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Nokia helps port Firefox to Qt

arstechnica.com — Nokia and Mozilla have ported the Firefox web browser to Qt so that it will be able to run on a wide range of mobile devices. The port will also finally Firefox get visual integration with KDE.

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  • josepablos, on 08/18/2008, -21/+9what about memory usage?..
    • benologist, on 08/18/2008, -9/+7I believe the official strategy is to not release a mobile version until mobile capabilities allow a browser to use up to a few hundred megs of memory.
    • rmattila, on 08/18/2008, -8/+1yeah
    • abandonedhero, on 08/18/2008, -1/+8If you had read the article, you would have read this:

      "Mozilla aggressively reduced Firefox's memory footprint during the Firefox 3 development cycle. This improvement significantly reduced the browser's bloat and made it viable in resource-constrained environments."

      Which would lead me to believe that it's close to being ready for a mobile device.
      • benologist, on 08/18/2008, -1/+4They're getting there but I don't think they're particularly close. Take the EeePC for example, it's more powerful than a cell phone and less powerful than a desktop or traditional notebook and there's plenty of people out there saying Firefox is extremely slow or using too much memory on it.
    • MWeather, on 08/19/2008, -1/+3Firefox uses less memory than IE, Opera, and Safari.
  • fuckingusername, on 08/18/2008, -27/+4 yeah so ?
  • madeingermany, on 08/18/2008, -6/+19On that screenshot it looks like it still needs lot of love for the UI...
    • RobotBuddha, on 08/18/2008, -0/+8Love yes, but I wouldn't go so far as to say a lot,. Most of that just comes down to tweaking at this point.
    • sasha0, on 08/18/2008, -0/+9The Qt theme on screenshot is plain. According to article it FULLY supports Qt 4.4 which means that it supports different Qt themes and it can look any way you want it to look.
    • dualscreenman, on 08/19/2008, -0/+3The bulk of the XUL frontend still needs to be ported to Qt.
      As of right now the Cairo backend has been ported to use Qt. XUL has only been ported to Qt enough so that it runs. The majority of the GUI is still drawn by the bare XUL frontend, which is why it looks so bland.
  • cowboy77061, on 08/18/2008, -30/+5Qt and KDE look like *****.
  • biseorsmadness, on 08/18/2008, -23/+3Buried, this post is racist.
  • yarinh1, on 08/18/2008, -4/+14Sounds neat
  • galv0, on 08/18/2008, -2/+4I wish LG would do the same thing. The Dare is more than fantastic, but the web browser isn't the greatest thing on Earth.
    • ilgaz, on 08/22/2008, -0/+1Doesn't LG smart stuff run Symbian too? I thought so. However, if it is ported to Qt, there is Qt for anything you can imagine. That is why it is very popular among multi platform coding commercial companies.
  • kiensoy, on 08/18/2008, -1/+17Nokzilla?
  • nickert0n, on 08/18/2008, -3/+4Will it work with the Java based Blackberry OS? I hope so!
  • cdawzrd, on 08/18/2008, -0/+21Firefox Mobile has the potential of kicking so much ass!
  • santasing, on 08/18/2008, -0/+30That's good. I don't really like the way Firefox looks on KDE.
    • TiMMY8765, on 08/18/2008, -0/+31I'll just be glad to use the KDE file chooser instead of the retarded gtk one
    • cowboy77061, on 08/18/2008, -8/+3thats cause KDE looks like *****.
    • MrTea, on 08/18/2008, -3/+2use qtcurve

      problem solved
  • morphir, on 08/18/2008, -4/+1Wait.. Is this qt on top of xul thus a faked qt look? (..like with the "gtk version")
    • RobotBuddha, on 08/18/2008, -0/+4More like xul on top of qt.
    • scooterfish, on 08/18/2008, -0/+3FTA: "When Mozilla was developing Firefox 3, the browser's underlying Gecko rendering engine adopted the Cairo drawing library across all platforms. In order to port Firefox to Qt, the developers had to create a new QPainter backend for Cairo. Mozilla's Vladimir Vukićević contributed to that effort and wrote about some of the first steps several months ago. "I hope that in the future the Qt port will be a toplevel supported Gecko port, alongside gtk2, Win32, and OSX, but there's still a bunch of work needed to make that happen," he wrote."

      So, kinda-sorta? It's not clear...to me anyway. I'm not a developer/coder, so maybe an aforementioned coder/developer could clarify.
  • InorganicMatter, on 08/18/2008, -0/+10Nice! With the exception of OpenSUSE's theme, I always felt Firefox looked really bad on KDE. Not only will this make it look better on one of the oldest and most stable WMs around, but they can finally port it to mobile devices as well. Win-win in my book.

