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Reinventing Firefox for Android

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#331

Post by Aissen »

After a few years of using Brave on Android, I switched back to Firefox, since I now have a powerful enough device that the bad cold boot performance can be ignored. A few missing things:

- Chromium's zoom on tap is really more intelligent. Hitting the [-] on HN is much easier on in Brave than Firefox.

- The gesture to switch tab on Chromium is also more comfortable. That's a missed opportunity on Firefox Preview as well.

- I wish there was a way for uBlock-Origin to integrate better on a webpage. Disabling javascript makes many websites much more usable (disabling most on-load popups). It's one more tap to do that on Firefox than on Brave.

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#332

Post by r3bl »

gruez wrote: post #321
inimino wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You're not supposed to use it for an extended period of time, that's why it has "preview" in its name.

I'll be happy to use their other browsers (mainly, Firefox Focus, my default browser) until this one gets more polished, but the moment this one becomes a bit more stable and adds a few more features (adblock support is certainly on top of that list) will be the moment when I not just switch over, but delete every other browser I have installed on my phone. I can't believe a browser (any browser) makes me feel excited in 2019, but this one does.

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#333

Post by iamnotacrook »

afarviral wrote: post #294
afarviral wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im an idiot.... just tested it. Beautiful. Its nearly perfect now. Still blasts you with white in some situations but maybe thats due to the coding of the webpage as it loads. Im seriously impressed.

Actually... Id like a black theme as well as just a dark theme. Thanks.

Fullscreen mode would be good. And bookmarks seem like something of a car-crash. They're in there somewhere but it looks like Collections are easier to get to so obviously they're going to get used instead. I don't care what they're called - i just need a way of getting to frequently used urls. And it would be good if I could rename bookmarks/urls/items in collections because currently i'm stuck with whatever the site owner put there which means I end up with 4 links all called "train timetable" instead of "luton-london","london-luton","luton-tring","tring-luton". I would suggest firefox developers use both collections and bookmarks and see how many clicks they have to use, if they have to stretch their thumbs etc, and ask if there's a better way.

And..where to report this sort of thing? There seem to be about 7 different rival official locations.

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#334

Post by TuringTest »

johnchristopher wrote: post #330
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 favo…

It's great that you have political reasons to use Firefox. But to be most effective, you have to recognize that most other users won't care about it that strongly, so you have to use arguments that matter to them in a practical way.

This way, you can switch your acquaintances to use Firefox, and they'll stay with it by inertia. I'd say that's a win-win.

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#336

Post by Grumbledour »

lucb1e wrote: post #118
thisisitnownow wrote: post #84

I have been using Firefox on Android since 2013. It's been constantly improving. I am so glad that it exists so that I am not forced to use a browser (Chrome) that doesn't respect me or my privacy and has every incentive to fuck me over.

I used it in 2013 and found it constantly degrading with each update. They removed a major feature to reflow text to fit your screen nicely, worsened the UI, and other things I don't remember anymore. After using an old version for a while, I tried another browser, and holy crap that was 10 times faster as well as being customizable the way I was used to from Firefox desktop. Not open source, not as featureful (no ad…

Interesting point about reflowing text: Why don't browsers reflow text on mobile when zooming the same way they do on the desktop? This is a mayor annoyance for me since, well, forever. As a visually impaired user, forcing me to swipe text left to right the whole time after I zoomed to a comfortable font size makes reading on smaller screens really bad.

And before you mention it, changing default font size in browser/OS doesn't really help, mostly makes things worse (Bad categories like "medium", "huge" instead of font size, page layouts breaking etc.)

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#337

Post by indeyets »

Preview just lost 3 opened tabs replacing them with about:blank. Could be out-of-memory condition or smth else, but that doesn't give me trust. I'll stay with an old version for now

Very hopeful for the future when it works and supports arbitrary add-ons though (containers pls!)

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#338

Post by r3bl »

riquito wrote: post #47

I'm a happy user of both Firefox Focus and Firefox mobile, I don't know what could they improve but I'll give it a look. About Firefox focus, I love to have it as default browser when opening links, it gives me a lot of confidence to know that the session will be completely destroyed afterward. I'd miss it if it were to be discontinued.

A neat little thing I've discovered after installing the Preview is that Focus is still here.

You can toggle between the modes in one tap, and if you're in a private mode, opening links from other apps behaves just like Focus (minus the convenient "erase everything" button, at least for now).

It's the best of both worlds, I don't have to use a second one for those rare scenarios in which I want cookies (like remaining logged into HN).

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#339

Post by zhte415 »

abdulmuhaimin wrote: post #29

I dont envy Mozilla. The demographic that they're targeting are really hard to please.

Loyal. Savvy. Influential. And a userbase that speaks out to get a better product; I'd prefer a loyal userbase that provides feedback about what they care about than a fickle one that doesn't.

I've used since v0.4.

Re: Reinventing Firefox for Android

#340

Post by sharperguy »

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…

Everyone switched to ublock once adblock+ starting taking payments to not block certain ads.

Most people who care about adblocking will choose whatever browser suppoerts adblocking over anything else honestly.

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