Mozilla has announced that Firefox OS 2.5 is ready as a developer preview. This time it is different. Instead of going through the intricate action of “re-flashing” your phone with Firefox OS, all that developers have to do is download & install Mozilla’s APK. (Re-flashing existing hardware means losing user data as well as access to Android apps that you may depend on.) Then the next time they try to hit the home button on their mobile computing device, they will see the option to use Firefox OS as the app launcher.
According to a Mozilla blog, “we are also making an early, experimental build of the OS — Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview — available for developers to download on Android devices.”
The latest version of Firefox OS has features:
Add-ons: Firefox OS add-ons can extend just 1 app, several, or all of them, including the system app itself.
Private Browsing with Tracking Protection: A new Firefox privacy feature, Tracking Protection allows users to control how their browsing activity is tracked across many sites.
Pin the Web: Pin the Web removes the artificial distinction between Web apps & Websites, & lets you pin any Website or Web page to your home screen for later usage.
So what exactly is the Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview?
According to Mozilla, users have always been asking how to get involved with the Firefox OS open source project. Uptil now, it was only possible to download & explore the latest versions of Firefox OS on specific hardware, such as the Flame device. Now, the Firefox OS Participation Hub provides up-to-date information on getting involved with Firefox OS. The B2G-installer add-on lets you flash a full port of Firefox OS on to an Android device
Instead of re-flashing your device which carries the risk of rendering the hardware inoperable, Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview avoids these issues by replacing the Android home screen with the Gaia (UI) layer of Firefox OS. Which effectively means you can use Firefox OS while still having full access to your Android apps. Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview makes Firefox OS available to more developers, testers, localizers, and supporters of the Open Web around the world.
Hacking on the Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview
Mozilla has asked users to fiddle around with the Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview…..”to scratch your own itch, test an idea, or contribute to the project by improving performance or finding interesting solutions to the conflict problems with Android system functions….” With that said, if users are interested in hacking on the app, instructions for building it from scratch have also been provided. Alternatively, you can make use of WebIDE in the Firefox Developer Edition browser to start making changes directly to the layout and composition of apps in Firefox OS Developer Preview.
Image Credit: Mozilla
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