New Firefox interface to speed up Firefox on Android
Found on CNet News on Sunday, 16 October 2011
Mozilla has decided that when it comes to Android devices, performance is more important than the wealth of add-ons that can be used to customize Firefox.
Yesterday, Mozilla Director of Firefox Engineering Johnathan Nightingale announced on a mailing list that Firefox will move to Android's native user interface, ditching the XUL technology that's been in use by Mozilla since before there even was a Firefox.
One possibility, according to some meeting notes on native-UI Firefox, is blunter: "Extensions are gone."
Just when you thought the Mozilla team couldn't mess the situation up even more, they do. Ditching plugin support for mobile devices kills one of the main reasons to use Firefox. All browsers out there can be used to surf online, but the wealth of plugins make Firefox special. Removing them means removing a chunk of the userbase.