Mozilla lets you give Firefox OS a whirl from your desktop

We recently wrote about Firefox OS — Mozilla’s attempt at a mobile OS. At the demo we got, it seemed promising. Now you can try it out for yourself.

The organisation has released a prototype test environment for the new OS, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The very early, and still slightly buggy, add-on allows you to run the OS from your desktop, without having to install it on your phone.

In a blog post from earlier this year, Mozilla’s Patryk Adamczyk outlined how the Mozilla intends to reflects its core values in the OS:

Much like various versions of Firefox, the overall concept here is premium and of quality, but not because it’s expensive. Good quality design should be accessible to masses much like our products. Our strong focus is on high quality and distinctive design in the marketplace.

The non-profit says its aim with Firefox OS though is to bring the Open Web to mobile devices. The entire OS is web-based, even your phone calls.

Given that the OS is aimed at low to mid-end users that might seem a little counterintuitive, especially in the emerging market countries Mozilla is aiming to roll the OS out in first.

But everything is cached, so you don’t have to be online for the device to work. Mozilla hopes that making the simulator available will attract more developers to the platform, which is slated for release in 2013.

From the few features we were able to play with on the simulator, the OS looks pretty damn promising. Whether Mozilla can disrupt the dominance of the big mobile players however remains to be seen.