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Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

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Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#91

Post by antisthenes »

slightwinder wrote: post #56
guelo wrote: post #2

Mozilla doesn't seem to have a clue why people prefer firefox. It's not because of privacy or security, though that's nice. It's certainly not because it behaves similarly to chrome. It was always the extensibility. The power of plugins that allowed adblocking to be invented on firefox. They threw that away in the name of security and supposed clean code. Clean code doesn't get you users.

> It was always the extensibility. Going by the numbers, that's far from the truth. Majority of user never used addons, not even adblockers. Even the most popular addons are only used by a small minority of users. I'm also a big addon-user and complain what firefox has lost over time. But we should also admit that we are a minority, and addons are simply not the major selling point for a mainstream product's success.

You shouldn't be afraid to cater to the minority of power users. Power users are the ones that make browser recommendations to an outsized group of people, e.g. friends, relatives and coworkers. They are also the ones that drive new standard adoption.

It's entirely plausible that when you alienate a power user, you also alienate their entire social circle, dependent on them for tech advice, so you lose 20x-100x of your audience/users.

I'm not saying that's exactly what happened, but it definitely happened to some degree. Personally, I no longer recommend or use Firefox to anyone. The techy people in my circle use Brave or ungoogled Chromium.

The untechy ones use Chrome/Edge and maybe have Opera/Vivaldi as their backup browser or Safari if they're big Apple fans. Almost no one uses FF anymore. Without its extensibility, it simply doesn't compete anymore.

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#92

Post by jrochkind1 »

jimmaswell wrote: post #88

I wish the developers would all organize, break off ties with Mozilla, and endorse a fork as the new real Firefox.

i would think most of the developers have a job working for mozilla, by which they support themselves, which would make that somewhat harder.

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#93

Post by rurp »

slightwinder wrote: post #56
guelo wrote: post #2

Mozilla doesn't seem to have a clue why people prefer firefox. It's not because of privacy or security, though that's nice. It's certainly not because it behaves similarly to chrome. It was always the extensibility. The power of plugins that allowed adblocking to be invented on firefox. They threw that away in the name of security and supposed clean code. Clean code doesn't get you users.

> It was always the extensibility. Going by the numbers, that's far from the truth. Majority of user never used addons, not even adblockers. Even the most popular addons are only used by a small minority of users. I'm also a big addon-user and complain what firefox has lost over time. But we should also admit that we are a minority, and addons are simply not the major selling point for a mainstream product's success.

I think it's hard to tease out the size of effect. Extensions are only used by a minority of users, but that's mostly the set of vocal power users that are likely to be the go-to tech person within their social circles.

I'm sure I'm far from the only HNer that has recommended or installed Firefox for many friends and family. I mean, I used to recommend and install Firefox before their terrible management turned the org into a dumpster fire. They've lost both myself and everyone I would have turned onto Firefox.

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#94

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

pessimizer wrote: post #43
CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if that has anything to do with it, Chrome is even worse in that regard and it's market share has only grown.

Even worse in what regard? Did you reply to the right comment? Chrome imitates Chrome far better than Firefox does. I just don't think they can catch up at this point. edit: maybe you meant addons? Chrome has more addons, with more users, updated more often. Chrome fails at ublock because it wants to, but as long as you're not messing with Google's core business, Chrome is (of course) going to be better off than the…

More addons on mobile and an more flexible add-on api on desktop. Chrome's API does what Google wants it to do, and it doesn't cost them any users which proves that's not what's the issue with Firefox.

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#95

Post by grigory »

dblohm7 wrote: post #29

(Former Mozilla developer here, who worked on GeckoView[1], the modern way to embed Gecko into Android apps, including all currently shipped Mozilla browsers on Android) From an engineering perspective, the sad thing about this is that the work to finish extensions in GeckoView was essentially completed in the months after the initial Fenix release. When GeckoView was still being rolled out into release, we understan…

(Also a former Mozilla developer, worked Fennec and Fenix)

I think a more nuanced perspective here is that roughly 80% of the work was done, and the remaining 20% require significant effort and organizational energy.

