19 ms·

> On smartphones, its share of browser usage is virtually nonexistent that's surprising b/c i've had a good experience with firefox on android: i particularly

by auvrw 11y ago

> On smartphones, its share of browser usage is virtually nonexistent that's surprising b/c i've had a good experience with firefox on android: i particularly like the "send tab to desktop browser" feature, and although i'm still using adb for debug, newer versions apparently do debugging direct with desktop browser instances, no adb needed. for all i know, chrome has similar features as well, so i'll just say that i haven't found firefox mobile lacking. i was totally unaware that mozilla was making that much money (or any significant amount of money) from corporate deals, but that's probably b/c i'm naieve. proprotionally larger donations will go to wikipedia instead of mozilla in the future.

JoshTriplett 11y ago
I use Firefox on Android as well, primarily because of Firefox Sync and its client-side encryption.
fpgeek 11y ago
Yes, Firefox on Android is awesome. My favorite features: 1. The best options for delegating from websites to installed apps I've seen (via the long-press menu or by touching the Android when it appears in the URL bar). 2. Extensions. For me, browsing is practically uncivilized without Self-Destructing Cookies and there are lots of other useful ones. 3. The new "Open later" feature, where Firefox collects the URLs you click on, but doesn't load them until you switch to it. Among other things, it is a great way to collect links to look at from the Google Search app. My only real annoyance with it are the occasional sites that make broken mobile browser assumptions so I end up spoofing Android Chrome or Mobile Safari. At least there's Phony, so the spoofing is pretty easy.
- rogeryu 11y ago
  You forget one: privacy! If you use Chrome, do you know what data will be shared with Google?
  - xiaoma 11y ago
    Every single keystroke?
- zecg 11y ago
  It's worth it for ublock origin. Ads are doubly annoying on a small screen.
  - cesarb 11y ago
    It's more than ads. With ublock origin in advanced mode you can easily block images and javascript (except on sites you whitelist). On mobile, that makes a lot of difference; the data usage can easily become half or even less than you'd have with Chrome, and because of that it also loads much faster. It can be the difference between nearly hitting your monthly data cap or ending the month with plenty of data to spare.
    - rchaud 11y ago
      Even without Ublock, Firefox Android supports extensions, so I can toggle an image blocker extension during those lean times when I'm close to hitting my monthly data cap. Unfortunately, I've found that Firefox is a bit slower to render pages than Android Chrome, and scrolling experience sometimes feels janky. That said, it's unlikely that Android Chrome will ever support ad blocking, so Firefox will stay on my device.
  - conradfr 11y ago
    I tried to be the good guy on mobile and put up with ads for years. But I recently installed uBlock because I almost couldn't even read the content anymore.
    - rchaud 11y ago
      Agreed. Erstwhile ad-free websites like BBC News for example now have an annoying full-page ad on mobile with a requisite tiny "Close" button. The worst part is, the news article loads before the ad, so you can see the article text and image for ~1 second before the screen flashes white and the full-page ad loads. That's a fail on so many levels, it's far simpler to view the site on on Firefox Android with Ublock Origin enabled. BTW I have the BBC news site whitelisted on desktop because the ads are not nearly as intrusive and UX-breaking.
    - 11y ago
- blfr 11y ago
  I also use Firefox because of the extensions. Sadly it breaks intents and doesn't call on local apps despite system settings. Instead it loads the site and only displays an android icon allowing to switch to an app. It's very annoying on slower connections (on the subway for example).
  - morsch 11y ago
    Doesn't work in all situations, but often you can open a link the associated app directly in its long-press menu. Alongside the usual options of open in a new tab, copy address, there's an open in app. One place where this does not work is Google search result because they insist on rewriting the URLs to redirect via them.
  - fpgeek 11y ago
