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Firefox 68.0

mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox 68.0

#101

Post by coldpie »

iamnotacrook wrote: post #94
hu3 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock Origin is the only reason I use Firefox on Android. Mozilla broke extensions on desktop Firefox before and lost many users. Can't help but wonder what the hell are their product managers thinking? How can I recommend Firefox if they keep breaking it with little regard for users? Is there another browser that supports uBlock Origin for Android? I'm not talking about biased half baked built-in ad blockers, I wan…

Did they "break" - ie some bug caused a problem - or did they change the framework add-ons used after giving months of notice? Most users use no add-ons, and wouldn't notice the change, and many of those who do were aware of this ahead of time even if the add-on developers were slow to wake up to the reality.

> Did they "break" - ie some bug caused a problem - or did they change the framework add-ons used after giving months of notice?

It's not clear what you're asking. Mozilla changed the add-on API, and the new API does not have all the features that the old API had. Two add-ons that I liked very much died during the switch.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#102

Post by Paul-ish »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #47

This marks the last Android release with extensions/add-on support. There will not be a 69 release of this edition of Firefox for Android ("Fennec"). The new remake of the mobile browser ("Fenix") does not have extensions support and it is on an indefinite and easily ignorable backlog. It is explicitly not being worked on this quarter. At the end of this quarter is the scheduled release of Firefox 69. Unless there's…

Is there any reason to believe Mozilla wont just leave the android version at 68 with addon support until Fenix gets add-on support?

Re: Firefox 68.0

#103

Post by ProAm »

swinglock wrote: post #91
StavrosK wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? Extensions are the biggest reason I'm using Firefox on my mobile and the only way I got people to switch to it. How can they just be removing them for any period of time?

Extensions is the ONLY reason to use Firefox on Android. It's not good browser compared to Chrome on slower Android phones, apart from being customizable. To me it's even the single biggest reason to use Android over iOS as there's no full featured browser on iOS.

Give Kiwi Browser a shot on Android. It's a fork of Chrome with all the google tracking removed and fully supports Chrome Add-ons. I love it and it's fast (I was a long time Firefox on Android user but it just got to slow to use).

Re: Firefox 68.0

#104

Post by catacombs »

mswift42 wrote: post #88

There are two things keeping me using Chrome. 1) Videostreams are way smoother using Chrome, at least on Linux. 2) I've enabled Emacs Input in Gnome. When I enter something in the address bar, both Firefox and Chrome show suggestions for websites below. In Chrome I can type Ctrl+n / Ctrl+p to navigate between the suggestions, because it respects my keyboard schema. In Firefox this opens new browser windows :( and I'v…

Are you using Emacs as a window manager?

Re: Firefox 68.0

#105

Post by coldpie »

swinglock wrote: post #91
StavrosK wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? Extensions are the biggest reason I'm using Firefox on my mobile and the only way I got people to switch to it. How can they just be removing them for any period of time?

Extensions is the ONLY reason to use Firefox on Android. It's not good browser compared to Chrome on slower Android phones, apart from being customizable. To me it's even the single biggest reason to use Android over iOS as there's no full featured browser on iOS.

> Extensions is the ONLY reason to use Firefox on Android.

Well, no. I don't want to use a browser that is developed by an advertising company, and I want to encourage the development of more than one web rendering engine. But yes, killing extensions would be a major regression in Firefox's usability.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#106

Post by Causality1 »

johnbrodie wrote: post #86
kevin_b_er wrote: post #47

This marks the last Android release with extensions/add-on support. There will not be a 69 release of this edition of Firefox for Android ("Fennec"). The new remake of the mobile browser ("Fenix") does not have extensions support and it is on an indefinite and easily ignorable backlog. It is explicitly not being worked on this quarter. At the end of this quarter is the scheduled release of Firefox 69. Unless there's…

I don't understand Mozilla's position regarding extensions. First, they released a new desktop version with way less extension support, gimping the largest reason I use FF for - vimperator and it's successors. Now they are going to kill extensions in Android FF, which will kill the only non-ideological reason my family is using it - for the adblocking extensions.

