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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

#101

Post by mikeash »

izacus wrote: post #98
mikeash wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple gets away with it because they don't have a monopoly. There's a large variety of non-Apple smartphones and tablets you can buy. Microsoft's behavior was restricted because they were a monopoly. There were alternatives to Windows, but the court decided that they were sufficiently insignificant that Windows was effectively a monopoly. That changes the rules. Windows market share at the time was about 95%, Apple's…

Hmm, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't monopoly law (at least in EU) dependant on the companies market power (e.g. the ability to sway market / damage consumer rights), not market share?

I imagine so, but it's hard to be in a position like that when you have less than 20% of the market.

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

#102

Post by atarashi »

st3fan wrote: post #54
lmedinas wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why having a separate application with these features instead of adding them to Firefox for iOS ? Is it planned to have content blockers support in Firefox for iOS ?

It is complicated. Here is the story of two WebView implementations in iOS: Firefox is based on the WKWebView. Modern and Fast, but has a very poor (thin) API. It has zero options for interacting with the network stack, which is a requirement for content blocking. Bugs have been open since iOS 8, Apple does not seem to be interested or does not have the resources to surface more API. All the APIs are in WKWebView, ju…

There is a way to interact with the network latyer even when using WKWebView. Since iOS9 there are the Network Extension APIs which allow you to access (and modify/filter) raw packet data.

For example: https://developer.apple.com/reference/networkextension/neapp...

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

#103

Post by cpeterso »

Sk1pp wrote: post #49
midgetjones wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This looks really good! Not sure if this is worth opening an issue over, but are you planning on supporting search engines other than google?

I only see it supporting yahoo. I didn't try very hard but in the settings there is no way to change it from yahoo, which is really frustrating. Did I overlook something?

For now, the search engine depends on your locale. Mozilla has partnerships with different search engines in different geographies.

https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus/blob/49bda35aa3b9b9b...

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

#104

Post by matthewmacleod »

planetjones wrote: post #85

Why can't someone take Apple to court and argue that developers should be able to build native web browser apps without relying on the Web View component? We have st3fan saying "Firefox Focus" is not ideal because he's had to use the older and slower WKWebView to implement it. Isn't this similar to Microsoft when they were forced to allow a choice of browser, or do Apple get away with it because they allow alternativ…

Start from the other end – on what basis do you think that someone would be able to take Apple to court? Why do you think that they should be stopped from deciding what the platform they develop will and will not support?

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

#105

Post by st3fan »

planetjones wrote: post #85

Why can't someone take Apple to court and argue that developers should be able to build native web browser apps without relying on the Web View component? We have st3fan saying "Firefox Focus" is not ideal because he's had to use the older and slower WKWebView to implement it. Isn't this similar to Microsoft when they were forced to allow a choice of browser, or do Apple get away with it because they allow alternativ…

For the record, I am more than happy to use Apple's web components. WebKit is great. They just need to open the APIs more. Like WebKit on macOS. Then we can actually build competing browsers and do more innovative things.

The WebKit team is great. Look at all the web standards being worked on. Look at the ES6 progress. They are pushing the state of the web forward on iOS.

Now put some of that same energy in WKWebView. Open it up. We need more than just loadURL()

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

#106

Post by cpeterso »

Having tested Firefox Focus for a week already, I'm more aware of little browsing I do that actually requires a "logged in" browser. Having easy, ephemeral browsing sessions by default is pretty nice. I hope we can get similar functionality on Firefox desktop using tab containers.

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

#107

Post by st3fan »

atarashi wrote: post #102
st3fan wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is complicated. Here is the story of two WebView implementations in iOS: Firefox is based on the WKWebView. Modern and Fast, but has a very poor (thin) API. It has zero options for interacting with the network stack, which is a requirement for content blocking. Bugs have been open since iOS 8, Apple does not seem to be interested or does not have the resources to surface more API. All the APIs are in WKWebView, ju…

There is a way to interact with the network latyer even when using WKWebView. Since iOS9 there are the Network Extension APIs which allow you to access (and modify/filter) raw packet data. For example: https://developer.apple.com/reference/networkextension/neapp...

Yeah we know these things exist. I just don't think using a VPN or a global Network Extension or a global HTTP interception is a good solution. It would be a workaround.

We need a real solution. We need better WKWebView APIs. The requests are known. The bugs have been open since iOS 8. Two years.

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

#108

Post by st3fan »

yoz-y wrote: post #19
aoro wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

I'm sure it is measurably faster. I doubt it is noticeably faster.

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

#109

Post by st3fan »

emehrkay wrote: post #78
scott_karana wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it helps, it's just a Safari wrapper, so it shouldn't take much more space.

I'm not complaining, I like the Focus app and will probably frequently use the browser mode. It is interesting to me that Apple with their, sometimes too, tight control over apps in the app store would be okay with an app changing its purpose like this.

There is no App Store rule that says that you cannot introduce new functionality in an existing application. Why would you think that?

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

#110

Post by st3fan »

scott_karana wrote: post #72
emehrkay wrote: post #69

Oh so they just used an update to Focus app to put a whole new web browser on my phone, like a Trojan Horse. Interesting approach

If it helps, it's just a Safari wrapper, so it shouldn't take much more space.

Actually, it is a UIWebView wrapper. Safari is a complete application that does a ton of stuff not appropriate for Firefoc Focus. UIWebView is just a UIKit component to render web pages in a rectangular area on screen.
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