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

Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

blog.mozilla.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 251 posts

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#101

Post by mdaniel »

DistractionRect wrote: post #76
commoner wrote: post #59

This is progress, but Mozilla needs to do more. Firefox for Android still lacks the ability to sideload add-ons, a feature that works on the desktop version of Firefox. This means Android users aren't able to install extensions outside addons.mozilla.org (AMO) unless they switch to a Firefox alternative that supports it, such as Iceraven[1] or SmartCookieWeb-Preview.[2] For me, the most important add-on that has been…

AFAIK, it was available in nightly. You could curate your own add on list which you could then install on Firefox for Android Nightly, and I'm fairly certain you can still do that if you want something that isn't in this new, expanded list.

I can confirm that sideloading .xpi does not work in Nightly (at least the one from the Play store -- I've never worked up the energy to build the apk from source and don't feel like using the F-Droid because reasons)

I even tried creating my own collection to include Violentmonkey and it didn't work but I don't this second recall why

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#102

Post by troyvit »

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 about to be like, "Yah well is Kiwi a 'major' browser?" Then I looked at android browser share[1] and realized that Firefox certainly isn't either.

[1] https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/world...

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#104

Post by bloopernova »

dblohm7 wrote: post #23
emestifs wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Former Firefox dev for both desktop and Android here: I can definitely confirm that being constantly shit on wore me down a lot.

I am very thankful for Firefox. It keeps the web sane for me, and I very much appreciate everyone who contributed to it.

Thank you for your work!

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#105

Post by Ridj48dhsnsh »

troyvit wrote: post #102
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 about to be like, "Yah well is Kiwi a 'major' browser?" Then I looked at android browser share[1] and realized that Firefox certainly isn't either. [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/world...

How does Opera have 3-4x the market share of Firefox? Is it installed by default anywhere?

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#106

Post by akdor1154 »

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…

My crank unevidenced theory is that

1. they wanted an Apple-level of verified review process for AMO, because the Chrome store and even Android app store have problems with malicious content.

2. This costs money.

3. They didn't want to open a free for all because they didn't know exactly how to go about solving 2. yet, and if they introduced some payment system then it would be easier to do from a clean slate, without an AMO full of existing extensions to somehow grandfather through.

As said before, this is fully unfounded and probably unfair speculation. I like it more than the 'google conspiracy against adblockers' though because Mozilla's motivations in this case are quite reasonable and can be taken in good faith. Keeping credit card skimmers out of AMO at the cost of restricting access to 'Firefox Pro'/'AMO Pro'/author-pays would honestly be quite a good thing for Mozilla to consider imo.

In any case it's great to see them allowing things now!

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#107

Post by saagarjha »

jwells89 wrote: post #41
mod50ack wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It would be interesting to see how Mozilla approaches implementing Gecko on iOS, with how the engine stripped support for embedding years ago (prior to which they could’ve used an approach similar to that seen in Camino[0]). I guess they could take the approach of drawing the whole screen themselves but that’s going to make Gecko-based Firefox for iOS feel noticeably worse than the current WebKit/UIKit version in ter…

This would currently be against the App Store guidelines, which do not permit the use of a third party browser engine. Also, Firefox has ProMotion support.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#108

Post by Ridj48dhsnsh »

coldpie wrote: post #96
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> s*t on Firefox devs The nerd rage is targeted at Mozilla's dishonest and incompetent managers, no? The actual dev work is top notch.

> dishonest and incompetent managers Even if it is, that kind of language doesn't help. These are all people you're talking about, trying their best to do a job they care about. Nothing gets better by your being a jerk.

> trying their best to do a job they care about

I would not take that as a given for Mozilla's upper management. Many of their decisions seem to ignore what users want in deference to Google or other motivations.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#110

Post by wolverine876 »

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…

> The baffling thing is why this took so damn long.

I'm surprised it's baffling in a community of developers and other IT professionals.

It's not baffling to me that two significantly (wholly?) different applications on different platforms and form factors would require quite a bit of work to both be generally compatible with the same third-party software via the same API - and all while maintaining the same compatibility with another application, made by another company, completely outside Mozilla's control.

And it needs to work reliably enough to release to a world of developers - of every skill level, motivation, writing every kind of software (within the domain of browser add-ons) - with confidence that it will work for them and users.

And you need a way to maintain all that over the long term.

I'm impressed Mozilla!

Post reply on HN