ArmLightweightBrowser

Revision 3 as of 2009-11-05 19:29:23

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Summary

Mozilla Firefox is a fairly heavy web browser and suffers from less than optimal performance on ARM due to issues such as cache size. Lighter-weight web browsers should be investigated, and a more appropriate one should be picked as a default for ARM based releases.

Release Note

This section should include a paragraph describing the end-user impact of this change. It is meant to be included in the release notes of the first release in which it is implemented. (Not all of these will actually be included in the release notes, at the release manager's discretion; but writing them is a useful exercise.)

It is mandatory.

Rationale

There are performance issues using Firefox on arm hardware. This blueprint is a question as well as a goal to try and find a lighter wight browser, perhaps based on webkit.

User stories

Assumptions

That we can find an alternative that will still satisfy user needs including access to media (plugins) and flash, as well as being sufficiently standards-compliant and capable.

Design

You can have subsections that better describe specific parts of the issue.

Implementation

This is a seed spec from the perspective of implementation. If an alternate browser is acceptable and chosen, it would mean changing the seed.

UI Changes

Should cover changes required to the UI, or specific UI that is required to implement this

Code Changes

Code changes should include an overview of what needs to change, and in some cases even the specific details.

Effort

It is presumed several options will emerge in discussions during UDS, and each will be tested from the above criteria as well as for performance on ARM. Actual implementation is minimal.

Migration

There is a question about migrating user bookmarks which might be stored in Firefox.

Test/Demo Plan

It's important that we are able to test new features, and demonstrate them to users. Use this section to describe a short plan that anybody can follow that demonstrates the feature is working. This can then be used during testing, and to show off after release. Please add an entry to http://testcases.qa.ubuntu.com/Coverage/NewFeatures for tracking test coverage.

This need not be added or completed until the specification is nearing beta.

Unresolved issues

This should highlight any issues that should be addressed in further specifications, and not problems with the specification itself; since any specification with problems cannot be approved.

BoF agenda and discussion

Use this section to take notes during the BoF; if you keep it in the approved spec, use it for summarising what was discussed and note any options that were rejected.


CategorySpec