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Looks like the mobile browser wars are becoming as intense as the ones on the desktop...

Today both Opera and Firefox are fighting for the headlines (so I made them share) with the former becoming the first major third party browser to be announced on Google's imminent Android OS, while the latter claims to be the new speed king.

Dealing with Opera first and the company's superb Mini browser is now available for download at Opera Labs. It's a full featured port with full site rendering, zoom, synced bookmarks and integrated Google search though the team did say it experienced initial difficulties working with Android's 'very fresh' APIs. Furthermore, Opera warns at this stage that with no access to any Android production handsets, it is not yet known how fast Opera Mini will run on real devices.

As for Firefox, its belated entry into the mobile space looks like it could be well worth the wait. Built on the same core as Firefox 3, Mozilla developer Christopher Blizzard is reporting the Mobile edition reaps the same benefits from the memory fixes and optimisation that its desktop brother offers. As a consequence, his early testing has already shown Mobile Firefox to be 6x faster than the (fairly decent) built-in browser Nokia ships with its N Series mobiles.

Sadly no benchmarks were provided against other - arguably more powerful - rivals such as Opera Mini and even Mobile Safari, but with a touchscreen version on the way and full extension support guaranteed it is going to be one heck of a tempting proposition...

Links:
Opera Labs

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