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Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#341

Post by JadeNB »

phrh8 wrote: post #228
JadeNB wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wow those people are lucky and high on consumerism, my phone had 2GB. How? Lollipop, the first Google hit for "Android OS size on phone" ( https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/118896/how-much-... ), seems to be about 5 GB. (Maybe you don't run Android, or maybe a very old version?)

What usually happens with these phones is they have something like 8GB or even 16GB, but they are poorly paritioned. It could be something like 5-6GB for /system (the OS) and they somehow only leave 2GB for the /data partition. I've seen a phone like this running Lollipop. The best part is when it decides to auto-update all the built-in (Google) apps, collectively consuming a total of 1-1.5GB of /data, at which point…

> What usually happens with these phones is they have something like 8GB or even 16GB, but they are poorly paritioned. It could be something like 5-6GB for /system (the OS) and they somehow only leave 2GB for the /data partition.

Oh, so you read bigbugbag's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15049992)

> > wow those people are lucky and high on consumerism, my phone had 2GB.

as saying that it's 2 GB after the system installation? That seems to make it a strange response to itg's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15049947)

> > > Considering how may people still have 8GB/16GB phones, I doubt it. On iOS sometimes you have to delete apps, especially ones that build up large caches like Facebook.

which is clearly referring to the pre-OS available space.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#343

Post by slrz »

hedora wrote: post #198
chairmanwow wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'm only surprised to see this comment and not that Firefox bundled analytics into their app. What's controversial about anonymized usage statistics in 2017?

Windows 10 peed in the pool when it redefined "telemetry" to include core dumps, documents, keystrokes, and even remote terminal access for MS engineers. Now, people are rightfully suspicious of any software that phones home at all.

Remote access for MS engineers? Can you explain please?

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#344

Post by geokon »

cyphar wrote: post #273
geokon wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same issue for every Chinese user... just pray its on Fdroid or get shady apps from the Xiaomi store

It is on FDroid[1], and they provide official builds[2]. I really wish people would actually check stuff like this (that takes a few minutes) before spreading FUD. As an aside, I only use FDroid on my devices to install APKs (the only exception being Signal which now provides bare APKs[3]). [1]: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.klar/ [2]: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/releases [3]: https://s…

I did check. And it's not at all clear from FDroid that Klar and Focus are the same thing (and reading the other comments here.. it sounds like maybe there is some difference?)

I almost only use FDroid, but it can be sometimes of a pain. Like not even having Firefox and VLC is kinda bananas

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#345

Post by chrisper »

gardnr wrote: post #295
chrisper wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

apkmirror.com is not dodgy. It is also the only apk website I'd trust.

Can you offer more information about why you trust it?

Sure. Sorry for the late response! It is basically maintained by a reputable source (android police) and they also seem to take security seriously. If they cannot verify the origin of an APK for sure, they rather reject it.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/11/19/meet-apk-mirror/

https://www.apkmirror.com/faq/#What_measures_do_you_take_to_...

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#346

Post by lucideer »

kuschku wrote: post #157
lucideer wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has recently been moving GCM over to FCM, since the Firebase acquisition, and FCM has a hard dependency on the analytics library for some reason (even if you're not availing of the service - perhaps as a veiled upsell attempt). It seems very likely that Firefox would be making use of GCM/FCM - I think most major apps do - so this could be it. Incidentally, this same topics is one of the main controversies arou…

> Unfortunately, unless you've rooted your phone, GCM/FCM is the only battery-efficient way to provide push to Android phones. But, and this is the interesting part, the userspace library of FCM can be easily reversed and cloned (the information required for that is here https://gist.github.com/justjanne/153bd4886f92be0ee57fb40842... ), and the system-side part of FCM has been cloned in an open way (see the µG projec…

I was aware of the µG project (it requires root to install though), but I'm not sure I see the point/relevance of cloning the userspace library outside of using it with µG. If you don't have µG, your cloned userspace library is still sending everything through Google's servers right?

Note: I should possibly have been clearer above by saying "is the only battery-efficient way to provide push to Android phones without root"

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#347

Post by crtasm »

brainfire wrote: post #342
crtasm wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that on android and/or ios?

Definitely yes on Android. I don't know for iOS.

Maybe that's a feature of your launcher? I can't see it in any of firefox focus' menus, the share list or long-press on a link options.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#348

Post by EpicEng »

nindalf wrote: post #163
EpicEng wrote: post #54

After nearly a decade of using Chrome I decided to give FF another shot, having initially switched over due to slowness, an insatiable thirst for memory, and the single process model. I installed on both Windows (10 Pro) and Mac OS. Initial impressions were good; it seemed snappy, I liked the UI, and it was using less memory than Chrome with the same number of tabs open. A couple of days in things went downhill. On M…

I'd encourage you to give Firefox another shot. They've improved a lot in the last couple of versions. More pertinent, in my opinion, is that they're on a promising trajectory and I'd expect it to be incredible in the medium term.

My hand up is that this _was_ me giving FF another shot... and it failed miserably. Not sure how many more shots I have in me.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#349

Post by brainfire »

crtasm wrote: post #347
brainfire wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely yes on Android. I don't know for iOS.

Maybe that's a feature of your launcher? I can't see it in any of firefox focus' menus, the share list or long-press on a link options.

Weird! It's on the only menu in Focus for me, the same level as "settings." I wouldn't have thought a launcher could do that. I use Nova Launcher.
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