Firefox Mobile (aka “Fennec”), will be Mozilla’s first smartphone browser. But don’t hold your breath, alternative browser fans – early reviewers of the alpha version find a Fox with a long way to run before it's ready for public release.

Fennec first surfaced during October, in an alpha version that ran on the little-known Nokia Internet Tablet.

This week, another early-test version of Fennec was released, this time for Windows Mobile handsets.

Mozilla fans should not get too excited about Firefox Mobile appearing on their cellphone anytime soon, however.

The features seem intriguing, including tabbed browssing, a smart URL bar and controls that slide off to the side of the side to maximise room for content.

But tests by pcmag.com on two different Windows Mobile 6.1 handsets (both HTC full Qwerty keyboard models) found Fennec had problems displaying pages, and threw up specious URL errors for websites that loaded fine using Opera’s browser.

In its current iteration at least, this Fox is a dog.

Quite some work is required before Firefox Mobile is ready for a release version, it would seem.