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Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey

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Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey

#231
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're welcome. By the way, in Chrome on Android, you can't execute bookmarklets from the bookmark menu. You need to give the bookmarklet a name. Say "Upsize". Then when you are on the page where you want to increase the font size, type "up" in the url bar and click on "Upsize" in the suggestions. Might be the same in Firefox?

I tried this in firefox for android and it did not work. What gets opened instead is a google search for "javascript:(function()...". Firefox used so be super useful on Android, but since its redesign almost all its customizability has been gone. So sad.

I just tried it on Firefox on Android, and for me it works.

In fact, it works both ways:

I can click on "bookmarks" and then on the bookmarklet, and it gets executed on the current page.

I can also start typing the bookmarklets name and then click on it in the suggestions. It then also gets executed on the current page.

Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey

#232
post #2

Personally, I prefer bookmarklets over extensions and Tampermonkey. They work the same on Desktop, Android and iOS. So I can write my bookmarklet once and use it everywhere. Without installing anything. I also like that bookmarklets only kick in when you click on them. Although some might find that too much work, it feels natural to me. It is already in my muscle memory, to click an "Increase Fontsize" bookmarklet wh…

Do bookmarklets still work on iOS? I wanted to try them but I found this post: > Apple no longer allows running JavaScript in either the Mobile Safari address bar or as a mobile Safari bookmark. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253547618

Yes, they work on iOS.

Most browsers don't allow JavaScript in the address bar anymore.

But in bookmarks, all browsers allow it.

Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey

#233
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is bizzare, old Firefox used to support all addons, then they shipped a new version and only allowed like 10 addons, and to this day they don't allow any more. It's already been years. I know my addon works fine on mobile, but they provide no means of specifying that*. I tried to email them for it to become "recommended" but never heard back. The fact that they allow tampermonkey which allows any kind of sc…

> It really is bizzare, old Firefox used to support all addons It never did though? In my recollection the old version had an Android-only extensions API, and only a few extensions ever supported it. At least now, in theory, any extension can run on Android, which is great.

> and only a few extensions ever supported it

Compared to desktop certainly, but in absolute numbers it still weren't actually that few, and certainly much more than the mere 22 (!) add-ons (as of today) that can currently be installed.

> At least now, in theory, any extension can run on Android, which is great.

What good is that theory if in practice I actually can't make use of it?

Besides, the transition to webextensions happened with Firefox 57, and support for webextensions was added to the old Fennec-based Android Firefox, too. True, not the full API available on Desktop was ported, but that's no different from the situation today, and yet at that time there were no artificial restrictions on what add-ons were able to be installed on Android.

And even with the webextension API, to some extent extensions still need to be specifically designed to properly work on Android, too (especially if they need to display any sort of UI)…

Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is Chrome atleast gives you the choice (maybe illusion?) to opt-out of *some of the telemetry. Mozilla to-date refuses to build a one button switch to disable all telemetry [0] and there's calls to telemetry domains such as location.services.mozilla.com you cannot stop on some of their products like Firefox Focus (ironic for a privacy product). [0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/domains-allow-fir…

honesty not all telemetry is bad. having it track cashes and upload that data is clearly good for usability.

Changing goalposts.

Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so you are willing to accept chrome on android that does not have any extensions so you cant have UBO and you have ads and scripts and all the BS of unprotected interent but you fear firefox telemetry. nice

I do not fear telemetry. What I refuse to accept from Firefox is a FOSS product being as bad if not worse as Chrome on the telemetry and data collection front. I like uBO but you can replace it with a dns filtering service for 95% of its use case (ad blocking). It could just be me but I do not see browser extensions on mobile as a killer feature. Moreso, when the same extensions are primarily developed for desktop.

Security and privacy both matter.

This entire thread has omitted discussion of either.

Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is they are afraid they might lose Google money if they enable too much freedom. But they have also been losing users, and without users they have no leverage.

