Mozilla has released the first beta of a mobile version of its increasingly popular Firefox browser.

The browser, codenamed Fennec, is available only on Nokia's N810 and N880 internet tablets at this stage, but Mozilla is including a PC emulator so that developers can try out the software's capabilities on other platforms.

"Fennec is being tested pretty hard now, and by people who love to find bugs, " said Mark Finkle, platform evangelist at Mozilla.

"We are finding and fixing lots of issues now. It is not entirely landed yet and will likely get some tweaks as we iterate on the design."

The software is still in its early stages and has had to have plug-ins like Flash disabled, but the release comes sooner than expected.

Mitchell Baker, chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, said recently that a mobile version of Firefox was not planned for release until 2010.

Finkle explained that that Mozilla is planning shortly to release a version of the browser for Windows Mobile, but did not detail any plans for a Symbian-compatible version of the application.