This is very much a "1.0" release of the new UI; we definitely have a lot of polish and features to add still. For the first release our focus was on getting the fundamental UI and performance work done. The nightly builds from http://nightly.mozilla.org/ are much more polished already.
The nightly tab interface is a lot better, with the tab close buttons on the right. Previously with the tab expander button in the top right and the close buttons on the left edge, closing tabs meant reaching all the way from one corner to the other side of the screen, which is not always easy or possible with a single finger.
I think you should definitely pursue tweaks that reduce the amount of finger movement required to do common tasks. Just to steal one example from Opera, when you long-press a link, the context menu appears directly under your fingers, so you don't have to go anywhere to get to it (similar to the right-click menu on the desktop). This is incredibly convenient, because navigating the context menu doesn't cause you to lose your place on the page.
I'm hoping for something like the stock browser's quick controls myself. I find them much easier to use quickly, and even a little bit of extra screen space is nice to have on a phone.
This is great. Keep up the fantastic work! The FF mobile team deserves a lot of kudos for the way they've been able to fight their way back onto Android. I remember it was kludgy beyond belief as much as 6 months ago. But since then, it has improved massively with each release.
I love Chrome on Android, but for some reason it feels more "chunky" than the stock browser, which is completely different to how Chrome feels compared to Firefox and IE on the desktop. I still use the stock browser, mainly for the Flash support, but also because it just feels lighter and quicker to use.
Given a couple more months in development and some speeding up and I'd be happy for Chrome to replace the stock browser, as long as Flash support is added. All those that call for its demise still don't realise how useful it still is on certain sites.
Google stopped innovating the "Browser" for legacy versions of their operating system. Just like Microsoft. However, the Marketshare of legacy Android is still huge, all stuck with the old "Browser".
Chrome only supports ICS, which accounts for only about 7% of Android devices. Firefox for Mobile supports Froyo (Android 2.2) and above, which accounts for about 87% of Android devices.
The disappointment is that you can't do the same for WebViews inside an app- I like to make apps using HTML5, and it would be very easy to make cross-platform ones if the Android built-in browser was any good. Sadly, it's not, and I don't have any means to embed a Firefox WebView.
I think the problem is that in all versions of Android the stock browser is distributed with the OS. It's not an installed application that can be upgraded independently. As I recall Google went through some pain to separate the GMail app from the OS so that it could be updated on its own schedule, and the pace of innovation in that app has increased.
I would have liked to see them do the same for the browser app a long time ago, but in a way having Chrome as a separate app achieves the same goal going forward if it becomes the default.
