Mozilla, the company behind the world’s second most-popular browser, writes this morning that it is “happy to announce that the wait is over.” Firefox, its open-source entry into the browser market, has made its way onto the iPhone and iPod Touch. Before you get too excited, it’s not as a browser, but as a companion to Firefox on your desktop, giving you mobile access to all of the details normally saved at home.
Firefox Home works with the free Firefox add-on Firefox Sync, and brings all the details from your desktop to your iPhone or iPod Touch. It has all of your bookmarks, your browsing history and even the tabs that are currently open on your desktop browser. The app also has an “Awesome Bar”, just as in Firefox, which tries to predict what you are looking for while you type.
If you don’t have Firefox Sync already installed, the first thing that Firefox Home does is to send you a quick email with the four simple steps to get going.
Mozilla’s mobile version of Firefox, called Fennec, came to Android last April but there’s still no word on its landing on Apple’s mobile devices.
Let’s be honest, though. Everyone wishes for their favorite browser, whether Firefox or Chrome or Opera, to make it on to their mobile platform, but does it every really replicate the desktop experience and fulfill their desires? We like Firefox on the desktop for its extensibility, but this isn’t the sort of functionality we’re likely to see, were we ever to get Firefox on the iPhone. And as we saw with Opera for the iPhone, the simple fact that it couldn’t be made to act as the default browser put it on a second tier status from the get go.
So, for now, we say stop lamenting the fact that this isn’t a fully functional Firefox browser and enjoy the ability to quickly access everything you’ve done at home while you’re on the go.
