New Firefox for Android, the World learning the Web and more…
about:mozilla is a weekly round-up of news and contribution opportunities. Here’s what’s happening this week.
A Speedy and Powerful Upgrade to Mobile Browsing
Mozilla unlocked the Web experience on the desktop, and we’re doing it all over again in mobile. We’re happy to announce that a new Firefox for Android phones is available for download. It’s more than three times faster than the default Android browser and it has a fresh, streamlined look with a personalized start page. The new Awesome Screen delivers any information you need and also delivers the best mobile browsing experience possible. Firefox for Android also supports Flash so you can watch videos, play games and interact with more Web content on your Android phone. You can find more information in the official blog post or download it in the Google Play Store for your Android phone now. Stay tuned for a version for tablets and make sure to use your locale or regional download links to share the news.
The Weekend the World Learned the Web
Last weekend, people from all over the world thew a giant party. Kids and parents in San Francisco came. Grandpas in Tokyo came. People in Romania did it for 48 hours straight. Diverse backgrounds, skill sets, ages and themes, were all coming together with one goal: to rock the world’s first ever Summer Code Party. And it only just began. More than 1,000 people attended 125 events world-wide during the opening weekend and with your help, this will be the summer the world learns the web. Read Matthew Thompson’s blog post for more information.
Reader Mode in Firefox Mobile
Let’s take a glimpse at the future of Firefox Mobile. Lucas Rocha, a software developer working for Mozilla, built a rough prototype of the Reader Mode, which brings a smooth and beautiful reading experience to Firefox Mobile. It removes all the clutter from websites and shows you only what you want to read – now, or later, because web pages can also be added to your Reading List. It’s very configurable user interface allows you to read your way, any time and anywhere. You can already get a preview of it and help testing by downloading the nightly version of Firefox Mobile. Make sure to leave some feedback!
Meeting a New SUMO Tool’s Developer
For a few weeks, contributors like you have replied to almost every single question that is asked in the Mozilla support forums, which is up from about 50% last year. Since the questions are getting harder and harder, the challenge now is that we have to ask for more information before we can solve an issue. Since it’s quite tiring to repeat those questions, Tobbi built a tool that gathers all the important questions to ask in one place and lets you insert them into your response. Kadir Topal interviewed the developer, Tobias Markus, in his latest blog post.
Tomahawk Does Many Things Right
Lukas Blakk, release engineer who works for Mozilla, wrote a blog post about Tomahawk. It’s a smart and social music player that fundamentally changes the way music is consumed and shared. She first heard of it at a weekly meeting because they’ve been working with the WebFWD initiative which supports open web projects. Make sure to read it and get to know more about her experiences with it.
Meet Some Mozillians
Mozilla says bonjour to Anne Jonas, Josh Matthews, Carlos Valim and Solutions Linux. Read more about how these people are contributing to Mozilla.
Upcoming events
* June 28, Mountain View, California DevOps Days Mountain View
* June 29, Paris, France W3café France
* June 29, Valencia, Comunidad Valencia MozValencia 2012
* June 29, Paris, France DemoJS
* June 30, Auckland, New Zealand Gather
* See more on the Mozilla Community Calendar
Get Involved
These are just some of the available contribution opportunities. Learn more about other ways to get involved and find other Mozillians in our community who share your interests.
About about:mozilla
The newsletter is written by Mozilla’s contributor engagement team and is published every Tuesday. For more on what has been happening this week also checkout the Mozilla Project Meeting. If you have anything you would like to include in our next issue,
please contact: about-mozilla[at]mozilla[dot]com or send us a status message on mozilla.status.net or a tweet @aboutmozilla. You can also subscribe to the email version.
Have a good week folks and keep rocking the Web!
26 Jun 2012 Jan Bambach
IF this is NOT going to be permitted to be installed on tablets, then it would be better to say that in the article. Like maybe say for Android Phones (rather than for Android) Make it clear in the article that tablets are coming later than to frustrate people with the this is not supported on your device messages. Just sayin’!