Niceee, Firefox Android needs more attention. It’s such an underrated browser. It’s non chromium, search bar on bottom by default, uBlock Origin, https-only mode, cookie banner reduction (soon), the best reader mode of all browsers, and addon support.
I really did not like the search bar at the bottom. Thankfully, you can move it back up!
I found it unexpectedly appealing on the bottom, but good to know you can move it up! Extra point for Firefox.
That’s the reason why I use Firefox on Android.
That’s the reason why I might start to use FF again (tbh at this point I don’t see why to use anything else).
I am using Firefox as well and I don’t think I’d go back to Chrome, but I wish it supported progressive web apps a bit better!
Glad I made the switch back to FireFox a year or two ago. As a Dev, I was entrenched in Chrome and it wasn’t an easy move but with the path Google are currently treading around ad serving, blocking the ad blocks etc. I feel I made the right choice…
Can someone TLDR please ?
Are you a developer? If not then the only thing you need to know is that Mozilla is essentially announcing enabling desktop extensions to be able to work on mobile
Oh cookies auto delete here I come
finally
Firefox for Android previously only supported a limited number of select extensions. They’re finally opening it up so you can use any extension.
Fuck yeaahh
Nice, no more nightly and beta for me…
This is great news, I’ve just switched to Firefox & Firefox Focus on Android as a longtime user of Mobile Chrome and Desktop Firefox. It always felt weak on mobile, but things have changed. Still hating the purple though, and the placement of the new tab button but that’s a small price to pay.
Appreciate your guidance on “How to Prepare Your Firefox Desktop Extension for the Upcoming Android Release.” For more insights and discussions in Japanese, explore チャットgpt 日本語 . Let’s dive into informative conversations and stay updated on the latest developments!
Woah that’s awesome. So ublock origin on android Firefox? Freaking nice!
uBlock on Firefox mobile has been out for a while now
If this comes through, I might no longer need Iceraven (andoid firefox with full addon support, like before they tore it out; I use it for Singlefile)
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So we finally get some major functionality back? I never cared about that redisgn but removing proper extension support was a really shitty part of it that I did care about!
Please please please don’t’ bring MV3 to Firefox for Android, Mozilla. 🤞
MV3 existing isn’t a problem. MV2 deprecation is.
Okay, whoop.
Let me fucking download my files to where I want to on mobile, goddamnit.
Android has locked down free access to storage in recent versions. Blame Google.
Reads like they are finally returning to full addon support. I’ve been using Firefox for Android long enough to remember that, before the grand redesign, they supported all addons and let you access about:config.
Back then, I was using uMatrix on FfA, now I am forced to use NoScript, which is more fickle to use and less stable.
Finally. You’ve been able to use desktop addons this whole time, but you have to do a whole runaround:
- Create Firefox account
- Sign in on desktop
- Install the add-ons you want
- Create an app collection and publish it
- Sign in on mobile
- Enable developer mode
- Download your custom app collection
- (Optional: sign out on both devices)
Wtb this news for iOS.
Unfortunately apple doesn’t allow any alteranative browsers on iOS… Everything that behaves as a browser must wrap Safari…
Thankfully it is like that. People who want to stay in a shitty ecosystem should feel the consequences. Maybe this will make them realize eventually
If they gave people more choices, it would be less of a shity ecosystem though, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t that be a good thing? It wouldn’t fix any of the other issues, but less freedom is never something to be glad about.
I hate apple as much as the next guy, but that doesn’t mean I have to hate their users or wish them ill. We should strive to stand above the petty us-vs-them mindset.
The ecosystem is iOS, a completely proprietary operating system that will always stay proprietary. Everyone switching to Android is good for us (and also for them). So Apple should continue to annoy its users
I’m aware why iOS is bad, thank you. I still don’t wish restrictions on its users. That’s just not a nice thing to do.
There’s also the argument of lasting improvement: If people switch to other systems, I’d rather see them do it out of a positive motivation (i.e. “this is better”) than a negative one (i.e. “the other one so bad I had to finally jump ship and find a different solution”).
That motivation will bias your mindset, and a positive mindset will lead to a better user experience. If they just switch because it’s not as bad as the other, that will taint their experience. They’ll be inclined to think about what they miss, rather than what the other offers.
Example: Me, trying to wrap my head around the communities thing here after leaving reddit. I miss the relative simplicity of finding topical subreddits, which is harder here both because there’s less traffic overall, and because I had a sizeable collection of subs there that I can’t simply migrate here. Part of me wants to return to the familiar hell, even if I rationally understand why it’s shit, and I feel that sours my experience with Lemmy so far.
Humans tend to prefer the familiar, so if they leave iOS for something better, I want that better thing to land as well as possible, to encourage getting familiar with the new environment and expand their horizons, and to make future leaps in other areas less scary and off-putting.
I get where you’re coming from. To you a good user experience is more important than the fact that is free/libre rather than proprietary.
I however am convinced that understanding the fundamental principal, that proprietary will always eventually lead to user abuse and that free software is the opposite, is the most important thing that people need to understand. User experience comes second.
If people primarily switch to another platform because that one feels better / has visible benefits, then they will leave that better platform as soon as a new, better looking platform comes around. Totally dismissing if it’s proprietary or not.
As long as people don’t understand that the bad directly comes from proprietary, they will go into the mouse trap over and over again
On the contrary, I am quite ideologically sympathetic. I’ve always used Open / LibreOffice, I no longer use windows, never had a Mac or iPhone or anything, I argued with stakeholders for making our university project FOSS rather than proprietary, the list goes on. I’ve spent enough time arguing with people why they should care about FOSS.
I’m just also aware of my biases, and of the fact that most people are heavily biased by their UX. Most people don’t want to spend a long time thinking to understand, they simply want to use. And in that respect,
bad==proprietarydoesn’t universally hold up. Big companies can spend big bucks on user research, on figuring out what does and doesn’t work for their target audience, on developing features that appeal to people. They also can spend big bucks on marketing and cultivating a brand image so that people start to identify with their products, deepening the attachment.There is also an unfortunate side effect of FOSS when it comes to setting technical standards: If everyone can make their own, plenty of people will do that. Sure, many things have since been standardised, but how often has a common standard evolved as a side effect of some big corporation(s) adopting or outright developing it?
I don’t need to preach to you about all the ways this sucks. The unfortunate pragmatic truth is that proprietary software is a poisoned, but quite appealing apple. The most common answer I got about FOSS is “yeah, it sounds great, but I don’t care, I just want something that works for me.”
Even if their proprietary system of choice got so bad to use that they’d switch to an open one, that doesn’t mean they’d embrace the ideology. It just means that specific system does what they need it to. If iOS becomes unbearable, they may switch to Android, or perhaps to Windows phones, but they’re still gonna install and use apps that feel good to use, regardless of whether they’re FOSS.
The fight against proprietary software isn’t going to be won on ideological grounds. I feel like some developers and advocates of FOSS miss that fact. If you want to be solid competition, worry about being a viable alternative first. Once people start to use a system that allows them to customise more, they may get intrigued by that liberty and become susceptible to the ideology behind, but unless they enjoy using it already, they’ll never engage with it deeply enough.
