Phone OS KaiOS Gets Faster Gecko Engine With Mozilla Support

Phone operating system KaiOS gets a major upgrade to the Gecko engine, making apps faster and the operating system will support modern web standards. This is possible through a collaboration between the company behind KaiOS and Mozilla.

For example, KaiOS will receive support for tls 1.3 thanks to the upgrade, both companies report. The upgrade is important because KaiOS uses the Gecko engine to render the interface and apps. All apps on KaiOS are web apps and should therefore benefit greatly from the upgrade.

Where KaiOS is built on Firefox 48 from 2016, that will happen with Firefox 78 in the next version, YouTuber TechAltar reports based on information from the company behind KaiOS. The intention is that the new engine will be in a new version of KaiOS, which will then go to phone manufacturers. After that, upgrades for new models or current phones will come early next year at the earliest.

The intention is to continue working together in the future to base new versions of KaiOS on ESR versions of Firefox. KaiOS is on cheap phones, in the Benelux especially from Nokia licensee HMD. Worldwide, 120 million KaiOS phones have been sold. KaiOS is based on the Boot2Gecko project, which Mozilla itself worked on under the name Firefox OS.