Mozilla’s mobile browser strategy is turbulent to say the least. On the one hand, there’s the standard version of Firefox, its beta, and the developer version, but there’s also Firefox Focus and Firefox Lite, which was once Firefox Rocket. Rest in peace Mozilla discontinued official support for Firefox Lite.
Firefox Lite can no longer be downloaded from Google Play. Mozilla claims to have made this decision believing that the latest regular version of Firefox for Android and Firefox Focus are more than sufficient to meet the needs of former Firefox Lite users.
Goodbye the “light” browser
Four years ago Mozilla pulled Firefox Rocket out of its sleeve, something like a miniature browser with some cool additions like Turbo mode which removed the ads and screenshots. It was launched in a few markets. One year later, it has been renamed to Firefox Lite, has expanded its availability and started adding more than is strictly necessary.
So in Firefox Lite 2.0 they arrived mini-games, shopping and news
In this context, it seems that Mozilla didn’t make much sense to keep a lightweight browser that isn’t overly light, and announced the end of support for Firefox Lite. The browser will continue to work for those who installed it, although it will display a warning on their home screen and you will no longer receive updates of any kind, not even security.
Instead, Mozilla recommends users switch to the normal version of Firefox for Android or, if you prefer, Firefox Focus, which is a sort of successor to Mozilla’s new “lightweight browser” for Android. It takes up around 195MB, which, although it’s still a lot, at least it’s less than what takes up the normal version.
Via | Android Police
