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Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

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Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#61

Post by GravitasFailure »

option_greek wrote: post #55

We will continue to see posts like this till enough users are turned off by them and Firefox will no longer be a viable browser to run as a user or support as a dev. You are comparing the last truly free alternative to a browser built by ad grubby organisation. While a vocal minority keeps doing this the rest of us are happily using it without issues. You don't like Firefox? Great! Chrome is just a click away. Feel f…

>the last truly free alternative to a browser built by ad grubby organisation

Is it? Considering Mozilla gets most of their money from Google, I find assertions about their independence on very thin ice.

Also, the idea that discussing Firefox's problems is "ruining it for the rest of us" is absurd. People care about Firefox and are being vocal about the problems so that they might get fixed. The people being silent about Firefox's problems are the ones that no longer care and have long since moved on.

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#63

Post by betwixthewires »

LamaOfRuin wrote: post #40
tomrod wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might like Vivaldi. Basically Chrome w/ adblock without Brave's business model. Built by the team that left after Opera's purchase.

Does Vivaldi support add-ons/extensions on android? I don't see it mentioned on the landing page. Granted, ad-block is the primary one and included by default in Vivaldi, but I still like there being a possibility for extensibility even if what's supported on Firefox for Android is limited.

FYI there is a chromium fork called Kiwi Browser that supports extensions. I'm using it to tell you this right now.

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#64

Post by betwixthewires »

elliotf wrote: post #10
marak830 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit harsh. Every point they raised is valid: the UX changes have been weird and inconsistent, the lack of history searching is frustrating etc I still use ff, I certainly won't be using Chrome as I appreciate my add-ons too much.

Chrome is also adding bizarre ux choices on mobile. The tipping point for me was nested tabs (tab groups) with no way to disable them. I've been a happy Android Firefox user since then.

I use chromium based browsers on mobile primarily and I just want to agree with you wholeheartedly. I don't know why this decision was foisted on us. Two layers of organizational abstraction with minimal benefit. I'm sure some people like it, but that's why you make it optional. The UX with nesting tabs is absolutely abysmal.

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#65

Post by betwixthewires »

option_greek wrote: post #55

We will continue to see posts like this till enough users are turned off by them and Firefox will no longer be a viable browser to run as a user or support as a dev. You are comparing the last truly free alternative to a browser built by ad grubby organisation. While a vocal minority keeps doing this the rest of us are happily using it without issues. You don't like Firefox? Great! Chrome is just a click away. Feel f…

Or, bear with me, use a fork of chromium and get google to give you their labor for free while using a piece of software that serves you first and foremost.

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#66

Post by 0xdeadb00f »

Also worth noting is that Tor Browser for android inherits all these issues. The most annoying one is not being able to download images from sites that use cookies, since 90% of the mainstream websites you'll visit via Tor require you to fill out the Cloudflare DDOS protection captcha, and require the use of cookies!

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#67

Post by nonbirithm »

elliotf wrote: post #10
marak830 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit harsh. Every point they raised is valid: the UX changes have been weird and inconsistent, the lack of history searching is frustrating etc I still use ff, I certainly won't be using Chrome as I appreciate my add-ons too much.

Chrome is also adding bizarre ux choices on mobile. The tipping point for me was nested tabs (tab groups) with no way to disable them. I've been a happy Android Firefox user since then.

As a user of Brave, I completely agree with this. I wish the tab grouping could be disabled instead of forced upon users. And despite the issues with Fenix's project management that I mentioned in my post, I still believe that between Google and Mozilla the latter organization would be more willing to listen to user feedback and not attempt to move forward with features such as those. I can't imagine Google suddenly deciding one day that tab grouping was a mistake and walking back such a feature.

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#68

Post by nonbirithm »

m-p-3 wrote: post #57
PostOnce wrote: post #2

I'm perfectly happy with Firefox, both desktop and mobile. It works very well and I never have problems with it. It blocks ads on mobile and chrome doesn't. As far as I have seen, it's fast. I don't notice a difference on the rare occasion I open chromium to check and see that some application will look the same for a client as it does for me. But I guess it's always true: people go out of their way to complain, but…

I have two complaints for Firefox Mobile (Android. 1. `about:config` is disabled on Stable branch, if you want to access it you need to use the Beta branch. Why is that the case? You don't see the same arbitrary limitation on desktop. 2. It seems to have issue loading a page randomly from time to time, and even trying to reload or open a different URL doesn't work, kinda like as if the tab itself crashed and became u…

Just to add another data point, I also experienced the second issue when trying to navigate between links with Fenix on many different occasions, including the period I was writing this post. However, I chose not to mention it because I also wasn't able to reliably reproduce it.

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#69

Post by commoner »

GravitasFailure wrote: post #58
jimmaswell wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone's been gradually removing user empowerment features from browsers for years. I wonder if they just want us to get used to no or only a few curated extensions.

Firefox is odd in this regard, though. Chrome tried to make it so you could only add extensions while signed in to Google, but have since abandoned that policy and currently permits side loading, while Firefox doesn't allow any extensions that haven't been signed by their certificate which means that if they forget to renew that certificate you can't use any extensions...which actually happened. It's bizarre to me th…

On desktop, Firefox Developer Edition, Nightly, and ESR still allow unsigned extensions after setting xpinstall.signatures.required to false in about:config.[1]

Firefox for Android doesn't allow sideloading,[2] and only has an advantage because Chrome for Android doesn't support extensions at all in its official relases.

[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/Extension_Signing#FAQ

[2] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/11308 (closed without adequate resolution in https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/14034)

Re: Firefox for Android is a mess, and something needs to change

#70

Post by commoner »

nonbirithm wrote: post #68
m-p-3 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have two complaints for Firefox Mobile (Android. 1. `about:config` is disabled on Stable branch, if you want to access it you need to use the Beta branch. Why is that the case? You don't see the same arbitrary limitation on desktop. 2. It seems to have issue loading a page randomly from time to time, and even trying to reload or open a different URL doesn't work, kinda like as if the tab itself crashed and became u…

Just to add another data point, I also experienced the second issue when trying to navigate between links with Fenix on many different occasions, including the period I was writing this post. However, I chose not to mention it because I also wasn't able to reliably reproduce it.

I used to experience this issue when I had manually configured my DNS over HTTPS (DoH) settings on Firefox for Android in about:config, and had set network.trr.mode to 3 (force DoH). Changing it to 2 (prefer DoH, use normal DNS as fallback) fixed the issue for me.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Trusted_Recursive_Resolver#DNS-over...

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