13 ms·

Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview, an Experimental Android App

154 points by thallian 11y ago

akerro 11y ago
Could it be pushed to F-Droid? At of people using FD as main source of apps would like to try it.
- darklajid 11y ago
  Is that necessary, though? The application is already available in this very article, without involving the Play Store if that's what you're trying it avoid.
  - akerro 11y ago
    Does it autoupdate itself?
    - darklajid 11y ago
      Honestly: I don't know, haven't tried it so far. But Mozilla's Nightly (Aurora?) does on Android, so it should be possible.
    - fabrice_d 11y ago
      Yes it does, from the nightly channel.
- carlos22 11y ago
  I don't think so. Similar to many Linux distributions F-Droid apps should be build from source. There are some issues about the branding (logo, name etc.) which leads to things like Iceweasel (Debian) or Fennec (F-Droid). See: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.mozilla.firefox https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.mozilla.fire...
  - carlos22 11y ago
    And if you wonder why Ubuntu has a real Firefox branding, they have a deal with Mozilla.
  - petecox 11y ago
    Boot To Gecko (B2G) is the underlying open source project. "Firefox OS" is the official Mozilla-branded product. It should not be a problem basing it on B2G.
  - Spittie 11y ago
    Beside this, Firefox is not really welcomed (and a drop is planned eventually) on F-Droid because it's really complex to build, depends on some closed source libraries (Google Play Services, for example) and has lots of tracking in it (everything is at least opt-out as far as I can tell, but the guys behind F-Droid aren't really keen on any kind of tracking it seems). It's possible to build it without those problems (see Fennec on F-Droid in fact), but it takes a lot of time for someone to create a recipe, and it's prone to break on every upgrade (and that's why the last version of Fennec on F-Droid is based on Firefox 40). I don't know if/how many of those problems apply on Firefox OS (I guess at least the complex build environment applies), but that's likely why you'll not find it on F-Droid anytime soon. Unless someone decides to pour lots and lots of energy into this. More info/sources: https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.firefox https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.firefox https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/blob/master/metadata/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid.txt https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/blob/master/metadata/or...
    - akerro 11y ago
      Yea, I know all of that. >It's possible to build it without those problems (see Fennec on F-Droid in fact) Fennec is stuck on 40 because of difficulties with building it, and even when one person managed to build it, .apk didn't start on others developers phone. A few people tried upgrading it to 41 and all failed, I guess fennec is kill now. I talked about it a few times on their IRC with people responsible for fennec.
- verusfossa 11y ago
  They could set up their own fdroid repo anyone could add to fdroid. Decentralization over an open protocol is a good thing. Guardian Project hosts their own and it's bundled, but there are a few private repos in the wild you can add today. It's similar to Ubuntu's third party sources or ppas. If big open companies started supporting it, maybe it would gain some steam. This would sidestep some of fdroid's official repo's more stringent requirements. https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Setup_an_FDroid_App_Repo https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Setup_an_FDroid_App_Repo
listic 11y ago
Glad to see Mozilla announcing FxOS release versions, at last (previously they didn't). Should I be able to upgrade any FxOS device to 2.5 now?
- asw 11y ago
  :D
creshal 11y ago
And yet my FirefoxOS phone is still stuck on 1.3, because Alcatel apparently could not be arsed to support their "flagship" FxOS phone for a mere six months. Can we get an open-source mobile OS that is not fragmented to the point of uselessness?
- vdaniuk 11y ago
  Your very comment provides a hint that fragmentation depends on the state of OS ecosystem, not the OS per se.
  - josteink 11y ago
    His comment provides a hint that fragmentation happens because device ownership does not provide an adequate means to update or access the device's firmware. For lots of devices out there (sans Google Nexus-devices and other honest exceptions), the device firmware is locked down and you need to find and exploit vulnerabilities in the firmware to gain access and fully assert device-owners. While hobbyist hackers often are able to produce updated firmware (look at OpenWRT and Android if you need proof), actually gaining access to upload that firmware typically requires more expert knowledge. And thus most devices remain locked down for their full lifetime. As more devices become smart and have the capability to work against you given hostile firmware (TVs, fridges, etc), this becomes more and more important. We should legally be allowed to actually own the devices we buy, but if the firmware is locked down and out of reach, we can never truly own it anyway. The devices can be (some already are, sans spying TVs) programmed against us. How can we know? How can make sure they don't? Not to go all Stallmansque, but I find this deeply worrying and very unethical. We need to require open access to firmware everywhere, for everything. Asking for all original firmware to be open is clearly unrealistic, but at least give us access to provide our own should we want to.
