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Reinventing Firefox for Android

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#321

Post by gruez »

inimino wrote: post #289
zrobotics wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be mean, but that statement demonstrates a frankly shocking level of cluelessness. Extensions (mainly adblockers) are the critical feature that distinguishes FF mobile, and are the only reason I have ever been able to convince anyone to switch. I would almost consider adblockers functionality more critical than Javascript support, they should certainly be part of a minimum viable product. I know it's a preview…

Possibly someone in their right mind would run it because they read TFA where it says "primarily aimed at developers and early adopters who want to help us improve Firefox on Android".

I would say that adblock/extension support is a pretty big deal breaker for "developers and early adopters". How are you going to get them to use a crippled browser for any significant period of time?

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#322

Post by hdfbdtbcdg »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #282
zamalek wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hard work you guys put in is always appreciated, FF in all its forms has become truly the best browser there is. That being said, how on earth was Reader Mode prioritized above adblocking? As it stands, adblocking is "post MVP"[1][2]. QR code scanning, however, is somehow part of the MVP. This doesn't make sense to me: there are many apps that launch the default system browser when scanning a URL QR code. You can…

When Chrome first came out I stopped using it cause it didnt have adblock. Then when it did it was still crippled and I realized Google is in the Ad business so I never used Chrome since. This is very correct adblocking is a necessity, if they even include a Mozilla Adblocking DNS server for the browser thats fine to me. As long as I dont see ads. I wont give up on Firefox anytime soon. I would love to see some serio…

I don't want my browser ignoring my DNS settings!

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#323

Post by dblohm7 »

mikelward wrote: post #169

Don't bother sending feedback to the email address mentioned in the blog: it bounces. We're writing to let you know that the group you tried to contact (firefox-preview-feedback) may not exist, or you may not have permission to post messages to the group...

This has been fixed.

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#324

Post by dblohm7 »

mncolinlee wrote: post #307
owaislone wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant send links from any app to firefox and switch to firefox at a later time to find them ready to be read.

I didn't know about that feature. Feel free to request it on GitHub.

In Fennec that feature is referred to as “Tab Queues.”

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#325

Post by howlett »

bombledmonk wrote: post #74

I just switched to the current Android Firefox a few weeks ago and I must say I find it very hard to go back to Chrome. uBlock and Dark Reader make the phone browsing experience a remarkable amount more pleasant. Chrome's general UI interaction is definitely more polished and snappier all around, but browsing mobile with good ad blocking, and not getting blasted in the face by stark white pages more than covers for F…

I tried switching a couple of times but every time I face the same issue - the "touch" response is just _bad_ and I can't seem to be able to fix it. For example the "[-]" link on hackernews is almost impossible to click. I have to brute-force it by clicking multiple times, same applies for other websites where it doesn't seem to pickup the closest link I click.

On the other hand, the "Firefox Focus" app and Chrome do not seem to have this issue. Is there any way to fix this, because it's literally the only thing that stopping me.

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#326

Post by callahad »

zamalek wrote: post #281
mncolinlee wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're certainly aware of how significant ad blocking extensions are. This release required a great quantity of features with only a six month timeline until now. We already support a very limited set of the WebExtensions API to offer features like Reader Mode. Rest assured that more features will land in the coming months. If you're a developer and you want to help us, our Github site is at this link. We mark easier…

The hard work you guys put in is always appreciated, FF in all its forms has become truly the best browser there is. That being said, how on earth was Reader Mode prioritized above adblocking? As it stands, adblocking is "post MVP"[1][2]. QR code scanning, however, is somehow part of the MVP. This doesn't make sense to me: there are many apps that launch the default system browser when scanning a URL QR code. You can…

I understand where you're coming from, but I honestly find Firefox Preview's built-in tracking protection blocks enough ads on its own. I'd encourage you to give it a shot. (Though, to reassure you: proper adblocking is on the roadmap.)

On the other hand, QR code scanning is necessary for a good Firefox Sync setup experience, and that genuinely seems crucial to the MVP: we don't want your data stranded on one device unless that's explicitly what you want.

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#327

Post by lake99 »

gloflo wrote: post #110

If there is one thing I miss from current mobile Firefox, it's text reflow. Opera mobile did it perfectly. I want to be able to zoom in or out and have text reflowed to the screen width. This makes the web magnitudes nicer to use on a small screen. No cut off lines, no 10 lines per screen. Just convenient freedom over the primary tool we interact on the web: Text.

I use this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fftextwrap

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#328

Post by Bob995 »

Why are they breaking their own stuff over and over again?! I updated their browser on Android and after the update it started hanging, refusing to load any website without a restart and eating up all the RAM? Why can't they invest in testers? WHY?

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#329

Post by pgeorgi »

dbtx wrote: post #258
pgeorgi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> disable telemetry/remote-control by default (pushing updates where you control the code is remote control, don't even try to argue against that one). So they shouldn't put updates on the Play Store?

They shouldn't be sending me to the Play Store ITFP. I can't use Play because I've got no GApps in my phone, so I can't try their app unless I find a copy "somewhere" and convince myself it hasn't been poisoned. I got a reasonably up-to-date Firefox through APKPure, and later on after watching that 35C3 talk [1], I unzipped and grepped all those saved .apks to find the APKPure app itself and Firefox and LingoDeer had…

If you have a phone without GApps, you're either in China (which has its own app store ecosystems) or not Mozilla's target audience for their binaries.

https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/mobile/releases/68.0b13/ has the APKs plus signed hashes though.

(But more generally speaking: Why don't you build Firefox from source if you're so concerned with middlemen messing with the code?)

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#330

Post by johnchristopher »

godelski wrote: post #129

To any Mozilla/Firefox developer reading this. I try to convert people to Firefox. The number one reason people switch, by far, is because mobile has add on support. So I say to push this front and center in marketing (I know this is a preview). People are reluctant to switch their desktop browser because chrome pretty much has the same features. But it they switch their mobile browsers they also switch their desktop…

Hmm.

Using Firefox because it has a particular technological feature is a political choice. That political stance would lead users to turn to other browsers as fast as tech is added or removed.

I use Firefox for political reasons and for what it stands.

Which means that when Firefox gets worse I still use it and support what it stands for.

It's very Stallmanesque and let it be clear I am not saying the choice to favour superior tech over ethic concerns is wrong. It's just a different choice.

That's what I tell people when talking about Signal and messenger, Chrome and Firefox.

Also, I don't think Mozilla is a white knight and in my opinion they fucked up some good things over the years (tech or ethic). But the good still largely surpasses the bad.

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