    This should also help it's poor performance on really old computers trying to run Linux. Even the most hardcore GNOME fan will readily admit that Gtk+ is a memory pig.

    On a side note, anyone notice how cleverly Nokia has played their open source cards? First they start foraying into Linux which gets the support from a rabid fanbase. Then they buy Trolltech, now they are working with Mozilla. Where are all the commies complaining about them making money on FOSS? Usually they're out in force by now...
    • buu700, on 08/26/2008, -0/+5I don't mean to be "that guy," but KDE isn't a WM.
      • InorganicMatter, on 08/19/2008, -0/+4Sorry, I wasn't paying fully attention when typing.

        "...oldest and most stable DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT..."
      • buu700, on 08/26/2008, -0/+4* "...oldest and most stable DESKTOP ENVIRONMENTS..."
  • geekworking, on 08/18/2008, -1/+7I am really excited about this, but the author seems overly optimistic. I just tried on Kubuntu (Hardy + KDE 4.1) and the UI is barely functional. Maybe it is more tweaked for mobile devices.

    This is clearly a developer's snapshot just to show the progress that they have made. It is great to know that they have the foundation and structure built, but they still have a long way to go to any kind of release.
  • chazuk, on 08/18/2008, -1/+6As long as it doesn't constantly crash like Safari does on my iPhone 3G I'm glad they've ported it.
  • dlm85, on 08/18/2008, -0/+5I guess I should get my Zaurus back out.
  • xartion, on 08/18/2008, -2/+12These guys can do this yet Apple/Adobe can't even port flash to the iPhone/Touch?
    • geoken, on 08/18/2008, -2/+5Adobe can do whatever Apple allows them to do. Did you really expect Steve Jobs to say the reason there is no Flash on the iPhone is because he wants to supplant Flash as the defacto on-line video delivery method?
      • ilgaz, on 08/22/2008, -0/+1A fortune 500 company won't spend millions of dollars/millions of hours development time on a product which is not allowed by the hardware/OS vendor at first place.

        E.g. can you imagine "How to hack your iPhone to install Flash?" page at Adobe.com ?

        If Apple changes their mind (I don't see it will happen), I bet there is Flash Lite 3.app at Adobe already, on a super secure safe/terminal.
  • Morphiuz, on 08/18/2008, -1/+14"The port will also finally Firefox get visual integration with KDE."
    I can haz english plz?
    • zeabu, on 08/18/2008, -0/+10It will adapt to the chosen skin. The skin of your desktop.
      • Atomic1fire, on 08/18/2008, -1/+5Or os, in the case of windows and probably mac
      • zeabu, on 08/19/2008, -0/+2Atomic1fire: KDE for Windows?
  • Infowarmachine, on 08/18/2008, -16/+4***** obama
    (just curious how bad this gets buried, oh also 3 of the ads on the page are 'paid for by obama' on this page for some reason)
    • jay019, on 08/19/2008, -0/+1Ads? I havent seen any ads on websites for the past three years.
  • DuckFOO, on 08/18/2008, -6/+1How about porting it to Xlib, so that I don't have to install so much crap just to browse the web?
  • diecastbeatdown, on 08/18/2008, -0/+2there is potential for hotness.
  • HonoredMule, on 08/18/2008, -2/+10Thank you Nokia and Mozilla! KDE-native Firefox = win. Besides which, Qt > GTK+.
    • DestroyFascism, on 08/19/2008, -4/+1Qt > GTK+.?

      If Qt > GTK+.
      (Someone is a fanboy)
      else if (Qt == GTK+.?
      (Someone uses linux))
      else
      (get an anti virus)
      • HonoredMule, on 08/19/2008, -1/+2if (Qt == GTK+)
        (Someone doesn't use linux very heavily, or develop for it, or expect much core functionality from their operating environment)
    • ilgaz, on 08/22/2008, -0/+1Well I never took sides in GTK/Qt fight but with that MS Fanboy guy still involved in GTK and the Gnome thing, it is not surprising that Nokia wants to get rid of GTK at first place to adopt Moz.

  • stoni, on 08/19/2008, -2/+1Compiled binaries for 32 bit can be found at http://ramonantonio.net/kde-firefox/.
  • ilgaz, on 08/22/2008, -0/+1So Nokia finally admits the idea of running Webkit on S60 was plain wrong. Why did they waste 2 years of their and our (users) time with a thing that you can't even get rid of default browser status? I paid $20 for Opera 8.65 as a result and I can't make it default browser. Symbian OS just won't care! They also hide it from end users by not putting it to "Download!" application catalogue.

    BTW, there is nothing wrong with Webkit, it is just not suitable for non touch-screen, non gigantic screen devices. (I use Safari on OS X)

    The number 1 issue is there is no "SSR", small screen rendering. That is one magnificent invention from Opera.
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