    - vdaniuk 11y ago
      Yes, devices are becoming more hostile to the use, I agree with most of your points. However, I don't think that there is a pure technical solution (open firmware updates etc.) as it depends on technical expertise of the users. Instead, we should support non profits and b-corps which can be trusted by users.
vruiz 11y ago
I'm really hoping that Firefox OS will save us from a future overtaken by walled gardens, save the mobile web that apple and google have less and less incentives to support. But unfortunately so far adoption has been nominal from mayor manufacturers, I understand this "trojan horse" approach even if it seems to defeat the purpose. The world needs a mainstream open mobile device, fingers crossed.
tacojuan 11y ago
I am REALLY tempted to buy a Nexus 5 just to put FirefoxOS on it. Kinda looking for a more reasonable phone though, also not sure how well it's supported.
- reubenmorais 11y ago
  I've been running Firefox OS on Android for a couple of months now on my Nexus 5 with CyanogenMod and everything works alright. As long as you have KitKat or above things should go smoothly.
- alex_mayorga 11y ago
  https://firefoxos.mozilla.community/device/LG/Nexus%205 https://firefoxos.mozilla.community/device/LG/Nexus%205 it is "Mozilla maintained" so as good as it gets =)
akerro 11y ago
On My nexus 7 it's really slow. Staring any application takes ages compared to times that ParanoidAndroid does it. Start-up time with Foxfood is noticeably longer than PA, actually I got bored waiting. 8 minutes and counting... It's not possible to stop it and go back to android launcher. There is an updater built-in. UI looks better than my Android, there is no theme changer, so it's a no-go for me. It provides access to applications from Android, but icons are HUGE. On N7 I have 3 icons per row (you can change it to 4, but it's still ugly), so they're really ugly and pixelated. Settings are pretty nice, it looks like something between iOS and standalone Android 5. It didn't fully replace my android UI, as the bottom bar with back, menu, recent is still visible, but pressing back doesn't do anything, instead back button is placed in top left. Not every application has the button, contact settings doesn't have, so I had to restart FirefoxOS to go back to main menu. Also I still see Android heads-up notifications from VPN reconnecting. Doubled. There are a few unnecessary UI-fireworks, which I would like to disable, but can't see any settings about UI. I think battery consumption is big as well, in several minutes of testing I lost 11%, which normally I use 6%-10% in 1.5h. It's good, needs a lot of polishing, and it's getting somewhere. I listed only disadvantages here, but it looks nice, their own UI is clear and consistent, better than android, everything what comes from FxOS runs very smoothly. It's 7/10 for a developer preview package. When those things improve in the future, I will be happy to replace Launcher3 with Foxfood.
Cartking5522 11y ago
http://www.udemygift.com/access-any-udemy-course-free/ http://www.udemygift.com/access-any-udemy-course-free/ Udemy.com is the world’s largest online learning marketplace. We are here to Give you any Udemy Course for only $2. So its time to start your learning anything with worlds largest video tutorial Marketplace. Visit or our official Page to take a Free Course. Click below to get it.
dmichulke 11y ago
It's extremely hard to find a Firefox OS device with acceptable (as in "> 512 MB RAM") specs in Europe. I looked for months and I ended up buying a Moto G 2014 and installed CyanogenMod (which took me ~3hs because newb). I couldn't be happier today and I sincerely hope FirefoxOS offers its OS on newer hardware if it ever wants to stand a chance.
- alex_mayorga 11y ago
  https://firefoxos.mozilla.community/device/Motorola/Moto%20G https://firefoxos.mozilla.community/device/Motorola/Moto%20G ;-)
hajile 11y ago
For the love of all things good, why didn't Mozilla adopt the webOS UI instead of the terrible, unscalable iOS UX? Sure, webOS couldn't survive the awful hardware designs and last-generation JITs, but the UI was the best mobile UI/UI to date. Even at this point, I believe there's a lot of potential that could be gained if Mozilla worked with LG. Mozilla has the web experience and LG has the patents and hardware ability. I'd go for a $350-$400 LG/Mozilla phone with nexus 5 specs running a new version of webOS in a heartbeat.