To me the writing has been on the wall ever since the community said "Hey these webextensions can't do nearly as many things as the old ones" and Mozilla's response to that was "Go fuck yourselves."

So now I have to do what I do on my desktop: Chromium for casual browsing and an old non-crippled version of Firefox for getting things done. Thankfully I only buy phones I can root and block ads system-wide.

From Firefox's dropping extension support to Windows' removal of granular update controls the tech industry's inexorable slide away from user control makes me want to cry tears of impotent rage.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#107

Post by dmm »

johnbrodie wrote: post #86
kevin_b_er wrote: post #47

This marks the last Android release with extensions/add-on support. There will not be a 69 release of this edition of Firefox for Android ("Fennec"). The new remake of the mobile browser ("Fenix") does not have extensions support and it is on an indefinite and easily ignorable backlog. It is explicitly not being worked on this quarter. At the end of this quarter is the scheduled release of Firefox 69. Unless there's…

I don't understand Mozilla's position regarding extensions. First, they released a new desktop version with way less extension support, gimping the largest reason I use FF for - vimperator and it's successors. Now they are going to kill extensions in Android FF, which will kill the only non-ideological reason my family is using it - for the adblocking extensions.

> First, they released a new desktop version with way less extension support,

Switching the webextensions was necessary to continue improving browser performance. It's my perception that they tried to accommodate extension authors with new apis to allow as many extensions as possible to be ported.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#108

Post by mswift42 »

catacombs wrote: post #104
mswift42 wrote: post #88

There are two things keeping me using Chrome. 1) Videostreams are way smoother using Chrome, at least on Linux. 2) I've enabled Emacs Input in Gnome. When I enter something in the address bar, both Firefox and Chrome show suggestions for websites below. In Chrome I can type Ctrl+n / Ctrl+p to navigate between the suggestions, because it respects my keyboard schema. In Firefox this opens new browser windows :( and I'v…

Are you using Emacs as a window manager?

No, I'm using gnome-shell which uses mutter as wm.

But using gnome tweaks you can enable Emacs Input, which if you are used to emacs key bindings, is really handy navigating in gnome-terminal or, as mentioned web browser address bars.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#109

Post by Ygg2 »

catacombs wrote: post #96
johnbrodie wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand Mozilla's position regarding extensions. First, they released a new desktop version with way less extension support, gimping the largest reason I use FF for - vimperator and it's successors. Now they are going to kill extensions in Android FF, which will kill the only non-ideological reason my family is using it - for the adblocking extensions.

> Now they are going to kill extensions in Android FF, which will kill the only non-ideological reason my family is using it - for the adblocking extensions. I'm guess enough ad-based companies with deep pockets finally bullied Mozilla hard enough.

Looking at Mozilla IRC at the time, the reason wasn't bribery, but something way more basic.

Did you ever support an old SOAP server made in '90, that had a lot of bugs, that was slow as hell made of molasses, and was vulnerable to several security exploits?

Now imagine you have millions of users demanding, speed, security and those XML add-ons , I mean servers.

Basically Mozilla decided to ditching the old system in favor of the newer one, was the best choice at the time.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#110

Post by JadeNB »

iamnotacrook wrote: post #94
hu3 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock Origin is the only reason I use Firefox on Android. Mozilla broke extensions on desktop Firefox before and lost many users. Can't help but wonder what the hell are their product managers thinking? How can I recommend Firefox if they keep breaking it with little regard for users? Is there another browser that supports uBlock Origin for Android? I'm not talking about biased half baked built-in ad blockers, I wan…

Did they "break" - ie some bug caused a problem - or did they change the framework add-ons used after giving months of notice? Most users use no add-ons, and wouldn't notice the change, and many of those who do were aware of this ahead of time even if the add-on developers were slow to wake up to the reality.

> Most users use no add-ons

Do you have the data for this? I know I live in a techie bubble, but it sure doesn't fit with my experience or the experiences of others I know who talk about it.

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