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America Online and the Mozilla Foundation are aiming to make Internet browsing easier for cell-phone users.

Mozilla, an open-source company that develops Web-browser and E-mail software, has released a preview version of a mobile-phone browser that uses the same code base as its Firefox browser for desktops. As part of this effort, Mozilla has developed a set of XML tags for describing graphical user interfaces. "We're optimizing the browser so that the Web-surfing experience on a smaller screen can be truly similar to the desktop," says Doug Turner, Mozilla's lead engineer on the project.

AOL is testing its AOL Mobile Search Services, designed to provide search results formatted to cell-phone screens with clickable links. The services will give users access to all Web content, not just to Wireless Application Protocol-enabled pages. AOL also is customizing its search services to make them easier to use on a mobile phone.

Most mobile browsers are based on WAP, which uses the Wireless Markup Language, a simplified version of HTML for small-screen displays. Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin says WML's limited memory constrains the kind of Web pages that can be accessed because it's not true HTML.