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Mozilla retires its Firefox Lite browser, probably because it wasn't actually all that 'lite'
The company says the standard Firefox app is fast enough all on its own
It's all too easy for applications to grow bloated after years of updates. While extra functionality isn't usually harmful, weighing an app down with useless features defeats the whole purpose if it's designed with performance in mind. Firefox Lite was intended to be a stripped-down version for select markets, but as of June 30, Mozilla has stopped supporting it.
Mozilla has quite a few Firefox browsers for Android, each catering to a certain market or use case. Firefox Lite is primarily intended for India and other Asian countries, with a minimal app size and various tie-ins with news and shopping services. However, it has never quite worked in landscape mode — until a recent update, anyway.
Mozilla has several flavors of its Firefox browser for Android, with 'Firefox Lite' serving as the main choice for Indonesia and other Asian countries. Despite its name, the Lite browser has become more and more bloated over the past few months, and now there's a travel feature that isn't very helpful.
Mozilla Taiwan's Firefox Lite — previously Firefox Rocket, then Lite, then Rocket again — is pleasingly snappy to use, with a focus on light browsing and privacy. The Chromium-based app blocks ads and trackers by default, allowing for lightning-fast browsing under the decreased bandwidth. After having its name changed four times, Firefox Lite has been updated to version 2.0.
Mozilla started messing around with a pared down version of its Firefox browser specifically for Indonesia late last year. It's got the data-saving features you'd expect in a bare-bones mobile browser, like options to not load images or save web pages to read offline. Now, the project has a new name: Firefox Lite.