Mozilla might bring Firefox to iOS

Mozilla has so far been adamant about not releasing an iOS version of its Firefox browser, because Apple won’t let it use its own Web engine on that mobile platform — but it seems as though change is in the air, reports TechCrunch.

Firefox release manager Lukas Blakk tweeted, “we’re going to get Firefox on iOS,” in Portland where the organization held an internal event today.

We need to be where our users are so we're going to get Firefox on iOS #mozlandia

— Lukas Blakk (@lsblakk) December 2, 2014

It’s still unclear as to how Mozilla plans to bring Firefox to iOS: the browser uses a different rendering engine than Apple allows (Safari uses WebKit, as does Chrome, which explains why Google’s browser is available on iOS).

However, it’s possible that the browser might use WebKit after all and layer its own interface and syncing functionality to let users access their bookmarks, tabs and passwords across their desktop and mobile browser versions.

We’ve reached out to Mozilla for more details and will update this post when we hear back.

Update: a Mozilla spokesperson commented on the matter saying, “At Mozilla, we put our users first and want to provide an independent choice for them on any platform. We are in the early stages of experimenting with something that allows iOS users to be able to choose a Firefox experience.”

➤ Firefox Could Soon Come To iOS [TechCrunch]