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Mozilla Launches Firefox 4 for Android

blog.mozilla.com

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Re: Mozilla Launches Firefox 4 for Android

#61

Anyone else having user-agent issues? Google reader, for example, shows up as what looks like the dumb phone mobile site, not the smart phone mobile site (which is great) or the desktop site. And I can't find a setting to change the user-agent.

This add-on will let you change the user agent: https://addons.mozilla.org/mobile/addon/phony/

For Google Reader, you don't need to change the useragent; you can just go to http://www.google.com/reader/i/

Reader works well in Firefox, but many of Google's mobile sites use WebKit-specific markup, and will not work correctly in Firefox if you change the user-agent header to iPhone or Android.

Re: Mozilla Launches Firefox 4 for Android

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? According to this: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Weave/Sync/1.1/Setup it says the passphrase you use is sent in the clear (over HTTPS) to mozilla every time you get the data. That implies that while the data may be stored encrypted client-side, it's decrypted or at least verified server-side.

That is an old page, back when it was a labs project called Weave. Try this: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/what-firefox-sync#w_what... There is absolutely no way for Mozilla to get your data, even if subpoenaed. And, if for some reason you still don't trust it, you can easily set it up on your own server.

>>There is absolutely no way for Mozilla to get your data, even if subpoenaed

There needs to be more assurances like this in the world.

Re: Mozilla Launches Firefox 4 for Android

#64
post #39
post #11

oh a Saviour has come. Adblock plus for mobile. This is the one killer tool i have been waiting for.

Dolphin HD may not be free, but it has supported ad-blocking for a long time trough extensions.

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I trust closed-source browsers from China about as far as I can throw them. I'll be sticking with Moz.

Re: Mozilla Launches Firefox 4 for Android

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did that happen the first time? As I recall, Chrome started the second browser wars, which even caused IE to try again. FF was unable to do that.

Microsoft didn't even have anyone working on IE for most of the five years between IE6 and IE7 (2001 - 2006). Without competitors like Firefox to keep web standards and cross-browser compatibility alive through that era, it would have taken a lot longer to dig ourselves out of the IE6 era. (Remember when IE had 90% market share, and web developers routinely wrote IE-only code?)

But IE7 wasn't much of an upgrade over IE6. Neither was IE8. Browsers didn't take the next step until Google got fed up with javascript rendering speeds and took it into their own hands; now every browser is fast.

Firefox AND Opera made the web bearable in the years between IE6 and Chrome, but they hardly are responsible for the arms race that is taking place now.

Re: Mozilla Launches Firefox 4 for Android

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile Firefox lets you switch between tabs by pulling out a sidebar on the left side of the screen, so you can access them quickly, and you can see the current page and the tab list at the same time: http://support.mozilla.com/kb/how-do-i-use-tabs-mobile

Like xscope?

To be fair, didn't xscope copy that from earlier versions of Firefox Mobile?

Re: Mozilla Launches Firefox 4 for Android

#67
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you trying to be difficult or have a laugh at my expense or does anyone actually have any real complaints about how tabs are handled in the stock Android browser or say by one of the very popular Dolphin variants? I don't understand why these tabs are better than the tabs in the normal browser. Let me guess, everyone thinks you have to scroll up to get to see the tabs? Too bad.

I do. It takes too many clicks to get at the other windows with the (my?) default Android browser, and at any rate I can only have, what, 7 "tabs" open at a time? As often as not I get errors when clicking on links in email/rss that I have the maximum number of windows open, which is a drag. I've been trying Opera over the past week or two, but that doesn't have any controls for modal popups (among other issues).

Try Dolphin Mini

Re: Mozilla Launches Firefox 4 for Android

#69
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like xscope?

To be fair, didn't xscope copy that from earlier versions of Firefox Mobile?

Yup, Firefox Mobile has been using this same tab UI since our first alpha versions on the Nokia Maemo platform in 2008.

Re: Mozilla Launches Firefox 4 for Android

#70

Less powerful hardware does not seem like the best place for Firefox.

A couple of open tabs on moderately complex web pages (no web apps though) runs it at around 75 MB on my phone. Seems perfectly snappy on the Atrix, but I don't know about older devices.
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