Thread: Fennec 1.0b4
View Single Post
Posts: 376 | Thanked: 78 times | Joined on Sep 2009
#35
Originally Posted by allnameswereout View Post
Hi Dex, MicroB is a seperate project by Nokia, Mozilla Fennec is a revival of an earlier project called Mozilla Mobile. When Nokia started with MicroB the Fennec project was not yet (re)born.

Changes in MicroB are open source and backported when applicable. E.g. Gecko will receive improvements from all these projects. Mozilla and Nokia collaborate together, but each have different commercial priorities as well.

The projects serve a different purpose. Fennec's primary platform is Maemo, but also ports for Windows Mobile are planned. Nokia has no interest to port MicroB to other platforms (but you are free to do so, the source is there).

If you compare Fennec 1.0 betas with MicroB on N8x0 you also see very different way of using the browser, each having their own advantage and disadvantage depending on many factors. The Gecko-based browser on N900 and Fennec 1.0 betas are more alike. For example, because both assume finger-based touchscreen usage.
Hi allnameswereout, thanks for yo very informative reply. That makes sense!

I know it's nice to have options, but it's nice to understand what makes the options different.

In terms of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, is there any significant difference between the way Fennec works and the way MicroB works? (I know the UI is pretty different) Are they both roughly the same in terms of performance? Though surely if MicroB has matured since the N770/N800, in theory, that should be the better/more optimsed of the two?

Anyway, enough random guessing/musings. Thanks again for taking the time for such an informative reply.

Dex