154 points by thallian 11y ago

akerro 11y ago

Could it be pushed to F-Droid? At of people using FD as main source of apps would like to try it.

darklajid 11y ago
Is that necessary, though? The application is already available in this very article, without involving the Play Store if that's what you're trying it avoid.
- akerro 11y ago
  Does it autoupdate itself?
  - darklajid 11y ago
    Honestly: I don't know, haven't tried it so far. But Mozilla's Nightly (Aurora?) does on Android, so it should be possible.
  - fabrice_d 11y ago
    Yes it does, from the nightly channel.
carlos22 11y ago
I don't think so. Similar to many Linux distributions F-Droid apps should be build from source. There are some issues about the branding (logo, name etc.) which leads to things like Iceweasel (Debian) or Fennec (F-Droid). See: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.mozilla.firefox https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.mozilla.fire...
- carlos22 11y ago
  And if you wonder why Ubuntu has a real Firefox branding, they have a deal with Mozilla.
- petecox 11y ago
  Boot To Gecko (B2G) is the underlying open source project. "Firefox OS" is the official Mozilla-branded product. It should not be a problem basing it on B2G.
- Spittie 11y ago
  Beside this, Firefox is not really welcomed (and a drop is planned eventually) on F-Droid because it's really complex to build, depends on some closed source libraries (Google Play Services, for example) and has lots of tracking in it (everything is at least opt-out as far as I can tell, but the guys behind F-Droid aren't really keen on any kind of tracking it seems). It's possible to build it without those problems (see Fennec on F-Droid in fact), but it takes a lot of time for someone to create a recipe, and it's prone to break on every upgrade (and that's why the last version of Fennec on F-Droid is based on Firefox 40). I don't know if/how many of those problems apply on Firefox OS (I guess at least the complex build environment applies), but that's likely why you'll not find it on F-Droid anytime soon. Unless someone decides to pour lots and lots of energy into this. More info/sources: https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.firefox https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.firefox https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/blob/master/metadata/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid.txt https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/blob/master/metadata/or...
  - akerro 11y ago
    Yea, I know all of that. >It's possible to build it without those problems (see Fennec on F-Droid in fact) Fennec is stuck on 40 because of difficulties with building it, and even when one person managed to build it, .apk didn't start on others developers phone. A few people tried upgrading it to 41 and all failed, I guess fennec is kill now. I talked about it a few times on their IRC with people responsible for fennec.
verusfossa 11y ago
They could set up their own fdroid repo anyone could add to fdroid. Decentralization over an open protocol is a good thing. Guardian Project hosts their own and it's bundled, but there are a few private repos in the wild you can add today. It's similar to Ubuntu's third party sources or ppas. If big open companies started supporting it, maybe it would gain some steam. This would sidestep some of fdroid's official repo's more stringent requirements. https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Setup_an_FDroid_App_Repo https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Setup_an_FDroid_App_Repo

listic 11y ago

Glad to see Mozilla announcing FxOS release versions, at last (previously they didn't). Should I be able to upgrade any FxOS device to 2.5 now?

asw 11y ago
:D

creshal 11y ago

And yet my FirefoxOS phone is still stuck on 1.3, because Alcatel apparently could not be arsed to support their "flagship" FxOS phone for a mere six months. Can we get an open-source mobile OS that is not fragmented to the point of uselessness?

vdaniuk 11y ago
Your very comment provides a hint that fragmentation depends on the state of OS ecosystem, not the OS per se.
- josteink 11y ago
  His comment provides a hint that fragmentation happens because device ownership does not provide an adequate means to update or access the device's firmware. For lots of devices out there (sans Google Nexus-devices and other honest exceptions), the device firmware is locked down and you need to find and exploit vulnerabilities in the firmware to gain access and fully assert device-owners. While hobbyist hackers often are able to produce updated firmware (look at OpenWRT and Android if you need proof), actually gaining access to upload that firmware typically requires more expert knowledge. And thus most devices remain locked down for their full lifetime. As more devices become smart and have the capability to work against you given hostile firmware (TVs, fridges, etc), this becomes more and more important. We should legally be allowed to actually own the devices we buy, but if the firmware is locked down and out of reach, we can never truly own it anyway. The devices can be (some already are, sans spying TVs) programmed against us. How can we know? How can make sure they don't? Not to go all Stallmansque, but I find this deeply worrying and very unethical. We need to require open access to firmware everywhere, for everything. Asking for all original firmware to be open is clearly unrealistic, but at least give us access to provide our own should we want to.
  - vdaniuk 11y ago
    Yes, devices are becoming more hostile to the use, I agree with most of your points. However, I don't think that there is a pure technical solution (open firmware updates etc.) as it depends on technical expertise of the users. Instead, we should support non profits and b-corps which can be trusted by users.

