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Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#11

Post by emestifs »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #7

We've had lots of news about this coming for months, but with Mozilla's quite low market share, and the share of those users that use extensions - who's really caring about this other than some power users?

The Firefox paradox:

People b***h about Firefox's (lack of) market share, Mozilla doing stupid things (fair criticism), Firefox not having X (extension support on Mobile, moving from legacy extensions to standard manifest format)

Then people will still bring up this baggage even when something good happens, will refuse to move away from the browser monoculture/monopoly, s**t on Firefox devs

FFS, something good happened. No other browser has this. Yet people will find a way to lessen it. For what? What benefit?

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#12

Post by squidbeak »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #7

We've had lots of news about this coming for months, but with Mozilla's quite low market share, and the share of those users that use extensions - who's really caring about this other than some power users?

Those who care about competition among browser engines. Share is more likely to stay low if potential new users can't find the extensions they need.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#13

Post by mod50ack »

firebot wrote: post #5

> where we’re the only major Android browser to support an open extension ecosystem Uhm, Kiwi browser is Chrome-based and supports Chrome-extensions on Android and has for years. It's pretty great.

While I respect Kiwi for implementing extension support, they've often fell far behind the upstream Chromium codebase and they're significantly smaller than even Firefox for Android. So I don't think they'd really be a "major" Android browser.

Then again, Firefox could easily be said to not be a major Android browser either!

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#14

Post by mod50ack »

temp0826 wrote: post #10
ivanjermakov wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's still against Apple's TOS, stating that every web browser must be based on WebKit.

Why can Kagi's Orion browser support extensions on iOS? I recently switched from Firefox because lack of uBO caused huge beef for me and have zero regrets. I'm not paying for Kagi's search service (happy enough with DDG for the majority of my searches), but I can really appreciate their business model and mission (they seem genuine afaict).

Orion is built on webkit, both on desktop and mobile. It's possible to build WebExt support into a WebKit browser, as they've done.

While I definitely prefer FF and Android, I can support the notion of Mozilla integrating extension support into WebKit on their iOS version of FF. But it would take a lot of effort to do that, and Firefox for iOS is ultimately just totally separate from any other Firefox (whereas Android and Desktop Firefox share the same innards).

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#15

Post by xnx »

firebot wrote: post #5

> where we’re the only major Android browser to support an open extension ecosystem Uhm, Kiwi browser is Chrome-based and supports Chrome-extensions on Android and has for years. It's pretty great.

I was a longtime Firefox on Android user until the extension situation got increasingly fragile and complicated. I've been very happy since switching to Kiwi. It's faster, more frequently updated, and supports all the extensions I want. Highly recommended.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#17

Post by gruez »

mod50ack wrote: post #9

This is good. Now, all extensions marked by the developer as being compatible with Android are shown on AMO. (If you toggle to Desktop mode, you can actually install any other extension on AMO, too.) The baffling thing is why this took so damn long. FF for Android supported add-ons from the beginning. That's the best thing about Firefox for Android! They decided to rewrite the UI in 2020, and there were fair reasons…

AFAIK it was because firefox for android was on a slightly different codebase than desktop firefox, and thus had supported a different set of webextension apis. The user contexts api (container tabs) was missing entirely, for instance.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#18

Post by [deleted] »

xnx wrote: post #15
firebot wrote: post #5

> where we’re the only major Android browser to support an open extension ecosystem Uhm, Kiwi browser is Chrome-based and supports Chrome-extensions on Android and has for years. It's pretty great.

I was a longtime Firefox on Android user until the extension situation got increasingly fragile and complicated. I've been very happy since switching to Kiwi. It's faster, more frequently updated, and supports all the extensions I want. Highly recommended.

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#19

Post by dmix »

emestifs wrote: post #11
ChrisArchitect wrote: post #7

We've had lots of news about this coming for months, but with Mozilla's quite low market share, and the share of those users that use extensions - who's really caring about this other than some power users?

The Firefox paradox: People b***h about Firefox's (lack of) market share, Mozilla doing stupid things (fair criticism), Firefox not having X (extension support on Mobile, moving from legacy extensions to standard manifest format) Then people will still bring up this baggage even when something good happens, will refuse to move away from the browser monoculture/monopoly, s**t on Firefox devs FFS, something good happen…

"Why even try"

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#20

Post by tiltowait »

mod50ack wrote: post #14
temp0826 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can Kagi's Orion browser support extensions on iOS? I recently switched from Firefox because lack of uBO caused huge beef for me and have zero regrets. I'm not paying for Kagi's search service (happy enough with DDG for the majority of my searches), but I can really appreciate their business model and mission (they seem genuine afaict).

Orion is built on webkit, both on desktop and mobile. It's possible to build WebExt support into a WebKit browser, as they've done. While I definitely prefer FF and Android, I can support the notion of Mozilla integrating extension support into WebKit on their iOS version of FF. But it would take a lot of effort to do that, and Firefox for iOS is ultimately just totally separate from any other Firefox (whereas Androi…

Orion on desktop supports Firefox extensions, so is integration possible? (Not all are compatible.)
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