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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

#41

Post by jwells89 »

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…

It would be interesting to see how Mozilla approaches implementing Gecko on iOS, with how the engine stripped support for embedding years ago (prior to which they could’ve used an approach similar to that seen in Camino[0]).

I guess they could take the approach of drawing the whole screen themselves but that’s going to make Gecko-based Firefox for iOS feel noticeably worse than the current WebKit/UIKit version in terms of responsiveness and such and might require some legwork to properly support VRR on 120hz iPhones (which is critical for battery life on those models).

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_(web_browser)

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#42

Post by lxgr »

temp0826 wrote: post #10
ivanjermakov wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's still against Apple's TOS, stating that every web browser must be based on WebKit.

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).

WebExtensions are (or at least can be) ultimately just a weird type of HTML+JS app, as far as I understand, so I suspect it's possible to run that in one WebView context on iOS and bridge the required APIs between the extension and browser context using content scripts.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#43

Post by firebot »

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

Mine states 120.0.6099.26, which was released a month ago, https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2023/11/chrome-beta-fo...

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#44

Post by lxgr »

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.

Yeah, Apple likes to say that (and reject apps for violating that rule!), but then there's also things like Linux x86 userspace emulators in the app store that can run unmodified ELF binaries downloaded via curl from any random website...

At this point it's just a polite fiction, maintained jointly by Apple and app developers, that allows Apple to maintain a somewhat straight face when saying things like "you can't download third-party code at all" or "all code extending app functionality must be downloaded through our designated mechanism".

iSH is one such app, this blog post is very interesting: https://ish.app/blog/default-repository-update

Given the current regulatory scrutiny of their app store, I believe they just don't want to open yet another can of worms by rejecting "browsers" (which are really WebKit wrappers) for injecting third-party JavaScript into all web pages displayed within them, even though by their own rules, they arguably totally should.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#45

Post by firebot »

mod50ack wrote: post #13
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.

While I respect Kiwi for implementing extension support, they've often fell far behind the upstream Chromium codebase and they're significantly smaller than even Firefox for Android. So I don't think they'd really be a "major" Android browser. Then again, Firefox could easily be said to not be a major Android browser either!

I wouldn't say that far, maybe a month. It gets regular updates.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#46

Post by jraph »

mvdtnz wrote: post #37
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…

For those who are wondering, I _think_ AMO is supposed to mean "addons.mozilla.org" although neither the author of the article nor this comment define the acronym.

Yes, indeed, AMO means addons.mozilla.org

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#47

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#48

Post by sedatk »

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…

[flagged]

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#49

Post by MiddleEndian »

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.

Gotta say, I fucking love Firefox. Be proud of your work.

Re: Mozilla expands extension support for Firefox for Android

#50

Post by jraph »

sedatk wrote: post #48
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…

[flagged]

> Few of them prevents me from switching to Firefox

(I assume you meant "a few"). Which ones, by curiosity?

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