vruiz 11y ago

I'm really hoping that Firefox OS will save us from a future overtaken by walled gardens, save the mobile web that apple and google have less and less incentives to support. But unfortunately so far adoption has been nominal from mayor manufacturers, I understand this "trojan horse" approach even if it seems to defeat the purpose. The world needs a mainstream open mobile device, fingers crossed.

tacojuan 11y ago

I am REALLY tempted to buy a Nexus 5 just to put FirefoxOS on it. Kinda looking for a more reasonable phone though, also not sure how well it's supported.

reubenmorais 11y ago
I've been running Firefox OS on Android for a couple of months now on my Nexus 5 with CyanogenMod and everything works alright. As long as you have KitKat or above things should go smoothly.
alex_mayorga 11y ago
https://firefoxos.mozilla.community/device/LG/Nexus%205 https://firefoxos.mozilla.community/device/LG/Nexus%205 it is "Mozilla maintained" so as good as it gets =)

akerro 11y ago

On My nexus 7 it's really slow. Staring any application takes ages compared to times that ParanoidAndroid does it. Start-up time with Foxfood is noticeably longer than PA, actually I got bored waiting. 8 minutes and counting... It's not possible to stop it and go back to android launcher. There is an updater built-in. UI looks better than my Android, there is no theme changer, so it's a no-go for me. It provides access to applications from Android, but icons are HUGE. On N7 I have 3 icons per row (you can change it to 4, but it's still ugly), so they're really ugly and pixelated. Settings are pretty nice, it looks like something between iOS and standalone Android 5. It didn't fully replace my android UI, as the bottom bar with back, menu, recent is still visible, but pressing back doesn't do anything, instead back button is placed in top left. Not every application has the button, contact settings doesn't have, so I had to restart FirefoxOS to go back to main menu. Also I still see Android heads-up notifications from VPN reconnecting. Doubled. There are a few unnecessary UI-fireworks, which I would like to disable, but can't see any settings about UI. I think battery consumption is big as well, in several minutes of testing I lost 11%, which normally I use 6%-10% in 1.5h. It's good, needs a lot of polishing, and it's getting somewhere. I listed only disadvantages here, but it looks nice, their own UI is clear and consistent, better than android, everything what comes from FxOS runs very smoothly. It's 7/10 for a developer preview package. When those things improve in the future, I will be happy to replace Launcher3 with Foxfood.

Cartking5522 11y ago

http://www.udemygift.com/access-any-udemy-course-free/ http://www.udemygift.com/access-any-udemy-course-free/ Udemy.com is the world’s largest online learning marketplace. We are here to Give you any Udemy Course for only $2. So its time to start your learning anything with worlds largest video tutorial Marketplace. Visit or our official Page to take a Free Course. Click below to get it.

dmichulke 11y ago

It's extremely hard to find a Firefox OS device with acceptable (as in "> 512 MB RAM") specs in Europe. I looked for months and I ended up buying a Moto G 2014 and installed CyanogenMod (which took me ~3hs because newb). I couldn't be happier today and I sincerely hope FirefoxOS offers its OS on newer hardware if it ever wants to stand a chance.

alex_mayorga 11y ago
https://firefoxos.mozilla.community/device/Motorola/Moto%20G https://firefoxos.mozilla.community/device/Motorola/Moto%20G ;-)

hajile 11y ago

For the love of all things good, why didn't Mozilla adopt the webOS UI instead of the terrible, unscalable iOS UX? Sure, webOS couldn't survive the awful hardware designs and last-generation JITs, but the UI was the best mobile UI/UI to date. Even at this point, I believe there's a lot of potential that could be gained if Mozilla worked with LG. Mozilla has the web experience and LG has the patents and hardware ability. I'd go for a $350-$400 LG/Mozilla phone with nexus 5 specs running a new version of webOS in a heartbeat.