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Off topic (somewhat)... I have also been using the latest Firefox Mobile nightlies on my tablet... wow. It's responsive, it's slick, it's fast... it's buggy...

by 51Cards 15y ago

Off topic (somewhat)... I have also been using the latest Firefox Mobile nightlies on my tablet... wow. It's responsive, it's slick, it's fast... it's buggy... (it's a nightly). It's also a sign of brilliant things to come from Mozilla this year. I can't wait for the current Mobile nightlies to hit open release.

bergie 15y ago
The release versions of Firefox Mobile were good enough to be the default browser on my 7" HTC Flyer tablet, but don't seem to handle the bigger resolution of Transformer Prime that well (lots of screen flickering when scrolling). I just tried their Aurora nightly, and there things were quite smooth. Not yet Chrome-on-Android smooth, but getting there. As always, Firefox Sync is the killer feature on mobile.
- pcwalton 15y ago
  I work on Firefox Mobile. What in particular made you feel that Aurora was less smooth than Chrome?
  - bergie 15y ago
    I still see a lot of areas in the process of being redrawn while I scroll. A lot better than "this process is frozen, Kill?" that I get with Browser, though. I didn't check yet with Aurora, but do you handle keyboard shortcuts? One thing that keeps me with Browser instead of Chrome is that it supports desktop-style shortcuts like Ctrl-L and Ctrl-R when I'm using the hardware keyboard.
    - 51Cards 15y ago
      Oh yes! Strong second for keyboard support in Firefox Mobile. I have an ASUS Slider, also with a hardware keyboard, and I keep wanting to go back to the keyboard when browsing. I know it's not common on tablets but when you do have a keyboard attached (or built in) it's great to have.
      - bergie 15y ago
        Ok, verified that the shortcuts indeed don't work in Aurora and filed a bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=726716 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=726716 Please add comments there if you have any.
  - polshaw 15y ago
    I've found aurora (otherwise excellent) will not scroll overflowing elements in the web app i'm developing. I can't say i've been able to test other sites since i can't think of any off the top of my head, but safe to say all other mobile browsers have worked (FFm, beta, Opera mobile, android browser and chrome-android). Is it lacking support for overflow-y / x ?? I was going to PM, but apparently there is none here, so sorry for the slightly OT.
  - starwed 15y ago
    I know that for me, loading of content while scrolling is terrible. On a forum where few images are shown, I find that quickly scrolling to the bottom of a page results in a pretty noticeable pause before rendering content. It seems to be significantly worse when zoomed in. If it matters, here's a link to a page where I always see this behavior, though I think it's really pretty endemic: http://kolspading.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3 http://kolspading.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3 (This is on a Galaxy Nexus.) -edit- Oh, just noticed that my other pet peeve bug seems to have been fixed! :) When loading a link while zoomed in, you no longer see a flash of the current page zoomed out.
    - pcwalton 15y ago
      Thanks, that's very helpful feedback. Indeed the slow rendering/blank content problem is our top priority right now. We're working around the clock to improve its performance, switching from the Java stuff that's on Nightly right now to the same backend used to render OpenGL-accelerated content on desktop.
shmerl 15y ago
The only unfortunate thing is the sole focus on the native Android UI now, due to limited resources. Conventional mobile Linux which has to use XUL based mobile UI is treated as barely supported because of that.

by 51Cards 15y ago

bergie 15y ago

The release versions of Firefox Mobile were good enough to be the default browser on my 7" HTC Flyer tablet, but don't seem to handle the bigger resolution of Transformer Prime that well (lots of screen flickering when scrolling). I just tried their Aurora nightly, and there things were quite smooth. Not yet Chrome-on-Android smooth, but getting there. As always, Firefox Sync is the killer feature on mobile.

pcwalton 15y ago
I work on Firefox Mobile. What in particular made you feel that Aurora was less smooth than Chrome?
- bergie 15y ago
  I still see a lot of areas in the process of being redrawn while I scroll. A lot better than "this process is frozen, Kill?" that I get with Browser, though. I didn't check yet with Aurora, but do you handle keyboard shortcuts? One thing that keeps me with Browser instead of Chrome is that it supports desktop-style shortcuts like Ctrl-L and Ctrl-R when I'm using the hardware keyboard.
  - 51Cards 15y ago
    Oh yes! Strong second for keyboard support in Firefox Mobile. I have an ASUS Slider, also with a hardware keyboard, and I keep wanting to go back to the keyboard when browsing. I know it's not common on tablets but when you do have a keyboard attached (or built in) it's great to have.
    - bergie 15y ago
      Ok, verified that the shortcuts indeed don't work in Aurora and filed a bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=726716 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=726716 Please add comments there if you have any.
- polshaw 15y ago
  I've found aurora (otherwise excellent) will not scroll overflowing elements in the web app i'm developing. I can't say i've been able to test other sites since i can't think of any off the top of my head, but safe to say all other mobile browsers have worked (FFm, beta, Opera mobile, android browser and chrome-android). Is it lacking support for overflow-y / x ?? I was going to PM, but apparently there is none here, so sorry for the slightly OT.
- starwed 15y ago
  I know that for me, loading of content while scrolling is terrible. On a forum where few images are shown, I find that quickly scrolling to the bottom of a page results in a pretty noticeable pause before rendering content. It seems to be significantly worse when zoomed in. If it matters, here's a link to a page where I always see this behavior, though I think it's really pretty endemic: http://kolspading.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3 http://kolspading.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3 (This is on a Galaxy Nexus.) -edit- Oh, just noticed that my other pet peeve bug seems to have been fixed! :) When loading a link while zoomed in, you no longer see a flash of the current page zoomed out.
  - pcwalton 15y ago
    Thanks, that's very helpful feedback. Indeed the slow rendering/blank content problem is our top priority right now. We're working around the clock to improve its performance, switching from the Java stuff that's on Nightly right now to the same backend used to render OpenGL-accelerated content on desktop.

shmerl 15y ago

The only unfortunate thing is the sole focus on the native Android UI now, due to limited resources. Conventional mobile Linux which has to use XUL based mobile UI is treated as barely supported because of that.