    As you might guess, I don't agree that Firefox breaks intents. If you're outside the browser, intent resolution proceeds normally. What changes is that if you're in Firefox you need to take an affirmative step to raise the intent instead of going to the web page. To me, that's the sensible default. Otherwise you end up with nonsense like the following: 1. Clicking on an intent-matching link (e.g. Play Store, Google+, Twitter) 2. Being kicked to the intent-handling app 3. The app deciding not to handle the link (it's some sort of corner case) 4. Being kicked to whatever browser the app picks (often not the one you started with) Back when devices were sold on the Play Store (not the Google Store), I lost track of the number of times I did this dance when I just wanted to look up something about a Nexus device. The problem was the Play Store app, unsurprisingly, didn't know anything about devices even though it matched Play Store device URLs.
    - endemic 11y ago
      I had a similar frustrating experience on iOS this morning. Clicking a YouTube link in Mobile Safari prompted opening the native app. I wanted to watch in the browser, so tapped "cancel," which cancelled the entire page load. There was no way to follow the YouTube link without uninstalling the native app. Firefox for iOS ignored the prompt, and I could watch the video.
- stewbrew 11y ago
  It sure is awesome, it just isn't as usable as, e.g., opera on a phone. I really wish they'd invest more time in basic usability issues like scrolling, font size etc.
- Aardwolf 11y ago
  My favorite feature is the reader view (does not always work but if it does it shows a little book in the URL bar), that removes all clutter and interstitials and just shows the main text body of the page in large enough automatically wrapped text.
  - kleim 11y ago
    You can force the page to reader view by adding it to your reading list.
  - AdmiralAsshat 11y ago
    Reader View is unfortunately no longer being maintained since Mozilla decided to integrate Pocket. It bugs me since I find Firefox's Reader View actually does a better job than Pocket in most cases of stripping out the clutter.
    - Excavator 11y ago
      Where did you hear this? Pocket were added as it were easier than implementing their own Reading List, although Pocket will be shipped as a default extension in the future rather than being integrated. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215694 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215694 You sure you're not confusing Reading List and Reader View? Work on Reader View is still happening in bugs such as this one: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1175536 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1175536
  - neves 11y ago
    Install Firefox Readbility extension: https://www.readability.com/addons https://www.readability.com/addons Firefox mobile has extensions! It is the best mobile browser.
- neves 11y ago
  In day to day use, FF beats Chrome in every aspect except video playing. The "Open later" feature is the greatest mobile UI improvement I've seen in the last year.
kibwen 11y ago
> i particularly like the "send tab to desktop browser" feature Is this feature a discrete mechanism? Because I do this all the time, but by a different means: on desktop, I go Hamburger Menu > History > Tabs From Other Devices, which shows you a list of all your tabs from every synced device.
- denis1 11y ago
  Yeah, it is a little bit different. AFAIK "Tabs from other devices" shows only tabs that are currently open. Send tab to browser is more like "ah this seems cool, I'll read it on my desktop later > send to device > close tab in current browser". Now when Firefox on the second device syncs it will automatically open a new tab with the URL you wanted to read.
Drdrdrq 11y ago
I use ff on android too, but I think they could do better. I miss chrome feature where it enlarges the touch area i there are multiple links near the touch point. Also, reader (great feature btw!) sometimes doesn't show all content. And sometimes there is no reader button? Then my favorite bug: cookies don't get cleaned if you close the ff app, you must select "exit" from menu. I love ff and mozilla, but I don't think they are trying enough on android to win larger market share.
- kuschku 11y ago
  The "Link enlargement" feature is in the latest Firefox Nightly, btw ;)
  - Drdrdrq 11y ago
    YES!!! Great news, thank you! :)
josteink 11y ago
> > On smartphones, its share of browser usage is virtually nonexistent > that's surprising Not really. Think the desktop. Think MSIE. For a long time it was a horrible browser, but held its market-share simply by being the default. Because people don't know they can change browser. Internet is the blue E. Etc. Now think Android. All phones comes preloaded with Google Chrome, and most people still don't recognize the idea that a browser is something you choose. Since Chrome is a reasonably good browser (apart from sending your every keystroke to the mothership), people have even less incentive to look up alternate browsers. And with Chrome being spammed everywhere Google has a piece of internet real estate (No I will not "upgrade" my Firefox to Chrome. Please stop asking), it keeps on winning usage on the desktop and thus helps cement its market-share on Android too. People genuinely ask why Firefox can't sync with their Google-account, implying that if it can't sync with Google, they don't think it can sync at all. Evidently that's how people work these days. I don't get it either.
