Last week, Firefox Mobile officially entered its beta stage, bringing along with it tons of improvements and a much better user experience. While not quite ready for primetime, Firefox Mobile is shaping up quite nicely.

What Has Changed in the Past Six Months?

The most noticeable improvement is performance. Firefox Mobile still isn’t as fast as even the stock Android browser, but speed and responsiveness has grown by leaps and bounds since the pre-alpha version I last looked at. Part of this is due to what the Firefox Mobile development team calls the Electrolysis project. Firefox Mobile now runs as two separate processes; one process handles the user interface, and the other runs scripts and renders web content. Future versions of Firefox Mobile will feature OpenGL hardware acceleration for even faster rendering.

One of the most attractive features of Firefox Mobile is support for Firefox Sync. This lets you share your history, bookmarks, and saved passwords across several platforms. Firefox Mobile still doesn’t recognize my phone’s hardware Shift key, but at least a software keyboard pops up this time so I’m able to sign into my account. Sync has matured quite a bit in the past half year, and it will make an excellent addition to Android’s mobile web experience.

Another nice addition is the Awesome Screen, which, as you might have guessed, is related to the Awesome Bar. Like the Awesome Bar for the desktop version of Firefox, it should make it much easier to find the page you’re looking for.

One thing that hasn’t changed since the last release is Firefox Mobile’s installation size. Even after moving to the SD card it still takes up a hefty 30MB. Thankfully the development team is upfront about this, and the technical reason for its large footprint is explained in this post by Firefox Mobile developer Matt Brubeck. The short version is that it’s being worked on and the size will dramatically decrease in future versions.

If you’d like to give Firefox Mobile a try, scan the QR code below to download the installation file.

The post A Quick Look at the New Firefox Mobile (Beta) for Android first appeared on Techerator.

I’ve been playing around with Fennec for the past couple of days, and while it’s clearly a work in progress, what they have so far shows tremendous promise.

The first thing you’ll notice when using Fennec is it’s large installation size. Once installed, Fennec takes up a hefty 30MB of space, so if you’re using a device with a low amount of internal memory (like the Motorola Droid) you’ll want to make sure you have enough free space before installing. This size will surely be reduced in the final version, but for right now you’re stuck with it. Fennec’s memory usage also hasn’t been optimized yet, so expect it to gobble up any available free memory.

The second thing you’ll notice is it’s speed, or more accurately, it’s lack of speed. In it’s current build, Fennec is slow. It’s slow to boot up, and pages are slow to render. When pages load, scrolling around them is slow. I’ve heard reports that it’s not quite so bad on higher end phones like the Nexus One or HTC Droid Incredible – but on the Motorola Droid I’m using, browsing becomes an exercise in patience.

These downsides are, of course, due to Fennec being so early in development – but keep in mind Fennec certainly won’t be replacing your current browser of choice just yet.

On the positive side, Fennec appears to be quite stable. While it can take a while to close, I’ve never had it outright crash or lock up my phone in the few days I’ve spent with it. For a product so early in development, this is a great sign.

Internet pages are usually rendered quite well, but navigation can be a bit of a pain. The only form of zoom supported so far is via double tap. Multi-touch isn’t available yet, and there isn’t even something similar to the magnifying glasses found in Android’s stock browser. Unfortunately this means that on some pages you’ll be squinting to read text.

Feature-wise, Fennec looks to be shaping up quite nicely. Fennec already supports several add-ons, including Weave and Adblock Plus. The Awesome Bar works just like its desktop counterpart, providing easy access to frequently visited sites. Tabbed browsing is smoothly integrated, with a list of currently open tabs accessed by swiping to the right.

It might not be quite ready for prime time, but Fennec will definitely be making a splash in the Android browser market when it’s officially released. There are still quite a few kinks to be worked out, but once they are resolved Fennec will be quite an attractive option for Android users.

If you would like to install this early build of Firefox Mobile on your own Android device, you can find it here, along with additional notes and instructions on installation as well as how to enable Weave. Note that Fennec requires Android 2.0 or above.

Have you had a chance to try out Fennec for Android? Let us know about your experience below!

The post First Look: Fennec (aka Firefox Mobile) for Android first appeared on Techerator.