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Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS

#11

Post by AaronMT »

DemiGuru wrote: post #9

Would you please elaborate how this is different from using Safari in Private Browsing mode? If I am not mistaken Firefox Focus on iOS would still use WebKit under the hood. Edit: I'm not being facetious or sarcastic.

Private Browsing (regardless of browser) does not prevent online tracking. By removing trackers and ads, web pages may require less data and load faster.

Re: Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS

#12

Post by headmelted »

I'm not an iPhone user, so I can't give this a hands-on test, but it looks rather nice.

One omission that jumps out though is that this doesn't look like it has TOR integration/support, unless it comes with it's own onion routing and I'm missing it.

I'm not advocating for TOR by the way, it just strikes me that the instances where you would want a private browser are very likely the same instances where you don't want network intermediaries viewing your communications, no?

Re: Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS

#17

Post by Humdeee »

Looks awesome, can't wait to play around with this. On a separate note, I'm a sucker for great UI. I love the waveform on the landing page. Browsing through the repo, I had no clue this was available in the form of a pod. Needed something like this for a current project.

Re: Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS

#18

Post by lorenzhs »

cyxxon wrote: post #13

Not (yet?) available in Germany, it seems.

It's called "Klar by Firefox" in Germany due to the naming conflict with Focus, the magazine. I haven't seen the update in the app store yet, though. Probably still rolling out.

Re: Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS

#19

Post by yoz-y »

aoro wrote: post #10
DemiGuru wrote: post #9

Would you please elaborate how this is different from using Safari in Private Browsing mode? If I am not mistaken Firefox Focus on iOS would still use WebKit under the hood. Edit: I'm not being facetious or sarcastic.

"Firefox Focus continues to operate as a Safari content blocker on iOS, and users will be able to take advantage of Tracking Protection on both Safari and Firefox Focus." Goes beyond just a browser.

I have not used these APIs but I wonder whether it is faster to use Safari in private mode with Focus as a blocker, or using focus directly. Afaik Safari compiles the blocker rules into some binary representation and is thus able to apply them really fast. Do Webkit applications have access to similar functionality?
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