Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

blog.nori.moe

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 111 posts

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#81

Post by beerandt »

betwixthewires wrote: post #63
LamaOfRuin wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Vivaldi support add-ons/extensions on android? I don't see it mentioned on the landing page. Granted, ad-block is the primary one and included by default in Vivaldi, but I still like there being a possibility for extensibility even if what's supported on Firefox for Android is limited.

FYI there is a chromium fork called Kiwi Browser that supports extensions. I'm using it to tell you this right now.

Kiwi has become my goto Android browser, and it's not even close. Primary reason being chrome add-on support.

But it does have a high number of quirks make it through to release versions. Like tab ordering in the current version is broken, such that swiping tabs are in a different order than browsing tabs.

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#82

Post by beerandt »

elliotf wrote: post #10
marak830 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit harsh. Every point they raised is valid: the UX changes have been weird and inconsistent, the lack of history searching is frustrating etc I still use ff, I certainly won't be using Chrome as I appreciate my add-ons too much.

Chrome is also adding bizarre ux choices on mobile. The tipping point for me was nested tabs (tab groups) with no way to disable them. I've been a happy Android Firefox user since then.

The fact that open in new tab only gives the option for "in group" did it for me.

Kiwi at least gives options for opening new tabs as in-group or standalone.

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#83

Post by Reubachi »

marak830 wrote: post #5
PostOnce wrote: post #2

I'm perfectly happy with Firefox, both desktop and mobile. It works very well and I never have problems with it. It blocks ads on mobile and chrome doesn't. As far as I have seen, it's fast. I don't notice a difference on the rare occasion I open chromium to check and see that some application will look the same for a client as it does for me. But I guess it's always true: people go out of their way to complain, but…

That's a bit harsh. Every point they raised is valid: the UX changes have been weird and inconsistent, the lack of history searching is frustrating etc I still use ff, I certainly won't be using Chrome as I appreciate my add-ons too much.

I don't think it's harsh, as those points to me aren't valid. I'd much rather have the Mozilla foundation focus on security, privacy, ubiquity than UX and less used features like history searching.

That said, I can't do any combination of Netflix + Any other application leveraging graphic card drivers. Completely locks up the computer milliseconds after application loads,need to hard restart. Event viewer for system and FF is no help. Submitted bug tickets, no updates. Oh well, it's fast and secure when I'm not on netflix.

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#84

Post by betwixthewires »

beerandt wrote: post #81
betwixthewires wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI there is a chromium fork called Kiwi Browser that supports extensions. I'm using it to tell you this right now.

Kiwi has become my goto Android browser, and it's not even close. Primary reason being chrome add-on support. But it does have a high number of quirks make it through to release versions. Like tab ordering in the current version is broken, such that swiping tabs are in a different order than browsing tabs.

I've noticed those quirks too. Maybe I've just grown a tolerance for buggy software, I do tolerate a lot of idiosyncrasies these days. But I would rather deal with silly mistakes than deliberate crippling of tools I need to use.

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#85

Post by atatatat »

Reubachi wrote: post #83
marak830 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit harsh. Every point they raised is valid: the UX changes have been weird and inconsistent, the lack of history searching is frustrating etc I still use ff, I certainly won't be using Chrome as I appreciate my add-ons too much.

I don't think it's harsh, as those points to me aren't valid. I'd much rather have the Mozilla foundation focus on security, privacy, ubiquity than UX and less used features like history searching. That said, I can't do any combination of Netflix + Any other application leveraging graphic card drivers. Completely locks up the computer milliseconds after application loads,need to hard restart. Event viewer for system…

> I'd much rather have the Mozilla foundation focus on security

I would, too, but they're not able to keep up on that, either, despite vast funding.

Foundations and nonprofits used to do one thing well, not 12 things okay, and 5 things pretty poorly.

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#86

Post by atatatat »

dheera wrote: post #50
PostOnce wrote: post #2

I'm perfectly happy with Firefox, both desktop and mobile. It works very well and I never have problems with it. It blocks ads on mobile and chrome doesn't. As far as I have seen, it's fast. I don't notice a difference on the rare occasion I open chromium to check and see that some application will look the same for a client as it does for me. But I guess it's always true: people go out of their way to complain, but…

I've found the Firefox tabbing experience much nicer on mobile. Chrome wrecked their UX recently, sometimes new tabs become circles at the bottom (that don't obey the tab button) and sometimes they become big squares at the top that are under the tab button. The two types of tabs are confusing as hell. And sometimes the big square tabs have little squares inside them so you now have tiny circles inside little squares…

Personally appreciate the grouping (roughly) by time opened, especially since the tabs are movable to other bunches.

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#88

Post by kunagi7 »

garaetjjte wrote: post #80
MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, sending a low quality screenshot of a mobile screen isn't a professional thing. Cause a pdf is much more professional just because you open it in Adobe vs your photo gallery... This is bar none some of the most business oriented pretentiousness I've ever read on here. There is nothing wrong with image files and screenshots. It's just a file format. The fact that you save one as a pdf doesn't change the fact th…

Screenshots doesn't scale properly and destroy all information about text (not that PDF stores text properly, but at least PDF readers succeed with various tricks to recover it).

Exactly. Being able to copy data from the PDF instead of relying on OCR or copying by hand is a great asset.

Also, in my country if I send plain screenshots from important things like bank transfers, legal documents instead of the generated PDF file I get politely asked to send them again. If the original is on paper a good quality scan is OK though.

And, you can't certificate or password protect image files (unless you use another format as a container).

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#89

Post by Cipater »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #79
kunagi7 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes you must send a proper PDF. And saving a page to PDF (or "printing") is a basic feature of a browser. They shouldn't release a mobile browser without that. Also, sending a low quality screenshot of a mobile screen isn't a professional thing.

>Also, sending a low quality screenshot of a mobile screen isn't a professional thing. Cause a pdf is much more professional just because you open it in Adobe vs your photo gallery... This is bar none some of the most business oriented pretentiousness I've ever read on here. There is nothing wrong with image files and screenshots. It's just a file format. The fact that you save one as a pdf doesn't change the fact th…

>Cause a pdf is much more professional just because you open it in Adobe vs your photo gallery

Yes it is.

Are you having a bad day or something? Your comment is quite hostile to the point where it seems like you're just going out of your way to be unpleasant.

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#90

Post by dont__panic »

m-p-3 wrote: post #57
PostOnce wrote: post #2

I'm perfectly happy with Firefox, both desktop and mobile. It works very well and I never have problems with it. It blocks ads on mobile and chrome doesn't. As far as I have seen, it's fast. I don't notice a difference on the rare occasion I open chromium to check and see that some application will look the same for a client as it does for me. But I guess it's always true: people go out of their way to complain, but…

I have two complaints for Firefox Mobile (Android. 1. `about:config` is disabled on Stable branch, if you want to access it you need to use the Beta branch. Why is that the case? You don't see the same arbitrary limitation on desktop. 2. It seems to have issue loading a page randomly from time to time, and even trying to reload or open a different URL doesn't work, kinda like as if the tab itself crashed and became u…

Agreed about point 1 -- it seems silly to disable "advanced" features on the Stable distribution of the browser.

Of course, clearly someone at Mozilla thinks this is a good idea because they do the same damn thing on desktop -- you can't disable add-on certificate checks on Stable, but you can on the Beta/Nightly/Developer Edition branches. We all found out the hard way a couple of years ago when all the FireFox add-ons stopped working just because someone forget to renew a certificate.

Post reply on HN