Alipi Mobile
Alipi mobile is a simple and easy to use mobile Firefox a.k.a Fennec extension. It is lighter than the desktop version. It can be used to see if any re-narrations are present for the web page the user is present in.
Alipi was first thought to be an android application.
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The application Would be limited only to android phones.
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The application has to be alerted when the user opens the browser and also get information of the website that is being browsed. A service has to be running all the time to know about the same. This inturn leads to memory and battery utilization which is limited on a mobile.
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The application would have to know when the user opens the browser and also which website he is browsing. Due to the number of browsers present, it would be impracticable to communicate with them. The application has to run a service all the time so that it will know when the browser is launched. But this would lead to utilization of battery and memory which is limited in a mobile.
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The alipi project is web-based project. So it would make it complicated when it is an application. The user will have to transit from the application to the browser which hampers the user experience.
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The user experience may be hampered when the application interrupts the user while browsing even if the user does not want to be interrupted. The user interface
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The layout design would be a major concern on an android application.
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The android application would have to use a html engine(webkit) which is not as powerful as the fennec(FireFox mobile) engine. Hence it would not be powerful.
Due to the above said reasons, it was decided that alipi would be a Firefox Extension and not just an Android application. Making it a Firefox extension, would make it easy to interact with the browser. The user can use the add-on when needed. The tool wont show up till the user wants. Hence the user has complete control over the add-on.