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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

#241

Post by MaxBarraclough »

coldpie wrote: post #96
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> s*t on Firefox devs The nerd rage is targeted at Mozilla's dishonest and incompetent managers, no? The actual dev work is top notch.

> dishonest and incompetent managers Even if it is, that kind of language doesn't help. These are all people you're talking about, trying their best to do a job they care about. Nothing gets better by your being a jerk.

There's a difference between criticism and harassment. Dishonest and incompetent aren't just mean words chosen at random, I used them for a reason.

Power users aren't happy that Firefox has been doing nothing but trailing Chrome for years, actively making the browser worse for power users by weakening extensions, baking ads into the browser, wilfully refusing to permit opt-out of telemetry, and lying about revenue-sharing with Pocket. [0][1][2][3][4][5][6]

Mozilla gave its CEO a raise of over $1m/year, from a starting point that was already over $1m/year, at a time when Firefox was losing usage share, while laying off engineers. Mozilla did all this while congratulating itself for putting people before profits! [7][8][9][10]

I still use Firefox as my primary desktop browser, and I really want to like Mozilla, but here we are.

(As an aside, I see Pocket is finally going to be made Free and Open Source Software, which is good news. [11])

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36841567

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24144137

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23391659

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14754740

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22616740

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10680925

[6] https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/17/mozilla-looks-to-its-next-...

[7] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24569464

[8] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30723971

[9] https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html

[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker#Negative_salary...

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_(service)

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#242

Post by yoavm »

account42 wrote: post #201
yoavm wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

curious, what do you want to do with about:config on FF for Android?

Disabling telemetry for one. Not that this should be enabled in the first place.

You don't need about:config to disable that, you can do it from the regular settings screen.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#243

Post by mardifoufs »

ajayyy wrote: post #53
xnx wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they've often fell far behind the upstream Chromium codebase I don't pay consistent attention, but these are the version numbers I currently see: Kiwi: 120.0.6099.26 Chrome: 120.0.6099.110

Kiwi has historically faked the version number to prevent websites from telling you to update your browser. I would assume that number is not legitimate.

You're wrong. You can check the latest builds on the GitHub, it's not a secret.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#244

Post by neop1x »

antman wrote: post #210
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…

Use kiwi, is Chrome based and has full extension support

... and even Developer tools. I have been using it as my daily driver since the Firefox mobile dropped extensions and about:config years ago

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#245

Post by neop1x »

coldpie wrote: post #218
worik wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I advise stopping the use of iOS

Find me a decent Android phone with a screen around 5" and I will!

Xperia 5 is a bit bigger but still managable IMO.

I suggest using https://www.kimovil.com/ to compare smartphones. Using it I was able to find smaller phones with long battery life which were my two main requirements.

I wouldn't use an iPhone again. My last iPhone was an iPhone 4S. Not missing anything.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#247

Post by SheinhardtWigCo »

pcwalton wrote: post #235
SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that Google has some secret underhanded deal with Mozilla to sabotage Firefox comes up here repeatedly and makes no sense. That idea is supported by recent disclosures revealing that Google paid or attempted to pay Activision, Aniplex, Bandai Namco, Bethesda, Blizzard, Com2uS, EA, King, Mixl, Niantic, NCSoft, NetMarble, NetEase, Nexon, Nintendo, Pearl Abyss, The Pokemon Company, Riot, Square Enix, Supercel…

From a skim, "Project Hug" seems like it was a deal to keep games in the Play Store. That is a far cry from some kind of weird deal to sabotage a competitor's product.

Keep games exclusive to the Play Store = block/sabotage Play Store competitors

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#249

Post by account42 »

yoavm wrote: post #242
account42 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disabling telemetry for one. Not that this should be enabled in the first place.

You don't need about:config to disable that, you can do it from the regular settings screen.

Not all of it and not in a way that has a chance of staying disabled when they add new ways to exfiltrate data.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#250

Post by Zak »

dblohm7 wrote: post #231
Zak wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It comes down to the high-level architecture of Gecko. Gecko is not just a web engine; it is in many ways an entire application framework. Gecko inverts control such that it implements the entire main event loop of the application. Desktop Firefox is essentially one big privileged HTML+JS application that happens to embed a non-privileged browser iframe within it. about:config governs settings around everything in th…

Thanks for the more technical explanation. Explanations for restricting about:config I've come across before didn't make it clear that Firefox for Android is a substantially different design from Firefox for desktop that's easier to break in that way.
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