Before 2007, using the internet on your phone would make you want to kill yourself, if you were dumb enough to believe the crap splattered across that tiny screen even was the "internet." But the combination of increased bandwidth and better mobile software means that more phones really are promising to deliver the real internet, in living colour. We tested eight different browsers, and while some put smiles on our faces, others proved that rendering HTML correctly is a far cry from actually giving you an awesome web experience. And what about 3G vs. Wi-Fi? Everything the carriers have told you is a lie. This is the true state of mobile web.

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It's not really hard to guess how OS X and Windows 7 got their name. But what about IBM's ThinkPad? Or Firefox? CIO has a rundown of the origins of 10 tech products' iconic names—like just where the hell iPod and Twitter came from. Surprisingly none were picked at random out of a hat after taking a large quantity of drugs, which is how I hoped at least one came to be. They also talk to David Placek, the brains behind perhaps more superstar tech brands than anyone, like BlackBerry. And Zune, though he doesn't deign to explain that particular mystery. [CIO via Slashdot]

Often, when people carp about Mobile Firefox or Opera not being able to run on the iPhone 'cause of Apple's SDK restrictions, they'll point to Android and say "I can't wait for Mobile Firefox on Android" or some variation of that, since Android theoretically doesn't have any limitations. I've got some bad news for those people. Firefox Mobile (aka Fennec) isn't coming to Android anytime soon.

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It's no secret that the Chinese government censors web content, but what's it like to actually be a citizen trapped inside the Great Firewall of China? A new FireFox plugin called China Channel can show you. It reroutes your IP through China, allowing you to look like any other digital Chinese citizen from anywhere in the world. Click on a banned site and BAM! You lose your browsing privileges for 15 minutes. But luckily, in this version, you can just reopen the browser with a newly assigned IP. To see an example clip that walks you through installation and browsing, read on.

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Wish you could use some of your MacBook's fancier touch gestures, like three-finger swipes, in Firefox? Well you can, with a new experimental build of Firefox 3.1 (pre-beta 2) from Mozilla's Edward Lee. It uses all of the majors—swipe, twist and pinch—in awesomely intuitive ways.

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The first Firefox Mobile alpha—codenamed fennec, after the fox—is up for download, as promised a few weeks ago. Currently, the only actual mobile thing it runs on is Nokia's N810 tablet, but you can play with it on Windows, OS X or Linux. Since we saw the Windows Mobile version over the weekend, it'll probably follow soon, which'll be the first real taste of it for most people. [Mozilla via ComputerWorld]

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The first beta of Firefox 3.1 is available now, and it's worth braving the occasional perils of betaland to check it out. Truly, the killer feature is the new 3D tab interface. It's beautiful, it's functional, it's awesome. Javascript performance is jucied by the new TraceMonkey engine (take that, Chrome!), though you have to enable it. And it's location-aware, no Geode plug-in necessary. Not yet in the mix are the promised porn mode or smarter session restore, but it's a good start. Word of warning: It will break your add-ons. [Mozilla via Lifehacker]

Early October saw Mozilla CEO John Lilly claiming Firefox Mobile would be available in a few weeks. That's still the case today, but one additional bit of info we can deliver to you are some of the first screen shots of the browser to hit the net. According to the Unwired, these screens are of Firefox Mobile running on a Windows Mobile Professional touchscreen smartphone. In a separate screen, developers were able to run an Acid3 test with a score of 88/100. Not too shabby for a mobile browser. [The Unwired]

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Fans of Nokia's open-source internet tablets will be the first to take Firefox Mobile for a spin, reports PC Advisor, with an alpha release coming as early as next week (confirming what we saw earlier this week). The choice of the Linux-based N810 makes sense for the first dry run, as its hardware and open development platform already easily supports other Mozilla spin-offs, and the touchscreen will allow for fine tuning of FFM's touch-based interface for smartphones. The alpha will apparently feature Firefox 3's smart URL bar and support for add-ons. A more widespread beta is expected for 2009. [PC Advisor via CrunchGear]

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Mozilla Labs has unveiled Geode—a plugin that will take advantage of the W3C Geolocation Spec in Firefox 3.1. The plan is to make the browser location-aware so that somewhere down the line, you could visit a site like Yelp on your laptop in a strange town and it will automatically find your location and offer nearby restaurant suggestions and directions. Mozilla also offered other possible examples like: RSS readers that adjust based on whether or not your are at work or at home, location-restricted logins and websites that deliver news based on your physical location.

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