Mozilla releases Firefox for Android beta with built-in tracking blocker

Mozilla has released a beta of Firefox for Android based on GeckoView, the rendering engine behind its Focus browser for mobile devices and the desktop version of Firefox. Mozilla stops developing Focus.

The tracking block is on by default, Mozilla says. That’s a feature Mozilla inherited from Firefox Focus for mobile, the browser it released 2.5 years ago as a privacy-friendly alternative to mobile browsers. It also has Firefox for Android in the Play Store, but it seems that development will eventually be discontinued in favor of the new browser.

Firefox Preview is based on GeckoView and due to the rendering engine and the tracking blocker it should be twice as fast as the current Firefox for Android. Mozilla warns that the user experience of the current version will differ from the final version due later this year. Mozilla previously called the project Fenix, but that name has been dropped. The code for the browser is on GitHub and the app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store.