Firefox Home Now Available Worldwide, Future Roadmap Unveiled

Mozilla, developers of the popular desktop web browser Firefox, have updated their application Firefox Home to offer worldwide availability in fifteen different languages, as well as providing a number of new features. The latest update, 1.0.2, includes a smarter search bar, meaning users only have to remember part of a URL rather than the beginning of it, and "instant access to open tabs, just the way you left them on your PC" (Mozilla). The application is built to compliment Firefox for desktop, allowing users to sync "browsing history, bookmarks and open tabs to your iPod or iPod Touch" (Mozilla). It's free to download both the application from the App Store and the sync add-on that's required for desktop users.

In addition, the team have outlined a future development roadmap that aims to "provide more access to Firefox data on your phone" as well as adding "social functionality" like Twitter and Facebook. Tools like password synchronization, YouTube integration and Firefox Panorama settings are all to be expected in future updates, but for now remain merely an idea. Interestingly, the team also noted that it is "difficult, if not impossible, to build the full Firefox browser for the iPhone" - suggesting that the developers are perhaps not working on a Safari substitute. Instead, they "are focused on building Firefox Home as a rich, cloud-based application and making it a valuable product that people will continue to love and use" (Mozilla).

For full details, and also a video of Firefox Home in action, see here. For more information on the development roadmap, here is where you'll want to be.

[Image courtesy of Mozilla]