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Firefox for iOS on GitHub

github.com

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Re: Firefox for iOS on GitHub

#12

Post by mbrubeck »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #11

I'm glad Firefox is coming back to iOS. I remember they used to have a similar Safari wrapper supporting sync, but they must've gotten rid of it.

The previous iOS app was called Firefox Home, first released in 2010:

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2010/07/15/get-firefox-home-on...

Development stopped in 2012:

https://blog.mozilla.org/services/2012/08/31/retiring-firefo...

Re: Firefox for iOS on GitHub

#14

Post by mbrubeck »

0x006A wrote: post #4
fabrice_d wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the main repo. It was private before.

So Firefox repos are moving to github instead of hg.mozilla.org or git.mozilla.org?

Firefox for iOS won't be based on the main Firefox repo ("mozilla-central"), which remains on hg.mozilla.org.

A lot of Mozilla projects have their main repos on GitHub, including Rust, Servo, and Firefox OS.

Re: Firefox for iOS on GitHub

#17

Post by aclissold »

owenwil wrote: post #16

Anyone manage to get it to build? Lots of errors, assumably very far away from being usable.

They're mainly just warnings stemming from dependencies—it compiles just fine in Xcode 6.1.1 after running git submodule update --init and force-unwrapping a bunch of optionals.

Interestingly, it appears to do everything BUT display web pages at this point! Looks very preliminary.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o5kmot2fg6i7wmx/Screenshot%202014-...

Re: Firefox for iOS on GitHub

#18

Post by Refefer »

micampe wrote: post #10
0x006A wrote: post #5

- How far away from a release is this? - Given that Apple does not allow other render engines. What makes this Firefox?

> What makes this Firefox? I think that's an interesting question. Is a browser defined by its rendering engine or by its features and UI? When Chrome used WebKit, it was clearly understood by everyone to be different from Safari, even though the rendering engine was the same (I know, the differences were big), but a Firefox browser that uses WebKit seems to not be considered Firefox. Personally, while I understand t…

It's a huge issue on mobile. Multiple rendering engines requiring the world to write software to a spec is what prevents people from writing code dependent on a particular browser or, in this case, a rendering engine. You see it all the time in the mobile web: plenty of sites just plain don't work when using other rendering engines.

Re: Firefox for iOS on GitHub

#19

Post by maxmcd »

micampe wrote: post #10
0x006A wrote: post #5

- How far away from a release is this? - Given that Apple does not allow other render engines. What makes this Firefox?

> What makes this Firefox? I think that's an interesting question. Is a browser defined by its rendering engine or by its features and UI? When Chrome used WebKit, it was clearly understood by everyone to be different from Safari, even though the rendering engine was the same (I know, the differences were big), but a Firefox browser that uses WebKit seems to not be considered Firefox. Personally, while I understand t…

I feel like whenever I read discussions about this on HN it's all about the JS engine.

Chrome was on webkit but used V8. And unless something has changed all non-safari browsers and webviews use an inferior JS engine.

Edit: (Something has changed, WKWebView now has the Nitro JS Engine, cool beans)

Re: Firefox for iOS on GitHub

#20

Post by bla2 »

It's a bit sad that Firefox is caving in and shipping a browser using WKWebView. The rationale is that by using WKWebView they now get Nitro, and they have to "go where the users are" -- but a few years ago, it was a lot less clear that Android would be more prevalent than iOS.

Also, iOS seems like a fairly hostile environment for 3rd-party browsers since it's not possible to change the system browser -- that's probably why mobile Safari has such a large usage share on iOS.

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