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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

#21

Post by dblohm7 »

gruez wrote: post #17
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…

AFAIK it was because firefox for android was on a slightly different codebase than desktop firefox, and thus had supported a different set of webextension apis. The user contexts api (container tabs) was missing entirely, for instance.

(I used to work on this stuff)

It was more complicated than that. Yes, GeckoView needed a separate WebExtension implementation, but that work was pretty much at parity with Fennec (the previous Firefox for Android that supported more extensions) when I left in 2021.

It was a product management decision that held off on more complete WebExtension parity with desktop, as well as any artificial limits as to which extensions were supported in release.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#22

Post by gruez »

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.

According to their github repo, it was last rebased with chromium version 105.0.5195.24, which was from August 2022. Using a 15 month old browser seems hilariously insecure.

https://github.com/kiwibrowser/src.next

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#23

Post by dblohm7 »

emestifs wrote: post #11
ChrisArchitect wrote: post #7

We've had lots of news about this coming for months, but with Mozilla's quite low market share, and the share of those users that use extensions - who's really caring about this other than some power users?

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.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#24

Post by [deleted] »

xnx wrote: post #15
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 a longtime Firefox on Android user until the extension situation got increasingly fragile and complicated. I've been very happy since switching to Kiwi. It's faster, more frequently updated, and supports all the extensions I want. Highly recommended.

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#25

Post by emestifs »

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.

Thank you and everyone else working on the Firefox browser and adjacent projects for your hard work. Don't let the noise of the internet lessen what you and the team have done and continue to do.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#26

Post by temp0826 »

mod50ack wrote: post #14
temp0826 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can Kagi's Orion browser support extensions on iOS? I recently switched from Firefox because lack of uBO caused huge beef for me and have zero regrets. I'm not paying for Kagi's search service (happy enough with DDG for the majority of my searches), but I can really appreciate their business model and mission (they seem genuine afaict).

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…

Interesting, I always thought the holdup was that third party things used in-app were expressly forbidden because they're not vetted by the app store onboarding process (in addition to the requirement of using webkit). Didn't occur to me that webkit could be extended to support webext either.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#27

Post by davidy123 »

gruez wrote: post #22
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.

According to their github repo, it was last rebased with chromium version 105.0.5195.24, which was from August 2022. Using a 15 month old browser seems hilariously insecure. https://github.com/kiwibrowser/src.next

I use Kiwi, I take the risk for the ability to run my own extensions (though I use a two-fisted approach where I use Chrome for deep accounts). It's a shame it's not updated more often, it's an open source project I would support.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#28

Post by Zak »

dblohm7 wrote: post #21
gruez wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK it was because firefox for android was on a slightly different codebase than desktop firefox, and thus had supported a different set of webextension apis. The user contexts api (container tabs) was missing entirely, for instance.

(I used to work on this stuff) It was more complicated than that. Yes, GeckoView needed a separate WebExtension implementation, but that work was pretty much at parity with Fennec (the previous Firefox for Android that supported more extensions) when I left in 2021. It was a product management decision that held off on more complete WebExtension parity with desktop, as well as any artificial limits as to which extens…

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 was pretty opaque about it.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#29

Post by bad_user »

You could get extensions working on FF for Android, for some time now, by setting a custom collection ID, allowed in the Beta version.

The problem is that many extensions have been incompatible with Android. And of those compatible, many have poor UX. For example, LeechBlock has been compatible and listed as available for some time, but its settings page isn't mobile-friendly. And LeechBlock can't restore settings from “sync storage”, you have to load them from a local file (on mobile, having local files is a challenge in itself). Many people may have a bad experience.

On the other hand, extensions are the primary reason to use Firefox on Android. Therefore, I'm glad about this news.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#30

Post by wharvle »

temp0826 wrote: post #26
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…

Interesting, I always thought the holdup was that third party things used in-app were expressly forbidden because they're not vetted by the app store onboarding process (in addition to the requirement of using webkit). Didn't occur to me that webkit could be extended to support webext either.

There's long been a grey area for downloading new program logic as e.g. Javascript—the distinction between content and program can be rather fuzzy—and IIRC they made an explicit exception years back for certain categories.
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