Firefox Mobile 16 & 17: continuous improvements

I updated Firefox Mobile Beta on my Samsung Galaxy SII a couple of days ago to version 16 and out of curiosity I participated in the pissing-contest which is html5test.com. It scored a whopping 372 points, which apparently makes it the best mobile browser (for now).
More important, as it is an immediate and noticeable advantage: reader mode. Reader mode,  as seen in the screenshots on the right, allows me see articles on e.g. the chaotic, non-responsive dewereldmorgen.be in a non-crowded context which is optimal for reading the article.
I also installed the latest Firefox Mobile Aurora (version 17) and I’m pretty pleased to see support for iFrame sandboxing (which would up the html5test.com score to 377) and integration with a.o. the upcoming Firefox Marketplace (which will also be core to Firefox OS).
So yeah, for me Firefox Mobile remains the best mobile browser no-one uses.

Mobile browsers: Opera Mobile 12 shines in html5test

Look at Opera Mobile 12 stealing Chrome Mobile’s & Firefox Mobile’s thunder:

And while there’s more to browsers then just HTML5-support, Opera Mobile 12 also seems to offer greater support for modern web technology features than IE9.

To be honest, Opera Mobile 12 doesn’t shine in the JavaScript performance benchmarks (2843,6ms for Sunspider, 463 on the Google V8 test, both of  which at least Firefox Mobile does a better job at), but with the upcoming Firefox Mobile 12 and the (Android 4-only) Chrome Mobile beta the mobile browser “wars” have certainly shifted into a -much- higher gear. Let’s hope Microsoft (and Apple, but Safari Mobile isn’t too far behind yet) follows suit.