Live data from Hacker News

Firefox 68.0

mozilla.org

241–250 of 282 posts

Re: Firefox 68.0

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, no. I don't want to use a browser that is developed by an advertising company ... on an operating system developed by the exact same advertising company?

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/

The "Linux" kernel even in something like LineageOS is heavily forked and in practically every case relies on userspace binary blobs for critically-important functionality. It's a far cry from what you can run on PC's, although postmarketOS is moving towards that goal. BTW it's not like Android itself is to blame for this, since other varieties of embedded Linux (by and large) are the same deal; the buck stops with SoC- and embedded-hardware manufacturers.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#242

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…

If the "non-google" part is important to you, you'll probably want Ungoogled-Chromium or Iridium.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, we do have concrete plans for supporting adblocking as a built-in feature in the near future reading this almost makes me cry because that is the same bullshit google is telling us with chrome. Firefox is not supposed to block ads! Firefox only has to provide an interface for addons so they can do whatever(!!!) they want (for example blocking ads or installing malware on your system). Please don't sacrific…

Most users will only use an ad blocker that is built-in. You should consider how elitist it is to confine ad blockers to users who know and trust certain extensions vetted by their community, but not the remaining extensions which have been a minefield. Having a built-in ad blocker doesn't hinder an app from also accepting extensions which block ads.

Not wanting my workflow broken and replaced with inferior software is "elitist"? I don't think so. I hope your attitude isn't prevalent inside of Mozilla. You can say that breaking existing extensions isn't necessary, yet that's exactly what has already happened once and seems like it will happen again.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#244
Look like there is a concerted effort between Mozilla and google to remove efficient adblocker (mainly ublock) from their browser.

How to resist that sweet money coming from ads networks ?

Re: Firefox 68.0

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what UserChrome.css is for.

I don't know why this guy was downvoted, he's correct. I even have a pretty decent UserChrome.css to better integrate Tree Style Tab, https://www.reddit.com/r/FirefoxCSS/comments/ao3ydl/configur...

Because it's trash UX to ask users to find and modify their userchrome.css when they should be able to simply install the extension and have it work.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#246

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…

To be honest that is one of the most Fortune 500 style responses I have ever read coming out of someone involved in Mozilla. I mean what does 'we are taking that into account in our planning." actually mean?

I was about to say that this was one of the most Mozilla-style responses I've read in a while. But I agree with you too. What a sad state of affairs for an organization I once trusted.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#247
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware of a current model phone that is officially supported by lineageos?

lineage always supports google devices (pixel)

The Nexus 5X isn't supported (yet?) by the latest version of LineageOS (16).

Re: Firefox 68.0

#248
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock Origin is the only reason I use Firefox on Android. Mozilla broke extensions on desktop Firefox before and lost many users. Can't help but wonder what the hell are their product managers thinking? How can I recommend Firefox if they keep breaking it with little regard for users? Is there another browser that supports uBlock Origin for Android? I'm not talking about biased half baked built-in ad blockers, I wan…

I was skeptical of the move to Firefox Quantum originally because of the extension-breaking, but after it happened, I can see the motivation: after upgrading, Firefox got a lot faster and less prone to memory leaks for me, at least on macOS. As I understand it, the performance improvements in the new Quantum engine were incompatible with the way the old extension API worked, so a new one needed to be introduced. To m…

I don't think anyone denies the performance improvements and other advantages of the Quantum project. The claim is that the transition wasn't handled well, as replacement APIs for the deprecated addon system weren't in place until several releases after Quantum debuted, and several of the more deep-reaching abilities addons had were deprecated completely. This broke many people's workflows, destroying trust.

This also happened a short time after Mozilla previously broke addons with the e10s changes, requiring many (most?) of them to be rewritten.

Basically, people don't trust Mozilla to handle transitions well any more, even when they happen to be worthwhile transitions.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've made no commitment to extensions, but clearly are targeting this new replacement browser for version 69 in a few months. What they haven't done is given a clear statement. Nothing about if their replacement is going to drop extension support. But every response from Mozilla has been a sidestep and that I cannot overlook.

> clearly are targeting this new replacement browser for version 69 in a few months. That is incorrect, and stems from a misunderstanding of our release model. > What they haven't done is given a clear statement. The clearest statement is this dev-platform post from April, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.platform... , which includes a link to a much more detailed project planning document. > Nothi…

>> Nothing about if their replacement is going to drop extension support.

>That's because we are not yet ready to make public commitments. Honest.

Surely you can understand how this isn't good enough for most addon users, right? You've already announced Firefox for Android is going to be deprecated. And you're "not ready to make public commitments" about whether the replacement is going to support extensions?? That's obviously not acceptable to addon users.

If Mozilla's policy is that they simply don't care what users think, then whatever, it doesn't matter what's acceptable to addon users. I'm writing this under the presumption that at least someone in the Mozilla org does care about this.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#250
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 br…

One year is a very short time. The fact is that we can't rely on having support to all our add-ons and browser experience in the near future (next 2-3 years) means we have to start thinking about what to switch to. Also, I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending firefox anymore for that same reason. When the time comes to decide whether to switch to fenix or chrome, fenix will need to really impress. It's a bold move…

Avoiding AMP is a stance I wish Firefox could add a built-in, enabled-by-default toggle feature.
Post reply on HN