Not all of the WebExtension API surface is currently supported; there's a long tail of infrequently used extensions that require non-trivial engineering effort and often cross-team coordination to implement. However, the actual usage of these APIs in Fennec was very, very low, so the actual bet and the organization sales pitch for this work must be on building a platform, and evidently that's not happening. You can argue that this type of platform work and extensibility is why people use Firefox for Android. You can also look back at the actual usage telemetry (current whitelist is basically what vast majority of people used) and wonder if that additional investment will move the needle.

There's also front-end/back-end engineering required to fully expand existing UIs into a proper "store" experience.

Personally, I think as a matter of principle Firefox for Android should be fully open in terms of what extensions it allows installing.

I believe that will eventually happen - it's where the prevailing winds are blowing inside the org, too! but it may take time for the stars to align, people to have energy to fight through the internal malaise, to pitch work that may not immediately help with any OKRs and is mostly about building community goodwill and sending a message, etc.

As always, it basically comes down to lack of strong leadership.

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#96

Post by Jap2-0 »

itvision wrote: post #80

I've closely been following Mobile Firefox development over the past year - this browser is dead, like totally dead. Bug reports pile up, nothing is really fixed, a ton of commits about telemetry, some commits here and there changing certain UI elements, some refactoring, almost nothing else. Go check its revision history all you want: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/commits/main Mozilla has seemingly totally…

That's because actual browser development doesn't happen there - that's at https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/.

Rereading your comment, you're referring more specifically to mobile; I suppose you might have a point there, but when almost everything is in mozilla-central, I'm not sure what you expect to see there (well, extensions, but beyond that) other than UI work.

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#97

Post by Beldin »

zaik wrote: post #89
moonshinefe wrote: post #42

I like using Firefox on Android because uBlock origin makes mobile browsing at least tolerable and it lets me use the "desktop mode" view on certain sites so e.g. I can listen to youtube playlists even if the phone is locked without paying for a premium service (for what I consider basic functionality). Surprised to hear literally the sole reason I use it on mobile is also neglected. Do they think they're going to ou…

> so e.g. I can listen to youtube playlists even if the phone is locked NewPipe on F-Droid is a killer app.

Every video, I get errors in the UI. I once powered through, it seems eventually the video does play normally. Perhaps that is because of blocked ads(by newpipe then - I have no other restrictions on mobile)

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#98

Post by ZeroGravitas »

robonerd wrote: post #90
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhere in a parallel universe, Mozilla just let all the plugins claim compatability, and vaguely fascist users who dont like their politics are complaining that the instability of Mozilla on Android is the reason they hate them. And further along, in a universe where they poured a lot of time energy and money into fixing the whole plugin ecosystem and succeeded, they're complaining about something that didn't get…

> vaguely fascist users I've seen this one before, a GNOME apologist insinuating that anybody who wants thumbnails in the GTK filepicker is probably a 4chan user. Is this the new trendy way to dismiss criticism of software? Insinuate that anybody making specific concrete complaints about software has invalid political beliefs completely tangential to the feature/bug being criticized? What fun!

Or you can just wait two sentences into their comment when they simply can't stop thenselves saying something about progressive politics. Which you really don't need to mention, and common sense suggests you shouldn't, when criticizing a bit of software or a charity foundation on unrelated matters. Unless of course that is the point.

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#100

Post by bitwize »

jonkoops wrote: post #34
dblohm7 wrote: post #29

(Former Mozilla developer here, who worked on GeckoView[1], the modern way to embed Gecko into Android apps, including all currently shipped Mozilla browsers on Android) From an engineering perspective, the sad thing about this is that the work to finish extensions in GeckoView was essentially completed in the months after the initial Fenix release. When GeckoView was still being rolled out into release, we understan…

This pretty much feels to me what is happening to Mozilla as an organization from an outsider perspective. Engineering is no longer as important as the evangelism and management is making strange decisions that lack focus on what the target audience really is.

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