Firefox Home Coming To iPhone

Mozilla late yesterday revealed it has an iPhone browser app in the works.

A blog posting said the project to develop the app, called Firefox Home, was in its final stages before it is submitted to Apple for inclusion in its App Store.

Familiar Firefox for mobile users

It said the move is part of a strategy to provide users with a familiar Firefox experience where it is unable to provide its ‘full’ Firefox browser due to technical or policy restrictions.

Firefox Home would give users “on the go” instant access to their personal Firefox history, bookmarks and open tabs on their iPhones, giving them “another reason to keep loving Firefox on their desktops,” said the blog.

It added that the app would also offer end-to-end encryption.

In taking on Apple at its own game and developing a browser app to rival Safari’s iPhone pre-installed browser and overcome its restrictive non-compete clause, Mozilla has chosen not to follow other browser developers’ approach to create a proxy browser, as Opera did with its Mini iPhone app.

Instead, the developer said it was using its own Firefox Sync technology, previously known Weave Sync, to let users port their browsing preferences and sessions over to the iPhone.

The web synchronisation technology is also behind Firefox’s self-named “Awesome Bar” capability, which is deigned to give faster access to their favourite websites with minimal typing by using an auto-type facility in Firefox’s URL bar.

If and when the app is added to Apple’s store it will be only the second successful  third-party browser after Opera to make the Apple grade without using its Webkit browser platform.

More information for those wanting to get involved in the project is available here.