I use some addons that weren't whitelisted trough the addon collection trick. Many addons plain don't work. The mobile browser doesn't have the UI these addons rely on and maybe there's some API coverage missing. I considered this a fair reason when the rewrite was released, you could still use the old Firefox for a while. But then time passed and nothing changed. It's clear the Fenix devs don't have the capacity or…

There's no incentive for addon developers to fix the experience because only a tiny fraction of Firefox users will jump through the hoops to run them. It seems to me like Mozilla is actively trying to prevent there from being an addon ecosystem for the mobile version, and I do not understand their motivation.

Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey

#237
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just FYI you can now use a custom addon collection on Firefox Beta for Android, if you want to use a slightly less cutting-edge version. Fennec from F-Droid is another option.

F-droid Fennec has the same whitelist of available extensions as regular Firefox

Yes, but it supports the custom addon collection feature. This way you can use it in a browser that isn't based on the beta/nightly branches, and should be less crashy. I run Fennec to access a few privacy redirect extensions, largely to make reddit and twitter less awful to browse without their respective apps.

Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey

#238
post #153
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, how do you use a bookmarklet like that on mobile Firefox? I have two that do this: https://web.archive.org/web/submit?url=%s javascript:void(location.href=' http://web.archive.org/save/'+document.location.href) But neither of them work on mobile because it opens a new tab first before evaluating the bookmarklet.

For the few I have on FF Android, create the bookmarklet as normal, give it a name, and also give it a "keyword" string. Then, when you want to execute a bookmarklet on the current page, pull down to get to the URL bar (if it is hidden) and start typing the "keyword" string into the url bar. After a few characters the "suggestions" list should show the bookmarklet entry, when it does, tap on the entry and the bookmar…

That doesn't work for me at all. If I type the keyword, it doesn't show up in the URL suggestions. And it doesn't activate when I push go.

But mg also says that it works, so I wonder what's wrong with mine.

Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey

#239
post #5

Greasemonkey was the good one and then something happened with it and it was no longer the best choice. I'm not sure what. The same repeated with Tampermonkey. It now has telemetry built into it, at one time w/ no privacy policy. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/6hs59w/tampermonke... The good one now is Violentmonkey. Has been for some time. Does Mozilla have an allowlist for these? If so I don't like it.

Iceraven supports Violentmonkey - https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser (Iceraven is a fork of Firefox for Android with way more extensions enabled and several other annoyances fixed.) I just installed it and then added https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/460206-hn-avatars - it works perfectly!

Ooh, that's awesome!

Similar to Kiwi Browser with Chromium.

Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey

#240
post #82
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big thing for me is that Tampermonkey is not open source. And yes, Firefox on Android has an allowlist of "known working good" extensions, the reason given being that Firefox for Android doesn't implement everything the Desktop version implements and IIUC, want to a avoid users blaming the browser when something breaks because of it.

It really is bizzare, old Firefox used to support all addons, then they shipped a new version and only allowed like 10 addons, and to this day they don't allow any more. It's already been years. I know my addon works fine on mobile, but they provide no means of specifying that*. I tried to email them for it to become "recommended" but never heard back. The fact that they allow tampermonkey which allows any kind of sc…

As far as I know you can install any addons you want, you just have to create your own collection. Those default addons you see are only Mozillas standard collection.

Even do I would like there were more addons to choose from as default I can understand Mozillas choice here. And that is that most addons are not design for android and they would not work or give a very bad UX. So for many non tech savvy standard users, that just would be frustrated and blame Firefox, this decision can make sense to select god and popular addons they know works well.

But it would be great if more addons could be added ofcourse, and that Mozilla could have some design guidelines for new addons that they should work for both desktop and mobile (where it make sense). And mark in the addon store which addons that are design for both. Or maybe have a simple setting in Firefox for android that is for advanced users, there they could add any addon, but first they have to check a box that they understand that the addon may not work correctly on a smartphone.

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