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Firefox 68.0

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Re: Firefox 68.0

#211

Post by feanaro »

callahad wrote: post #167
wtallis wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why hasn't Mozilla put out a clear statement that Fennec is EOL'd and that the replacement definitely won't be pushed out until it's ready (including support for extensions)? It would go a long way with users if Mozilla could just clearly state that Firefox for Android will be skipping versions 69 through at least ~73 due to Fenix not being ready for public consumption. Stating that extension support is not part of t…

We did make a statement mostly to that effect on the dev-platform list back in April: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.platform... It got picked up by a handful of news outlets, but there's just a lot of news these days, so it's easy to miss things.

Honestly, it seems a bit weird to say that, on the one hand, you've made a statement to mostly that effect but then in another comment say that Mozilla can't commit to anything.

Plainly speaking, is it a possibility that Firefox on Android will lose extension support for some time in the future?

Re: Firefox 68.0

#212

Post by jraph »

aflag wrote: post #200
callahad wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi. I work for Mozilla. Firefox for Android is not dead. You are free to continue using it. It will continue to support add-ons, and it will receive regular security updates and bugfixes for at least the next year. We are focusing all new feature development in Firefox Preview, but we're continuing to support Firefox for Android as an Extended Support Release while we build Preview. And, for what it's worth, we do un…

That's a shame I used to quite like Firefox on my mobile. I guess this is back to Chrome soon then :(

What good would going back to Chrome do to you?

Re: Firefox 68.0

#213

Post by takeda »

palisade wrote: post #119
option_greek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole chromium project gives out the 'death star' vibe for me. I'm sure the engineers who are working on it are good people but the end result seem lead to destruction of open web as we know it by the Gempire.

You can actually grab non-google Chromium. This site keeps track of the latest stable and nightly builds and how to download them directly: https://chromium.woolyss.com/ You won't receive automatic updates, or be able to login to your google chrome account, etc. The theme is slightly different in color but it works exactly like normal Chrome. Chromium is the open source project that Chrome is based on, originally it…

What Chromium implements is still controlled by Google.

For example the recent controversy about restricting API for ad blockers will affect Chromium as well.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#214

Post by darkpuma »

callahad wrote: post #163
icebraining wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will Preview be guaranteed to support extensions before Firefox for Android goes EOL?

I can't make any specific commitment, but there's a lot of time between now and Firefox for Android going EOL (and we haven't committed to specific timing for that, either.) However, we do have concrete plans for supporting adblocking as a built-in feature in the near future ( https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/96 ), which should make Preview more palatable to folks who rely on add-ons for that, even if o…

Unfortunately any built-in adblocker is totally unacceptable to me (unless Mozilla has hired gorhill!)

Re: Firefox 68.0

#215

Post by callahad »

aflag wrote: post #201
callahad wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't make any specific commitment, but there's a lot of time between now and Firefox for Android going EOL (and we haven't committed to specific timing for that, either.) However, we do have concrete plans for supporting adblocking as a built-in feature in the near future ( https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/96 ), which should make Preview more palatable to folks who rely on add-ons for that, even if o…

But if Firefox 69 is not coming to Android it means it has already EOLed, doesn't it?

Not exactly. I understand "EOL" to mean that all support has ended. An EOL'd project is dead, and if anything breaks no one is going to fix it for you. That is not the case for Firefox for Android.

Instead, think of Firefox for Android as a Long-Term Support (LTS) release, like you might see with projects like Ubuntu, Node, or Django.

There are no new features coming to Firefox for Android, but we will keep the 68 branch alive and maintained to ensure that everything keeps working and is secure on Android. We will do this for at least another year, to give Firefox Preview more time to develop and mature.

