Flash developers and enthusiasts are still reeling after Adobe dropped support for the mobile version. But the convergence of Flash users and Firefox fans (including yours truly) should get a little joy out of the fact that Mozilla is going forward with its Flash support. So far the Android version of Firefox doesn’t work with Flash, but you can head over to Mozilla’s web page and download the latest “Aurora” alpha to give the just-added feature a try.
Naturally the implementation is a little buggy, and it doesn’t help that Firefox Mobile isn’t a speed demon in the best of conditions. But it works, sort of, and if you live in Firefox and rely on that one extension or Sync’s bookmarks, you’re one step closer to a single browser solution. Flash is expected to be available for the full (Android Market) version of Firefox sometime in 2012.
Android fans and Flash devs were livid when Adobe announced that they would end support as part of a restructuring. The last major update for the Android version is in the Market now, though Adobe has stated that they’ll continue with periodic bug and stability updates. Adobe will begin shifting its mobile focus to HTML5 tools and AIR, while the desktop version of Flash is still – for the moment – in active development.
Even if Adobe drops flash for mobile, it will take a while before sites get updated, so Mozilla is still doing the right move.
Now my droids are simply slower versions of my wife’s ipad and iphone. Utter disgrace. Why can’t they reverse engineer the damn thing? Hoping the Firefox browser improves as I hate the slow speed of it and actually uninstalled it in favor of Dolphin and Chrome.