Find out if you’ve been part of a data breach with Firefox Monitor. Sign up for alerts about future breaches and get tips to keep your accounts safe. Barcelona, Spain – Mobile World Congress – February 23, 2014 – Mozilla, the mission-based organization dedicated to keeping the power of the Web in people’s hands, demonstrated the breadth and growth of its Firefox OS open mobile ecosystem at a press event on the eve of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The Email app is the best way to work with email on Firefox OS. This article explains how to add your email account to the app. Do not track on Firefox OS. Firefox is for everyone Available in over 90 languages, and compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux machines, Firefox works no matter what you’re using or where you are. Make sure your operating system is up to date for the best experience.
Today we have made Firefox OS 2.5 available worldwide. 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. This latest version of Firefox OS delivers exciting features including:
- Add-ons: Just like the add-ons we’ve come to love in desktop browsers, Firefox OS add-ons can extend just one 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 and web sites and lets you pin any web site or web page to your home screen for later usage.
To find out more about all aspects of the release, visit Firefox OS v2.5.
Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview is an app that lets you experience Firefox OS as an alternate home screen on your Android device without having to re-flash and replace your Android installation. To give it a try, visit the Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview, right from your Android device, then click to “Get the Android App.”
Android apps alongside Web apps on the homescreen
Firefox OS Calendar with Android navigation bar
Firefox OS Browser landing page
What is the Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview?
You’ve asked how to get involved with the Firefox OS open source project. To date, it’s only been possible to download and explore the latest versions of Firefox OS on specific hardware, such as the Flame device. We’re now working on making Firefox OS more widely available. 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 (Note: Firefox OS is under development. Don’t expect it to be bug-free or completely stable.)
Re-flashing existing hardware means losing user data as well as access to Android apps that you may depend on. There’s always an inherent risk of rendering your hardware inoperable, i.e., bricking your device. Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview avoids these issues by replacing the Android home screen with the Gaia (UI) layer of Firefox OS. Effectively 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.
If you’re curious to see what Firefox OS is all about, or just interested in testing out new features, the Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview app makes it very simple to get started with very little risk involved. By downloading the app, you can experience Firefox OS and explore many of its capabilities, without flashing hardware. If you decide you’re done trying it out, the app can be removed as simply as any other app. If you’re interested in becoming a code contributor or bug reporter, the app makes it dramatically easier to get involved.
What’s the catch?
As a full operating system, Firefox OS has its own task manager, utility tray, navigation buttons, settings, and more. Running on top of Android means that these elements of the operating system may come into conflict with those same system functions on Android. Android launchers were never designed to enable replacement of these operating system functions. As a result we employ various workarounds, where possible, to avoid delivering a poor user experience. For example, Android uses a back button as a primary navigation method. Firefox OS does not. While we are trying to mitigate these issues, the current edition of the Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview app should be considered experimental and will most likely contain bugs. We can certainly use your help in discovering, reporting, and fixing issues.
Hacking on the Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview
We’d love for you to play 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 mentioned above. With that said, if you are interested in hacking on the app, instructions for building it from scratch can be found here. 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.
Get involved without coding
There are many ways to get involved without contributing code. The easiest way is to install Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview on your Android device and file bugs when you run into problems or discover things that don’t work as expected. If you’re looking for other ways to help, visit our Firefox OS Participation Hub.
Supported devices
The current build will only work on ARM-based devices. It will not work on x86 devices.
Final thoughts
We are very excited about the Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview app. We’ve worked hard to produce a Firefox OS experience for Android users. As with all things at Mozilla, this effort is very much a community effort and we welcome all forms of constructive feedback and suggestions for making the experience better.
Got questions about running Firefox OS on new hardware or devices? Try the dev-fxos mailing list or #fxos on IRC. Thanks!
About Peter Dolanjski
Peter is a Product Manager for Firefox and a defender of the open Web.
Firefox OS is now on Raspberry Pi
We are looking to demonstrate that Firefox OS can be a viable and valuable operating system for a range of hardware, and for a wide variety of use cases that are being imagined for connected devices.
Our initial goal was to release a downloadable or flashable version of Firefox OS for Raspberry Pi boards in conjunction with the Mozilla Festival (October 24-26 2014), which we did. Now we're looking to extend the functionality and practicality.
- 32015 Development Sprints / Challenges for FxOS on Raspberry Pi (and other boards)
How to Get Firefox OS onto Your Raspberry Pi device
1. Check out this outstanding how-to video from our good friends at Bunny & Boar [1]
2. To flash an early demo version of Firefox OS for your Raspberry Pi device, follow the Foxberry Pi Demo instructions.
3. To stay informed of the project's progress, please join the mailing list. Some developers hang out in the #raspberrypi channel on irc.mozilla.org and are happy to answer any questions you have.
4. To get involved in the main bring-up project (it needs your participation!), see Hacking b2g on Raspberry Pi.
What We'd Like To See Happen in 2015
Following MozFest, we are looking for the amazing ideas and physical applications that creative or practical people have developed on FxOS enabled Raspberry Pi platforms. More details to follow about a 2015 Challenge!
We are actively seeking - and would welcome - the development contributions that can extend FxOS functionality on Raspberry Pi devices to
- be at parity with Raspbian/RPi as a hobbyist environment. Users will be able to read from sensors & control motors, LEDs, solenoids, slave boards, etc. A modified FxOS for Raspberry Pi will be able to fly a drone.
- be competitive with other media player OSes available for RPi.
- be competitive with other IDEs for FxOS on Raspberry Pi targeted at beginning programmers, like IDLE and Scratch.
- enable programmers (via DOM/CSS) to develop robotics etc. by building a declarative model of a reactive system. With one type of output device, the actual electronics could be interfaced with. With another type of output device, the model could be simulated on a client computer.
2015 Development Sprints / Challenges for FxOS on Raspberry Pi (and other boards)
Development Sprint A
After this appendix, PiFxOS will be at parity with Raspbian/RPi as a hobbyist environment. Users will be able to read from sensors and control motors, LEDs, solenoids, slave boards, etc. PiFxOS will be able to fly a drone.)
- develop web API for general-purpose analog/digital IO pins (GPIOs) bug 1087955
- develop web API for SPI
- develop web API for i2c (optional)
- develop web API for RS-232 (optional)
Development Sprint B
After this appendix, the custom PiFxOS media player UI will be competitive with other media player OSes available for RPi.
- develop custom UI for PiFxOS, media player, appliance
Mozilla Firefox Os
Development Sprint C
After this appendix, PiFxOS will be competitive with other PiFxOS IDEs targeted at beginning programmers, like IDLE and Scratch.
Firefox For Fire Os
- develop custom development environment UI for PiFxOS
Development Sprint D
After this appendix, DOM/CSS would enable programmers to develop robotics etc. by building a declarative model of a reactive system. With one type of output device, the actual electronics could be interfaced with. With another type of output device, the model could be simulated on a client computer. This is a very large and open-ended project. This is a research programming-languages project.
- create a new CSS output class for micro electrical systems
- create a new CSS output class for simulating micro electrical systems
flamebot is a reactive self-modifying hierarchical state machine for FxOS. The flamebot experiment might be useful in modeling something for RPi.
Platform projects
These are smaller-scale projects that require some gecko expertise in getting some cool new hardware or software working on the Raspberry Pi (or other boards).