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Minimo (from "Mini Mozilla") is a project to create a version of the Mozilla web browser for small devices like PDAs and mobile phones. The project also aims to make it easier for developers to embed parts of Mozilla into systems with limited system resources (for example, machines with low amounts of RAM). To minimize the use of system resources, Minimo does not include a lot of Mozilla's non-essential functionality, such as support for FTP. In addition, the browser uses small screen rendering technology to reformat Web pages for pocket-sized displays. The user interface is also designed to take up as little screen space as possible. To date, most Minimo development has centered around ARM devices (such as Hewlett-Packard's iPAQ) with around 64MB of RAM, running Familiar Linux and the GPE Palmtop Environment. Minimo 0.1 was released for this platform in 2004 and version 0.3 is scheduled for Spring 2005. Minimo is now the default browser for GPE. A Windows CE version of Minimo is also under development, built against the Pocket PC 2003 software development kit. The first public build of Minimo for Windows CE was made available in February 2005. Chris Hofmann created the Minimo project during his employment at Netscape Communications. He single handedly saved this project from being canceled many times. The loyal dog, Sparky, is the project's Chief Mascot. Currently Chris works for the Mozilla Corporation. The lead Minimo developer is Doug Turner, who has headed the project since its inception. The Mozilla Foundation hired Doug Turner in December 2004 to work full time on Minimo. Minimo has been funded by Nokia and others. Nokia's involvement became public in mid-2004.
Criticism Probably due to the fact that it is still in the early stages of development, the Windows Mobile version of Minimo performs rather poorly. The quality of rendered pages is congruent with the well-respected layout engine it implements (Gecko), but the program has very high memory and hardware requirements compared to what is typically available on most handheld platforms (e.g. 64 Megabytes of RAM, 206-624MHz ARM-compatible CPU). In fact, a recurrent criticism against Firefox and its derived projects regards its supposed bloat, mainly due to its use of XUL and Javascript for describing the user interface and its behaviour. This choice contributes to the portability of the Mozilla Foundation's products, but incurs a relatively high performance overhead. See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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