151–160 of 220 posts
To this day Firefox for Android still does not have a tab bar on tablets. Which is double ridiculous since the previous two rewrites both did have one (in fact I contributed to the former...).
Yeah, but what's the tablet market for Android these days?
I've closely been following Mobile Firefox development over the past year - this browser is dead, like totally dead. Bug reports pile up, nothing is really fixed, a ton of commits about telemetry, some commits here and there changing certain UI elements, some refactoring, almost nothing else. Go check its revision history all you want: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/commits/main Mozilla has seemingly totally…
Kiwi Browser FTW https://kiwibrowser.com/
Fenix is basically a whole new browser, and that means that all features need to be implemented again (which takes a lot of time, and I don't think Firefox developers have much of it). Lots of Fennec features are still missing (view source code, save as pdf, install general addons, the whole about:config...). Why they changed is a mystery, maybe the old browser had a core privacy bug or something that couldn't be fix…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Also a former Mozilla developer, worked Fennec and Fenix) I think a more nuanced perspective here is that roughly 80% of the work was done, and the remaining 20% require significant effort and organizational energy. Not all of the WebExtension API surface is currently supported; there's a long tail of infrequently used extensions that require non-trivial engineering effort and often cross-team coordination to implem…
That's fair, I think in GV at the time we were more thinking about Fennec parity, so that's where my thoughts originate.
I think what's generally missing in these discussions is that the whole project to bring extensions into Fenix was extremely user-driven - whatever people actually use in any significant volume on Fennec, Fenix supports. And the actual UX of installing extensions is just so much more streamlined and nicer in Fenix.
If you purely look at it from the "most value for most users" perspective, Fenix extensions are a great success. And, it's also a success in purely engineering terms - code that's not bringing a lot of value but yet creates an overall maintenance drag is omitted.
What may have been missing from it is the ideological bit - for a platform to be truly open - and to be a viable platform!, it can't have a restricted "whitelist". And I agree with this. But it's not clear that "mobile-browser-as-a-developer-platform" is a sustainable long-term pitch for an organization as small and as resource constrained as Mozilla.
So, there's a tension between these two perspectives. In purely "rational" terms, what's there is good, and there are a ton of other much more pressing issues to work on for the small teams - bugs, performance, missing functionality that can actually "move a needle", etc.
You can make an argument that in this case, the rational, data-driven engineers won. Which is the opposite of what HN seems to think of Mozilla! What's probably needed for full webextension support is a strong, perhaps not purely rational leader that will rally folks and actually push the teams to do the work that may be useless, or useful to a tiny percentage of the user base, in a belief that it'll produce a better future. Which may or may not pan out!
I like using Firefox on Android because uBlock origin makes mobile browsing at least tolerable and it lets me use the "desktop mode" view on certain sites so e.g. I can listen to youtube playlists even if the phone is locked without paying for a premium service (for what I consider basic functionality). Surprised to hear literally the sole reason I use it on mobile is also neglected. Do they think they're going to ou…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use this ! When this was released I switch back from IceRaven to Firefox as I prefer a browser that receives timely updates.
then you could try fennec from f-droid, which enables custom extensions and about:config, but unlike iceraven is compiled from firefox stable release, so it is updated shortly after a new firefox stable release.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or you can just wait two sentences into their comment when they simply can't stop thenselves saying something about progressive politics. Which you really don't need to mention, and common sense suggests you shouldn't, when criticizing a bit of software or a charity foundation on unrelated matters. Unless of course that is the point.
One person who criticizes Mozilla mentioning politics is not a legitimate excuse for you to paint the entire class of people who complain about Mozilla with that brush. Ironically, doing so is vaguely fascist, in the sense that fascists love to spread the blame for individual crimes across entire classes of people they oppose. Incidentally, who's comment are you even talking about? I don't see any mention of politics…
EDIT: As an example, Firefox is discontinuing search keyword sync via bookmarks. Vivaldi just implemented syncing search engines via their sync service, across both desktop and mobile.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
More addons on mobile?
Chrome has any addons on mobile?
Most open source chromium forks on Android don't have add-ons though, so kiwi is the best option. I guess it's usually because those forks are usually very privacy centric so add-on support is far from a priority. Kiwi on the other hand is basically stock desktop chrome
Edit: apparently they don't outright collect user data!
>The browser is getting paid by search engines for every search done using Kiwi Browser.
>Depending on the search engine choice, requests may go via Kiwibrowser / Kiwisearchservices servers. This is for invoicing our search partners and provide alternative search results (e.g. bangs aka "shortcuts").
>In some countries, the browser displays sponsored tiles or news on the homepage.
>User data (browsing, navigation, passwords, accounts) is not collected because we have no interest to know what you do in the browser. Our main goal is to convince you to use a search engine partner, and this search engine makes money / new partnerships and shares revenue with us.
For a year now, I began using DuckDuckGo's (DDG) "Privacy Browser" on Android. By default it removes ads and third-party trackers; no need for add-ons. So far DDG's browser works roughly on par with my older setup of stock Android Firefox plus a couple of usual extensions. I wonder why DDG's Android browser isn't more well-known.
https://twitter.com/yegg/status/1528838579455250434
> For non-search tracker blocking (eg in our browser), we block most third-party trackers. Unfortunately our Microsoft search syndication agreement prevents us from doing more to Microsoft-owned properties. However, we have been continually pushing and expect to be doing more soon. > > We've been working tirelessly behind the scenes to change these requirements, though our syndication agreement also has a confidentially provision that prevents disclosing details. Again, we expect to have an update soon that will include more third-party Microsoft protection.