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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

#151

Post by Groxx »

dopa42365 wrote: post #138
wolverine876 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 compatib…

Firefox android extension support went from "all" to like "5 chosen ones, but we'll enable all of them very soon" in mid 2019. How and why those were handpicked, who knows, clearly extensions weren't enabled by supported functions at the time. In the usual mozilla fashion that "very soon" turned out to be multiple years.

Importantly, during this entire multi-year gap, nearly all of them worked just fine but it was gated behind an AMO account for... I don't know what reason.

If it was just an experience issue because like 5% failed weirdly or had bad performance but they couldn't validate them all: that's basically fine! Hide it behind an about:config flag! The AMO requirement was a privacy-invading piece of nonsense that had no business existing.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#152

Post by Groxx »

mike31fr wrote: post #129
Night_Thastus wrote: post #38

I'm so grateful that FF for Android exists with addon support. Using it with uBlock is the only way to make mobile not an awful experience for me.

Have you never heard of NextDNS?

DNS blocking has some nice qualities (simple! efficient! app agnostic!) but it is absolutely not a replacement for something that can inspect and modify the page itself. That has TONS of additional usecases beyond "replace ad image with blank space".

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#153

Post by mdaniel »

commoner wrote: post #149
mdaniel wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Give it another try. The current version of Nightly (v122.0a1) from the Play Store has functional sideloading for me after I unlock the "secret menu" in the settings by going to "About Nightly" and tapping the Nightly icon several times. Before Bypass Paywalls Clean (D) existed, I was able to install Violentmonkey on Firefox for Android through the add-on collections workaround to use the Bypass Paywalls Clean usersc…

> Give it another try. The current version of Nightly (v122.0a1) from the Play Store has functional sideloading for me after I unlock the "secret menu" in the settings by going to "About Nightly" and tapping the Nightly icon several times.

uh-huh

> You need to enable desktop mode when assembling the add-on collection (or do it from a computer) for Violentmonkey to show up as an option in the search.

And people say "Firefox not popular, why?"

what a tire fire, for no damn good reason

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#155

Post by Zak »

dblohm7 wrote: post #136
Zak wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on the product management motivations? It seems to me projects like Iceraven demonstrated years ago that a great many extensions were usable without any changes. Why not just slap a "here there be dragons" warning on untested extensions and let users have at it? To be clear, I'm not asking you to justify decisions you didn't make, just to provide some visibility into the process if you can. Mozilla…

> Why not just slap a "here there be dragons" warning on untested extensions and let users have at it? We essentially had that as part of pre-release builds. Same with about:config. The argument we'd then hear from people is, "but I want the stable channel with the 'here be dragons'" stuff. The reality is, though, that the "here be dragons" stuff probably affects stability more than running beta does anyway; people w…

My follow-up question then is why treat mobile significantly differently from desktop? Stable desktop Firefox has about:config and access to horribly broken extensions. Perhaps some would argue that it should not.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#156

Post by mook »

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…

I thought Firefox on Android already did something similar to embedding, via GeckoView? The issue with embedding seemed to be that Mozilla really hated having complaints that their APIs were very unstable and kept breaking. In contrast, the IE embedding solid APIs were more stable (because they were also more limited, as I understand it).

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#157

Post by commoner »

mdaniel wrote: post #153
commoner wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give it another try. The current version of Nightly (v122.0a1) from the Play Store has functional sideloading for me after I unlock the "secret menu" in the settings by going to "About Nightly" and tapping the Nightly icon several times. Before Bypass Paywalls Clean (D) existed, I was able to install Violentmonkey on Firefox for Android through the add-on collections workaround to use the Bypass Paywalls Clean usersc…

> Give it another try. The current version of Nightly (v122.0a1) from the Play Store has functional sideloading for me after I unlock the "secret menu" in the settings by going to "About Nightly" and tapping the Nightly icon several times. uh-huh > You need to enable desktop mode when assembling the add-on collection (or do it from a computer) for Violentmonkey to show up as an option in the search. And people say "F…

I completely agree, Mozilla has made a ton of mistakes with Firefox for Android in the last few years. That's why I'm happy to see Mozilla finally follow through with their promise to expand add-ons for Android and pleasantly surprised that sideloading is about to be enabled in the stable channel of Firefox for Android.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#158

Post by dredmorbius »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #38

I'm so grateful that FF for Android exists with addon support. Using it with uBlock is the only way to make mobile not an awful experience for me.

There are other mobile browsers which incorporate adblocking directly (though not extensions generally).

The Einkbro browser, optimised for e-ink devices (as the name suggests) is one. I believe Brave does as well.

As much as I'm a fan of Firefox (using it now on desktop), on my mobile e-ink device, Einkbro's optimisations make for a vastly superior browsing experience.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#159

Post by sgift »

Zak wrote: post #155
dblohm7 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not just slap a "here there be dragons" warning on untested extensions and let users have at it? We essentially had that as part of pre-release builds. Same with about:config. The argument we'd then hear from people is, "but I want the stable channel with the 'here be dragons'" stuff. The reality is, though, that the "here be dragons" stuff probably affects stability more than running beta does anyway; people w…

My follow-up question then is why treat mobile significantly differently from desktop? Stable desktop Firefox has about:config and access to horribly broken extensions. Perhaps some would argue that it should not.

I cannot speak for Mozilla, but just from my gut feeling: That probably got grandfathered in and since people are used to it for a "long time" no one would change it. But if Firefox was rereleased today I wouldn't bet on it being there. Expectations have changed.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#160

Post by mook »

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...

I wonder if there's a large overlap of people using Firefox on Android and people blocking StatCounter. I thought I'd look up Mozilla's public telemetry stats to see if they have any addon info, but I couldn't find anything about Android at telemetry.mozilla.org without a login…
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