As open source reignites the browser wars on the desktop, the people behind Firefox aim to do the same for the still-developing mobile browser market.
The Mozilla Foundation, responsible for the open source Mozilla internet suite and the increasingly popular Firefox web browser, is setting its next sights on mobile phones.
The Minimo project aims to bring the web browser technology behind Mozilla and Firefox to mobile phone hardware with several phone-targeted features. Those include smarter moving between links on a page, page zooming, and automatic reformatting to avoid horizontal scrolling. The latter two are already present in many mobile browsers, but Minimo's directors say that they are working on new link-finding logic to replace the linear tabbing method now used by most companies.
The other advantage of Minimo, with version 0.3 due out in January (open source projects frequently have long 0.x cycles during which the programs are still considered end-user-ready), is that because it shares the same engine base as Firefox it will render any page that Firefox renders. That means full support for XHTML and frames, CSS1 and 2, Javascript, and XML. To be fair, Opera Software's mobile browser offers the same claim and also runs on several desktop and embedded platforms. Opera is a commercial browser, however, while Minimo has no licensing fee for handset makers.
The Mozilla Foundation is hoping that the high level of support and low cost of integration will drive the browser's popularity with mobile phone manufacturers. Representatives said that two mobile phone companies are already planning to use Minimo, but wouldn't say which ones.
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