The new version of Firefox for Android is now out. It’s not only fast:
The app starts up almost instantaneously, and pulled up mobile websites like the New York Times, CNN, and Yelp, almost as fast. It remained speedy for bandwidth-hogging websites meant for desktops, like Cracked.com, that featured large images and Flash videos. Browsing speed was about on-par with Google Chrome — it was faster in some instances, and slower in others — but I’m giving Firefox the edge since it works on so many more Android devices.
…but also offers things that Chrome doesn’t:
The Firefox app still sports the same tab synchronizing features of Mozilla’s other apps. The company also touts it as the first mobile browser to support Do Not Track, a feature which can prevent websites from tracking your online behavior.
Google’s reluctance to implement Do Not Track (as you might expect from a company that makes the bulk of its dollars from online advertising) is one of the top reasons I don’t regularly use Chrome, and I love being able to sync my bookmarks among all my Firefox instances. Nice to see that Android users now have a fast, competitive browser offering that has good privacy protection, and Firefox Sync to boot!
Update: Webmonkey provides some additional info.