Mozilla Releases Test Version of Firefox OS

Mozilla this week released an early desktop version of Firefox OS that will let developers experience the mobile OS before comes to phones.

The builds are available for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

"We've been culturally challenged to build up a interested community of testers, but limited to our distribution of builds due to legal contracts," Mozilla's Tony Chung wrote in a blog post. "However, the release engineering team was able to get Daily desktop builds created and published online for anyone to play with."

Setup instructions are available on the Gaia/Hacking site. You'll need a Gaia profile to launch the build; without one you might encounter a black screen; more details are in Chung's blog post.

"If you're a web developer, you can use these builds to create and test your webApp against," Chung wrote. "If you're looking to help do some testing, these desktop builds will also give you an immediate opportunity to play with and help us write testplans and file bugs. We encourage anyone interested to give the desktop builds a spin."

Earlier this month, that its standalone, mobile operating system - codenamed Boot to Gecko - will be known as Firefox OS, with TCL Communication Technology and ZTE as its first manufacturing partners.

The first Firefox OS-powered devices will run a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and are expected to launch in Brazil in early 2013 via Telefónica's Vivo service, Mozilla said. Operators like Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, and Telenor have also committed to offering Firefox OS devices.

In other Firefox news, Mozilla this week released a beta version of Firefox 15. The update includes memory improvements via add-ons that deliver a more optimized browsing experience. There's also native PDF support, allowing users to view PDFs within the browser. More details are on the Mozilla blog.

Firefox 14 earlier this week with a number of security boosts.