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Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release

#301

Post by dralley »

probably_wrong wrote: post #176
asu_thomas wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

I believe that the Mozilla execs have no faith in Firefox and instead are using whatever branding remains to position themselves as champions of digital rights. And I mean sure, it's not a bad goal, but they are letting Firefox die in the process. And once you lost your place at the standards negotiating table, then what? They already capitulated when Google decided that browsers needed DRM, and I don't see them stop…

I'm just going to copy/paste my comment from the other day, because this thread is a perfect example.

HN loves to simultaneously criticize Mozilla for

1) being financially dependent on Google

2) spending resources on literally anything except Firefox

3) doing anything that smells like monetizing Firefox, no matter how innocuous

Spoiler alert: They have essentially no hope of avoiding 1 without doing at least a little bit of 2 or 3. Unlike Google, Apple, and Microsoft, they don't have billions of dollars coming through the backdoor from other business units. The money can't just magically appear, so either they make it from Google, from Firefox, or from alternative services.

Re: Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release

#302

Post by KingOfCoders »

godelski wrote: post #58

There's a lot of hate any Firefox and the "blessed apps." But come on, chrome and Safari don't sorry add-ons at all! I know there are other apps that support add-ons but the fact is that Firefox is __the only__ "mainstream" browser that does this (quotes because it's 0.25% in the US, as the 4th most popular, behind Samsung fucking Internet). It's popular to hate on Firefox, but this is the nerdiest of nerd issues and…

With Web DRM this is over. Firefox dropped the ball and would only be useful with a high market share. As soon as there is Web DRM in most major sites, Google controls what browser is allowed to view a website and Firefox is out, Chrome will drop ad blockers. This is the long con.

(~30y Mosaic/Netscape/FF user)

Re: Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release

#303

Post by wildrhythms »

lapcat wrote: post #207
the_gipsy wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AdBlock does not, so which one does?

Well... my own Safari extension Tweaks for Twitter does, but I recently discontinued it because I got sick of Twitter's shenanigans such as the strict usage limits, and I have no interest in supporting X, the so-called "everything app". There may be other extensions, I don't know. In any case, the technical capability of the API is there.

[flagged]

Re: Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release

#304

Post by KingOfCoders »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #216
godelski wrote: post #58

There's a lot of hate any Firefox and the "blessed apps." But come on, chrome and Safari don't sorry add-ons at all! I know there are other apps that support add-ons but the fact is that Firefox is __the only__ "mainstream" browser that does this (quotes because it's 0.25% in the US, as the 4th most popular, behind Samsung fucking Internet). It's popular to hate on Firefox, but this is the nerdiest of nerd issues and…

I see people hating on Mozilla, not Firefox. They absolutely deserve it too. They got one billion dollars and they're reducing software development spending to focus on agenda pushing instead. One would think they'd try to fix the web by making Firefox the dominant browser.

Mozilla got something of 6(!) billion(!) dollars if my mind serves me right.

Re: Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release

#305

Post by [deleted] »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #283
driscoll42 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone elaborate why Mozilla gets hate? I don't pay much attention to that and just use Firefox.

Check out this news post from 5 days ago about Mozilla's finances: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37015592

[deleted]

Re: Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release

#306

Post by dralley »

Nextgrid wrote: post #276
NoboruWataya wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disabling extensions had nothing to do with their market share. We have extensions on desktop and they are still being squeezed out there. And judging by some other comments here there is apparently a fork of Firefox for Android that allows extensions - which even I had never heard of until now.

> Disabling extensions had nothing to do with their market share It kinda did because it removed a reason to pick Firefox over its competitors. If Firefox doesn't actually bring anything tangible to the table, why would people pick it over whatever they're currently using (which is likely to be Chrome)? The average user doesn't hate Google like some people do, so a purely ideological argument of "it isn't Chrome" won…

Mobile Firefox already had shit marketshare when they did the refresh and limited extensions. That wasn't what caused the shit marketshare.

Re: Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release

#307

Post by mcpackieh »

dralley wrote: post #280
timtom39 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/ Just read their blog. Latest three: - EU's AI Act - Fakespot school supplies? - Making trustworthy chatbots to support women plagued by violence and abuse The first one might make sense? Second one WTF? And third is disgusting (I know people effected and the LAST thing they want is some chatbot). None of these are related strongly to Firefox. I quit donating to them years ago after it was…

The third one isn't something they're doing, it's the winner they selected in a "responsible AI challenge" competition.

> the winner they selected in a "responsible AI challenge" competition

How is hosting "responsible AI" competitions not something they're doing? Sounds like a huge waste and a distraction from what should be their core mission of protecting the web by making the best browser they possibly can. If they want to dip their toes into the AI space to stay trendy and relevant, they could at least do it in a way that constructively relates to creating a web browser. Their local translation extension is a good example of this, they did a great job with it. They could do more, like maybe experiment with AI-guided adblocking or something. But a competition to create responsible chatbots? How is that relevant to Firefox? Besides the winner of the competition being stupid, the whole competition was stupid. What did they even hope to accomplish with such a competition, to sway the development of commercial chatbots from the likes of OpenAI or Facebook? They gave out $100k to the top 3 winners and not one of them has anything to do with making a better browser. If I'm wrong, then please explain how any of this relates to making Firefox better. Don't copy-paste their vapid corporate rambling explanation to me, if you can't explain it in plain normal english then it's bullshit.

Re: Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release

#308

Post by robertoandred »

godelski wrote: post #58

There's a lot of hate any Firefox and the "blessed apps." But come on, chrome and Safari don't sorry add-ons at all! I know there are other apps that support add-ons but the fact is that Firefox is __the only__ "mainstream" browser that does this (quotes because it's 0.25% in the US, as the 4th most popular, behind Samsung fucking Internet). It's popular to hate on Firefox, but this is the nerdiest of nerd issues and…

Haha what? Since when does Safari not offer add-ons?

Re: Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release

#309

Post by v8engine »

I am facing this issue in the recent versions of Android Firefox where if I switch apps and come back, or lock and unlock the phone instantly leads to the page refreshing and scrolling back to the point where I was reading. This is quite frustrating as I have to keep the Firefox app always open or wait a frustrating amount of time for the page to completely load and scroll down. Some pages with progressive loading will take a huge amount of time for the page to completely re-download and if you scroll even slightly, the auto-scroll to where you last left is lost.

I can replicate it with just a single tab and I have excluded Firefox from all my battery saving and memory saving features.

Re: Firefox desktop extensions coming soon for the upcoming Android release

#310

Post by mrguyorama »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #236
mgbmtl wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox lost power-users because 1) performance was bad 2) Chrome does very aggressive marketing and various Google sites break randomly on Firefox. And performance was very often bad because of extensions. Perhaps anecdotal, but whenever I ask a Chrome user why they don't use Firefox, that's the main two reasons they cite. I do ask often though. What "certain features" do non-tech-savvy people need? I know lots of d…

Firefox randomly broke all my extensions and workflows one day in the pursuit of some obscure technical goal, via forced update that I couldn’t roll back. I asked about it, and they banned me from their subreddit, so I deleted that stupid browser and never went back

Ah, you mean the extension type that chrome NEVER supported? How does switching help here?
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