Remember that huge New York Times advertisement that begged the question: “Are you fed up with your web browser?” That was the Mozilla Foundation taking off the gloves to lay the smack down against Microsoft and their crummy Internet Explorer alternative. When they wage war, they mean it.
Firefox has been gaining some serious traction since then, and has picked up a sizable portion of that market. Less popular, however, is the Opera browser. Now a new war is in the making against these two camps, but this time it’s on a miniature scale.
ReadWriteWeb is reporting that Mozilla has released some details regarding their browser for cell phones — both traditional and touchscreen (like the iPhone). However, it’s hardly even past the conceptual stage. In fact they are only mockups!
The mini/mobile versions of Opera already have these features, and Mozilla hasn’t even shipped an alpha release of what they are trying to peddle. It’s hardly worth comparing the two products, especially when one doesn’t even exist yet. Having said that though, RWW does bring up a good point: The huge user base for FireFox is going to give it more clout upon delivery than what the Opera browser will be able to garner.
It’s a shame, because FireFox is coming in second to these features that already work. But user percentages say a lot, and they’re poised to capitalize on the market share. Check out the Mozilla mockups here if you’re interested.
