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Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#141

Post by JadeNB »

bigbugbag wrote: post #84
itg wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering how may people still have 8GB/16GB phones, I doubt it. On iOS sometimes you have to delete apps, especially ones that build up large caches like Facebook.

wow those people are lucky and high on consumerism, my phone had 2GB.

> wow those people are lucky and high on consumerism, my phone had 2GB.

How? Lollipop, the first Google hit for "Android OS size on phone" (https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/118896/how-much-...), seems to be about 5 GB. (Maybe you don't run Android, or maybe a very old version?)

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#143

Post by kristianp »

hprotagonist wrote: post #23

I installed Firefox Focus for iOS simply for its content blocker. I still prefer using mobile safari, but augmented with three content blockers: - Firefox Focus, which blocks all sorts of stuff - 1Blocker, which blocks all sorts of stuff - Unobstruct, which blocks Medium's "dickbar" popups.

I just looked up Unobstruct, and surprisingly the author's article about it is on Medium: https://medium.com/@tgaul/introducing-unobstruct-230e4e95cf5...

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#144

Post by denzil_correa »

Xoros wrote: post #114

How is this news ? I installed it weeks ago on my IPhone. I don't understand why Mozilla just announced it now. Maybe it's a new version. On the browser itself, I launched it, navigate on a URI, closed it, relaunched it, type the firsts characters of my previous URI and it auto completed it. From my history I guess. So it's not like incognito mode on other browsers. (Haven't retested again)

I've been using it since months now. Focus started as ad blocker and now it has a private browser too since a few months.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#145

Post by vfclists »

r00fus wrote: post #119
lol768 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, it uses Webkit? Huh

Required for iOS or Apple won't allow it on the store.

Why hasn't the EU charged Apple for abusing the monopoly position? Didn't they do that to Microsoft, or has Apple sweetened them up in some other way?

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#146

Post by lucideer »

kuschku wrote: post #25
jamesmishra wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm relatively uninformed here, but Google often requires Android app developers to bundle Google Play Services for various features like Chromecast[1]. It is possible that the Mozilla folks needed Google Play Services for some feature. [1]: https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/android_sender_setup

I'm a developer, and I've worked with this before, but the library included here has only the purpose of analytics, and is not required for anything else.

Google has recently been moving GCM over to FCM, since the Firebase acquisition, and FCM has a hard dependency on the analytics library for some reason (even if you're not availing of the service - perhaps as a veiled upsell attempt).

It seems very likely that Firefox would be making use of GCM/FCM - I think most major apps do - so this could be it.

Incidentally, this same topics is one of the main controversies around the development of the Signal chat client - it uses GCM, which a good few prospective users object to on similar grounds.

Unfortunately, unless you've rooted your phone, GCM/FCM is the only battery-efficient way to provide push to Android phones.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#147

Post by zaphirplane »

hammock wrote: post #142

The headline in this submission fails to deliver the primary message of the actual op, which is that Firefox focus is a lightweight mobile browser. That it blocks third-party tracking by default is secondary

Just an FYI, by default it phones home to Mozilla.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#148

Post by pavon »

bigbugbag wrote: post #88
cpeterso wrote: post #45

Since I started using Firefox Focus for one-off searches, I'm surprised at how infrequently I really need to be logged into any websites to complete my task. Nice that Focus simply clears all those trackers and search history when I close it.

I'm wondering why this is not a simple setting on firefox. Are they trying to collect data on how many people have interest in privacy or something ? (another comment pointed that Firefox focus tracks users and reports to mozilla)

That was my initial reaction too, but I think it makes sense.

Everyone has use for both full-featured browsing where you can stay logged in to frequent sites, retain history/bookmarks and such, as well as private browsing where you don't want any history kept. On the desktop the way the UI is currently setup, full-featured is the default and private is an extra step you have to take, and as such private is typically only used for special occasions.

Focus reverses this dynamic by making private browsing easier, faster, and more streamlined than full-featured browsing, so people will start making private browser the default for most quick web tasks, and just go to the slower the full-featured browser when they need it.

Having two different launcher icons for these two modes is more convenient for the user, and AFAIK it isn't possible for a single app to install multiple icons in iOS[1]. Besides, not everyone wants to use Firefox as their main mobile browser. So a separate app makes sense.

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10048541/multiple-icons-...

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#149

Post by zeep »

chairmanwow wrote: post #122
progval wrote: post #7

According to F-Droid [1], it contains `com.google.android.gms:play-services-analytics`. [1]: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/rfp/issues/171#note_30410376

I think I'm only surprised to see this comment and not that Firefox bundled analytics into their app. What's controversial about anonymized usage statistics in 2017?

Are you from Google or the NSA?

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#150

Post by kristianp »

notnarb wrote: post #115
api_or_ipa wrote: post #59

Why can Firefox build a browser with 16mb and yet every other app on my phone is 80+mb?

Because Firefox Focus isn't itself a browser, but rather a wrapper around Android and iOS's built in browsers. That is why the underlying engine in blink/webkit and not gecko. I am probably drastically simplifying things but the primary components of the app are just a content blocker and a preferences page.

I would guess that's only true on IOS, because apps are forced to use the operating system's webview?
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