hmm.. interesting position I find myself in.

ksdixon

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I'm thinking about a MS Surface tablet next year. Swiping inwards from the edges to get to things I need is cool with me. In fact it's why I still use the old FireFox Mobile on my android phone (v10, XUL I believe it's called) - the current version using native android user interface assets is horrendous. I much perfered swiping in from the left to see open tabs/open a new tab; and from the right to see 'bookmark this page/remove bookmark', back, forward, settings (doing either of these would also bring in from the top the address bar and reload/stop button).

Today I realised, if I get a Surface Pro Tablet... That' supposed to be a desktop OS version of Win8, so I won't even be able to use the old mobile version of FF will I? If that's true then one of the best reasons I was looking forward to a Surface Pro has just been killed-off.
 

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Eh.. ignore me. It seems there 'is' a Win32 version which I can load in Windows 7 right now. The UI is looking a little different, but it is close enough to the android version to work for what I would use it for on a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet. Wish it wasn't branded with an ugly 'Fennec' logo and name though, the android version of this 10.0 build is all FF Mobile branded. My plans to buy a Surface Pro are back on.
 

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I don't suppose anyone would know how to change the logo (mobile.ico) and references to fennec into the Mozilla Firefox logo/text, would they?

Or a way to use the android .apk version on windows?
 

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The icon is easy to change:

-get/make the new icon you need
-use resource hacker: Resource Hacker
-look for the icon folder and replace resource (ico) with the new one (lang = 1033 means English)

Using apk on Windows: unknown territory for this one, sorry.

Some other (more difficult) way would be to build the FF mobile for win32 (this can be made or completely not). If it's possible the all problems are solved.
Easier would be to search online for a (maybe) already made build.

I would go with Fennec for now and just try to replace the icon if really needed.

Note that most of Surface tablets won't be win32 but winRT ARM versions so I don't think the win32 version would work here.:(
They will make official FF versions some time after the release of these new devices, don't worry.

Cheers
Hopachi
 

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Thanks for R.H., I'll check it out and report back.

The Win8 Pro ms surface / ms surface pro isn't also Win-RT is it? That's the one I'm interested in.
 

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No, that one is not RT: The W8 Pro surface is Win32, has Intel CPU. You're good to go with this one.:)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
Using Resource Hacker I have managed to change the program icon in Windows Explorer into the FF logo. That is a great help. I was wondering if you knew how to change it inside the program though, as well as the Fennec text into Firefox. (I'm fussy, aren't I?)

52138582.png

(there again, can you blame me? That is one ugly fennec logo).
 

My Computer

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    windows 8
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    PC/Desktop
Also with Res Hacker, you'll have to dig into the resources and look for BMP or PNG or JPG files that have to contain the logo.
Replace images with images of same size to keep it organized.

I don't know for sure because I never used fennec before. But it is possible you can change at least some images. Their start page... is online so that remains original I guess.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
Aw Crap!

It seems like websites do not automatically convert to their mobile versions using Fennec. NeoGAF's forums is one that comes to mind, it only loads the mobile version when a mobile device is detected - or when I use firefox addons such as User Agent Switcher and UAControl, which I use to trick the site into loading the mobile version do not install under fennec. So whilst I'll have the old FF mobile user interface on the touchscreen of the Surface via fennec, I won't have the mobile versions of the sites. Oh what cruel irony!

It looks like the best I will get is using the Win8 desktop mode version of FireFox's touchscreen capabilities on an MS Surface Pro (if there are any, I know Win7's Windows Explorer has some). And use FF addons UserAgentSwitcher or UAControl FF addons to make sites load their mobile versions.

Or... hope and pray that the 'Metro' FireFox that is under development turns out to be good. Crap!
 

My Computer

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    windows 8
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Yes, then you'll have to wait for the Metro version on the desktop. It should be the best touchscreen solution on win32.

Good luck with any used browser there.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
I guess that's what I get for not liking the 'current ff mobile' which uses native android assets in it's UI, and using workarounds to use the old version. But man, I feel like I was so close, and had it all snatched away from me at the last second.
 

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    windows 8
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Update: Usually even when you type in m.neogaf.com and try clicking on a different page it automatically loads the non-mobile version unless it senses that you're on a mobile device. I can get NeoGaf's forums to show the mobile version consistently when I use the about:config page of fennec to manually change the browser user agent to spoof an android by creating the string 'general.useragent.override'.

However I then need to manually change it back when I want to view YouTube videos, for example, as old FF Mobile didn't support flash very well. This was the reason I had been using 'UAControl', which made the user agent spoof only affect individual sites which you could set, rather than every site universally. I wonder if there is a way to make the user agent affect only individual sites in the about:config page?

Then again, this won't really be a problem. On Win7 (and Win8 on the MS Surface Tablet) I will still have the Windows Taskbar visible, so I could quickly flip over into regular firefox, which runs independently of fennec, to watch a YT video, whilst still having the touchscreen goodness of old mobile firefox in fennec. Good times. Now I just have to save my money for what is likely to be an extortionate price on teh MS Surface Pro.
 

My Computer

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  • OS
    windows 8
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A Fennec Add-on called Phoney works (only when I download it from the built-in addon tab, finding it myself via google must have taken to elsewhere in the FF addons site). It adds a quick list of user agents to the preferences page, which is quickly available in FF mobile/Fennec by dragging the right side inwards and clicking on the cogs. This allows me to quickly switch my user agent from default, desktop firefox, android phone, android tablet, iphone, ipad, ms ie, lynx on the fly. This is much better than having to do it manually in about:config, at least. With this I can browse to m.neogaf.com, and keep looking at pages whilst keeping the mobile version working rather than it defaulting back to the desktop version.


YouTube still doesn't work though, even under desktop firefox user agent, because it wants me to download adobe flash and that won't work properly (I did say that old ff mobile on android and fennec had issues with flash, which is why they moved to the current UI which uses the native android assets.) I have gotten Stylish to install onto fennec, and have download 'NeoGAF - YouTube Me! 3.1' script from userscript.org, which usually works for my android phone but doesn't seem to work for YT.

So I'm almost there now, but even if I can't get past this last hurdle I assume that since I will still be able to see the windows taskbar at the bottom of the fennec program on on the MS Surface Pro, I will be able to quickly switch over into the regular FireFox and load up youtube.com there.
 

My Computer

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    windows 8
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Quick note on what "YT Me Again" does. On android phones when someone embeds a YT link in a forum post, it tends to just be a grey box which says 'a plugin is needed to display this content.' - well "YTMeAgain" adds a link underneath to the YT page, with the video title as the link's text. On my android phone YT pages actually work (just not when the video is embedded), but in fennec I can't seem to get the YT videos to work at all, even when I am trying to load the YT video page itself. Oh well.
 

My Computer

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  • OS
    windows 8
    Computer type
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