On desktop, we do something similar with Firefox's Extended Support Release ("ESR") versions (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/). Every year, we pick a version of Firefox that we commit to supporting for a very long time. Last year, it was Firefox 60. So even though Firefox 68 is available, we're still backporting patches and fixing bugs in Firefox 60. This year, Firefox 68 is the ESR version, so we'll support until at least late next year.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#216

Post by redwards510 »

cmroanirgo wrote: post #199
cosmojg wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LineageOS[1] exists, and it may as well be a non-GNU mobile distribution of Linux with support for Android apps like Firefox. [1] https://lineageos.org/

I've given up on custom ROMs. There's always only an extremely limited set of devices that are supported, and those devices are EOL rather too quickly, forcing us to use custom builds from someone not directly affiliated with the project. To be clear, not one of the Android devices I've purchased have ever had official support. I'm using a Samsung a8 at the moment. I hope the custom rom community finds a better mecha…

Custom ROMs are rarely developed for Samsung devices these days because Samsung locks the bootloader and makes everything extremely difficult. Buy a device that is more developer-friendly like a Nexus, Pixel or OnePlus and you'll see a much larger selection of custom ROMs.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#217

Post by iamnotacrook »

callahad wrote: post #163
icebraining wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will Preview be guaranteed to support extensions before Firefox for Android goes EOL?

I can't make any specific commitment, but there's a lot of time between now and Firefox for Android going EOL (and we haven't committed to specific timing for that, either.) However, we do have concrete plans for supporting adblocking as a built-in feature in the near future ( https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/96 ), which should make Preview more palatable to folks who rely on add-ons for that, even if o…

I think you need to make it clear to your colleagues that you need to strongly reconsider any possibly that you EOL browser a before browser b supports plugins (specifically ublock origin and noscript) as a lot of your core users will simply not use a browser without them. They're not a "nice to have" - they're what they need to even consider using the browser. Otherwise they might as well be using chrome, or one of any number of other browsers.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#218

Post by iamnotacrook »

jraph wrote: post #212
aflag wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a shame I used to quite like Firefox on my mobile. I guess this is back to Chrome soon then :(

What good would going back to Chrome do to you?

If you can't have plugins on the browser (for Android) then you might as well use chrome (which is not planned for EOL and is faster and secure). My "grrr I hate google" tendencies are satisfied by not logging into any google stuff on chrome and using duckduckgo whilst on chrome. I accept that chrome is - privacy issues notwithstanding - faster and better (supported) than firefox, and I put up with firefox because of the addons, but without addons it's just a slower chrome.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#219

Post by Barrin92 »

callahad wrote: post #163
icebraining wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will Preview be guaranteed to support extensions before Firefox for Android goes EOL?

I can't make any specific commitment, but there's a lot of time between now and Firefox for Android going EOL (and we haven't committed to specific timing for that, either.) However, we do have concrete plans for supporting adblocking as a built-in feature in the near future ( https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/96 ), which should make Preview more palatable to folks who rely on add-ons for that, even if o…

>However, we do have concrete plans for supporting adblocking as a built-in feature in the near future

I use Firefox because I enjoy the freedom it grants users do modify it as they see fit. If the play here is to turn adblocking into a walled garden feature so you can monetize it either on the user or advertiser site I might as well go back to Chrome.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#220

Post by catacombs »

Ygg2 wrote: post #109
catacombs wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now they are going to kill extensions in Android FF, which will kill the only non-ideological reason my family is using it - for the adblocking extensions. I'm guess enough ad-based companies with deep pockets finally bullied Mozilla hard enough.

Looking at Mozilla IRC at the time, the reason wasn't bribery, but something way more basic. Did you ever support an old SOAP server made in '90, that had a lot of bugs, that was slow as hell made of molasses, and was vulnerable to several security exploits? Now imagine you have millions of users demanding, speed, security and those XML add-ons , I mean servers. Basically Mozilla decided to ditching the old system in…

> Looking at Mozilla IRC at the time, the reason wasn't bribery, but something way more basic.

I wasn't saying bribery. I'm talking about bullying through other means.

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