- rimantas 11y ago
  > Think MSIE. For a long time it was a horrible browser, > but held its market-share simply by being the default. That's not entirely true. IE since about ~4 was the best browser around (I choose to ignore IE5 for Mac). NN4 was horrible. The problem with IE was that it stagnated, so when Firefox came out it soon started to kick IEs ass and only then the "default" part became a problem.
  - iopq 11y ago
    Back then, people upgraded to FireFox because they wanted their fancy backgrounds to work in MySpace. I'm not even joking.
    - hayksaakian 11y ago
      wow thanks for the nostalgia trip. you're actually right though i think i remember seeing badges on certain myspace pages that suggested you install firefox to see the page correctly.
  - 11y ago
zanny 11y ago
When its not default, the default is good (since 4.2 its been Chrome), and there isn't a grassroots movement of enthusiasts to replace all installs of the default, adoption will be awful, every time. What could get Firefox Android marketshare are webapps that depend on it being listed in Google Play. But thats also the problem - I'm not sure what webapp tech Mozilla is pushing today that Google is not pushing an equivalent of. As it is, average fat finger users are not shopping for new web browsers on Android. They probably would on iOS since Safari is turning into another IE disaster, but Apple won't let them.
lugus35 11y ago
I use chrome and firefox on android. Firefox features are really interesting, but firefox is way more slower than chrome.
lentil_soup 11y ago
I try using Firefox Mobile every few months but I sadly keep going back to Chrome. Firefox crashes my phone all the time. Also I keep hitting the "Share Link" option when I want to open in a new tab, why is that the first option? Who shares links that often?
- wtbob 11y ago
  I just checked, and the share command is an icon to the right while the open-in-new-tab command is the first text command on the menu. I've not noticed crashes either.
  - tspiteri 11y ago
    Gp was talking about the pop-up menu you get when you tap and hold a link. As for crashes, they can be phone dependent. For another statistically insignificant data point, I don't get any crashes either.
    - wtbob 11y ago
      > Gp was talking about the pop-up menu you get when you tap and hold a link. So am I—that's exactly what I used and tested, on my current phone.
tonylemesmer 11y ago
Happy user of Firefox on Android with self destructing cookies and ublock origin. As futile as it sounds on Android I don't like using Chrome, but I'm fully aware that all my data might still somehow be ending up at Google despite using FF.
davb 11y ago
I do like Firefox on Android but I won't use it for a single reason - the scroll physics doesn't match native app scroll physics. The scroll acceleration or easing is "off", compared to Chrome on Android and native widget list views. I wouldn't normally complain that Firefox doesn't match Chrome's behaviour in some specific area, but it's incredibly frustrating to be used to scroll behaviour on a platform and have a single app reimplement that in a non-conformant manner. It just feels... icky, and broken. There have been bugs filed about it but nothing seems to have been done. This is the one main thing stopping me from using Firefox on Android and recommending it to others. It might seem minor but it affects the very way I interact with the app, and I use the browser on my phone at least 50% of the time I'm looking at the device.
suby 11y ago
I'd use Firefox for android, but on my device (galaxy s4) scrolling is incredibly laggy where as its perfectly smooth on chrome. This is with all extensions off.
wutbrodo 11y ago
> that's surprising b/c i've had a good experience with firefox on android The earliest Android browser was lacking things that people had gotten used to on desktop (like tabs), but since the introduction of Chrome I would be surprised to see high usage of any third-party browser on Android (and iOS, of course, makes it difficult to consistently use a third-party browser). It's worth noting that even in the days when third-party browsers would have been most compelling, usage was still tiny. I don't think the fact that firefox mobile is good quality really makes it that surprising that usage is low: people simply aren't in the habit of customizing their devices in any real way, especially on mobile.

