Firefox for Android has not received much attention from Mozilla. At least lately. However, this is not necessarily bad news. It is that this company has been working in a new browser called Fenix and that its main objective is to replace Firefox. As one of the goals is to transfer all functionality to the new browser, updates for Firefox for Android will begin to decline in the coming months as reported by the Android Police website.
Fenix- the new substitute of the well-known Firefox
However, the Ghacks website has published a support document available from Mozilla to replace Firefox (which appears under the code name “Fennec” in the document). However, Firefox 67 and 68 for Android will be released as planned previously. The release dates are May 14 and July 9, respectively. From this time browsers will only receive bug fixes and security patches.
However, Firefox 68.1 will be released on September 3rd. Version 68.2 will be released on October 22 and so on.
Mozilla states in the document that it has to continually divert features from Fenix’s development to fix bugs and implement features in the current version of Firefox. Thus, keeping the Android browser in version 68 will allow accelerating the development of Fenix. At the same time also means that the Android version of Firefox will not receive any more functionality.
The document does not reveal when Mozilla intends to finally launch Fenix.
However, it is known that Firefox will reach the end-of-life next year. Since Fenix uses a completely different architecture (GeckoView instead of Gecko), it should take some time for the new browser to reach all users.
However, for those who always like to try new things, there are already Fenix builds available here. Simply select the appropriate APK for your device’s architecture. Choose “aarch64” if you are not sure.
