform?

(P.S. - Yes, I realize there are actually more than half a dozen....maybe as many as 8 or 10! :wink: )

[Craig Horlacher]

I guess I'm rapidly turning into THE curmudgeon of the pda world. When I first saw mention of this several days ago, I did big Y-A-W-N-!

Who in their right mind can get worked up about pda 'browser wars' until there's more than half a dozen sites that aren't scrolling nightmares on the pda platform?

(P.S. - Yes, I realize there are actually more than half a dozen....maybe as many as 8 or 10! :wink: )

I use NetFront. Browsing can be good on a pocket pc. Tabs, formatting options so you don't have to scroll horizonatlly, image resizing, there is a lot that can be done to make it decent. Kick your resolution up to 480x640 and it just gets 4x better! You may be surprised. Netfront's vga support is really bad and it still usable. I can't wait until there is a version of NetFront that does vga.

Do you have flash installed? Macromedia does have a flash player for the pocket pc. It's only version 6 I think but it works.

[mcsouth]

Sign me up for a Minimo browser! I love using Firefox on the desktop (I'm at the point where I hate having to use IE every now and then - such as for validating MS software), so having a similar alternative on the handheld would be great. As someone else mentioned, MS seems to do just enough to resolve the biggest complaints, but there is little real effort to push the boundaries in a market they think they own. Some more competition certainly can't hurt, IMHO.

[Darius Wey]

You may be surprised. Netfront's vga support is really bad and it still usable. I can't wait until there is a version of NetFront that does vga.

There is a separate NetFront VGA edition which is designed for Toshiba's e800 series. Otherwise, you could use the VGA Brute Force hack seen in Tweaks2K2 .NET. I believe these both fix the problem. However, I believe the NetFront VGA edition does not include the JV-Lite2 module, so you may want to keep that in mind. Otherwise, the VGA hack may be a better option for you.

Do you have flash installed? Macromedia does have a flash player for the pocket pc. It's only version 6 I think but it works.

I might mention for those new to Macromedia's offering that their free Flash Player is not a standalone player but rather one that is integrated within the browsers so that any Flash animations on a webpage should render correctly. Unless you purchase the Standalone Flash Player, of course.

[dean_shan]

I'd want Mozilla on my PPC if it supported tabbed browsers and/or was faster then PIE.

[Darius Wey]

Update: Minimo 0.3 (ARM) - January 26, 2005. ;)