There are two more players that are trying to enter the mobile OS space: Firefox, and Ubuntu. While the latter is making the move for more native applications to run faster on phones, the former is trying to take page out of WebOS’ playbook by going the pure HTML5 route. I had a chance to install the Firefox OS recently on a Nexus S and it fairs well but still has a long way to go before it is ready for prime time. Here are some links to get you started if you want to try them.

1. Take a backup of your phone.  Since i had a Google Phone, I was not worried too much since Google provides the factory images here (so long as you know your model).
2. Go to the Firefox link here and get started.

Firefox’s instructions are pretty straight forward and everything has been automated to the point that I just fast paced through the commands and ran those (on a Mac).  the process does take sometime, specially if you do not have a fast PC, and it downloads the Android SDK and tools to boot.  My only issue was finding the google page to restore my phone since the Firefox OS is still not on par with iOS or even Android, and I needed my phone. Ubuntu on the other has is making more calculated decisions and only providing installers for mutli-core devices. As they say, “You only get one chance to make a first impression,” so it better be good.  Here are some instructions to install it on the Nexus 7. read more