Mozilla announces adaptive Firefox uncher for Android

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Published 6 Feb 2014

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th the upcoming Firefox uncher for Android, Mozilla wants to move beyond the browser onto your home screen.

Firefox uncher is a replacement for your Android home screen, similar to other third-party launchers such as Nova uncher Go uncher EX. But instead of just showing a static list of apps widgets, Firefox uncher tries to be a little smarter.

firefoxlauncher

A preview of the Firefox launcher.

For example, Firefox uncher will automatically create folders for certain categories such as news, games, social. Each folder contains not just your own apps, but suggested apps web links. The launcher also includes a row of app suggestions that change based on time of day, while a universal search bar lets you look up apps, contacts web results simultaneously.

To create Firefox uncher, Mozilla partnered with EverythingMe, which recently released its own Android launcher. And in fact, the two launchers are quite similar. Every feature mentioned in TechCrunch’s preview of Firefox uncher already exists in EverythingMe, the screenshots are nearly identical. The main difference, presumably, will be the integration of Mozilla’s Firefox browser for search results b links.

Firefox uncher will also share EverythingMe’s business model, which is based on referrals to sponsored content in search results smart folders. For better or worse, EverythingMe’s launcher is pretty clear about which content is sponsored. Firefox’s variant will work the same way, with Mozilla getting a cut of the revenue, TechCrunch reports.

Mozilla hasn’t given a release date for Firefox uncher, but says it will share more updates once the company finishes development begins beta testing. In the meantime, you can give EverythingMe a shot. It won’t appeal to Android users who like to obsess over every aspect of their home screens, but it’s worth trying if you’d rather leave the organizing to someone else.