I year after Mozilla announced that it was bringing Firefox to the iPhone and iPad, Thursday saw the finished product rolled out to the App Store.
After introducing a preview version of Firefox for iOS earlier this fall, Mozilla has made the stable version of the popular browser available for download on devices that run iOS 8.2 and up.
Firefox stops fighting Apple
All of the expected features are included on Firefox for iOS, such as syncing via a Firefox account in order to import browsing history, bookmarks and open tabs from other devices. The mobile version also includes the non-syncable reading list feature.According to the company there are also private browsing tabs available, but Paul says that he didn’t find them during his test session. He claims that they are either very well hidden, or the announcement that they were available was a mistake from Mozilla.
There has so far been no announcement on the tracking protection feature that is available in private browsing on Firefox for desktop and Android.
Mozilla decides to join iOS party
Firefox for iOS is only the second Mozilla app to appear on Apple’s App Store. Mozilla previously offered an app called Firefox Home, which would allow Firefox users to browse their synced data on an iOS device.
The app was withdrawn in 2012, and now Firefox for iOS becomes the only Mozilla representative in the App Store. Even so the move represents a major departure for the company, which had previously declined to release Firefox for iOS in protest at Apple policies.
Under Apple development rules Mozilla was banned from using its own rendering and JavaScript engines in iOS, restrictions which Mozilla was apparently unwilling to tolerate. Apple has not changed its policy, but Mozilla has apparently decided that it would rather offer Firefox for iOS than continue to protest Apple’s policies.
For many people there are two reasons why they might want to download Firefox for iOS. One is the ability to sync data from your desktop browser, and the other is to increase security thanks to Mozilla’s promised security benefits.