by auvrw 11y ago

JoshTriplett 11y ago

I use Firefox on Android as well, primarily because of Firefox Sync and its client-side encryption.

fpgeek 11y ago

Yes, Firefox on Android is awesome. My favorite features: 1. The best options for delegating from websites to installed apps I've seen (via the long-press menu or by touching the Android when it appears in the URL bar). 2. Extensions. For me, browsing is practically uncivilized without Self-Destructing Cookies and there are lots of other useful ones. 3. The new "Open later" feature, where Firefox collects the URLs you click on, but doesn't load them until you switch to it. Among other things, it is a great way to collect links to look at from the Google Search app. My only real annoyance with it are the occasional sites that make broken mobile browser assumptions so I end up spoofing Android Chrome or Mobile Safari. At least there's Phony, so the spoofing is pretty easy.

rogeryu 11y ago
You forget one: privacy! If you use Chrome, do you know what data will be shared with Google?
- xiaoma 11y ago
  Every single keystroke?
zecg 11y ago
It's worth it for ublock origin. Ads are doubly annoying on a small screen.
- cesarb 11y ago
  It's more than ads. With ublock origin in advanced mode you can easily block images and javascript (except on sites you whitelist). On mobile, that makes a lot of difference; the data usage can easily become half or even less than you'd have with Chrome, and because of that it also loads much faster. It can be the difference between nearly hitting your monthly data cap or ending the month with plenty of data to spare.
  - rchaud 11y ago
    Even without Ublock, Firefox Android supports extensions, so I can toggle an image blocker extension during those lean times when I'm close to hitting my monthly data cap. Unfortunately, I've found that Firefox is a bit slower to render pages than Android Chrome, and scrolling experience sometimes feels janky. That said, it's unlikely that Android Chrome will ever support ad blocking, so Firefox will stay on my device.
- conradfr 11y ago
  I tried to be the good guy on mobile and put up with ads for years. But I recently installed uBlock because I almost couldn't even read the content anymore.
  - rchaud 11y ago
    Agreed. Erstwhile ad-free websites like BBC News for example now have an annoying full-page ad on mobile with a requisite tiny "Close" button. The worst part is, the news article loads before the ad, so you can see the article text and image for ~1 second before the screen flashes white and the full-page ad loads. That's a fail on so many levels, it's far simpler to view the site on on Firefox Android with Ublock Origin enabled. BTW I have the BBC news site whitelisted on desktop because the ads are not nearly as intrusive and UX-breaking.
  - 11y ago
blfr 11y ago
I also use Firefox because of the extensions. Sadly it breaks intents and doesn't call on local apps despite system settings. Instead it loads the site and only displays an android icon allowing to switch to an app. It's very annoying on slower connections (on the subway for example).
- morsch 11y ago
  Doesn't work in all situations, but often you can open a link the associated app directly in its long-press menu. Alongside the usual options of open in a new tab, copy address, there's an open in app. One place where this does not work is Google search result because they insist on rewriting the URLs to redirect via them.
- fpgeek 11y ago
  As you might guess, I don't agree that Firefox breaks intents. If you're outside the browser, intent resolution proceeds normally. What changes is that if you're in Firefox you need to take an affirmative step to raise the intent instead of going to the web page. To me, that's the sensible default. Otherwise you end up with nonsense like the following: 1. Clicking on an intent-matching link (e.g. Play Store, Google+, Twitter) 2. Being kicked to the intent-handling app 3. The app deciding not to handle the link (it's some sort of corner case) 4. Being kicked to whatever browser the app picks (often not the one you started with) Back when devices were sold on the Play Store (not the Google Store), I lost track of the number of times I did this dance when I just wanted to look up something about a Nexus device. The problem was the Play Store app, unsurprisingly, didn't know anything about devices even though it matched Play Store device URLs.
  - endemic 11y ago
    I had a similar frustrating experience on iOS this morning. Clicking a YouTube link in Mobile Safari prompted opening the native app. I wanted to watch in the browser, so tapped "cancel," which cancelled the entire page load. There was no way to follow the YouTube link without uninstalling the native app. Firefox for iOS ignored the prompt, and I could watch the video.
stewbrew 11y ago
It sure is awesome, it just isn't as usable as, e.g., opera on a phone. I really wish they'd invest more time in basic usability issues like scrolling, font size etc.
Aardwolf 11y ago
My favorite feature is the reader view (does not always work but if it does it shows a little book in the URL bar), that removes all clutter and interstitials and just shows the main text body of the page in large enough automatically wrapped text.
- kleim 11y ago
  You can force the page to reader view by adding it to your reading list.
- AdmiralAsshat 11y ago
  Reader View is unfortunately no longer being maintained since Mozilla decided to integrate Pocket. It bugs me since I find Firefox's Reader View actually does a better job than Pocket in most cases of stripping out the clutter.
  - Excavator 11y ago
    Where did you hear this? Pocket were added as it were easier than implementing their own Reading List, although Pocket will be shipped as a default extension in the future rather than being integrated. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215694 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215694 You sure you're not confusing Reading List and Reader View? Work on Reader View is still happening in bugs such as this one: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1175536 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1175536
- neves 11y ago
  Install Firefox Readbility extension: https://www.readability.com/addons https://www.readability.com/addons Firefox mobile has extensions! It is the best mobile browser.
neves 11y ago
In day to day use, FF beats Chrome in every aspect except video playing. The "Open later" feature is the greatest mobile UI improvement I've seen in the last year.

kibwen 11y ago

> i particularly like the "send tab to desktop browser" feature Is this feature a discrete mechanism? Because I do this all the time, but by a different means: on desktop, I go Hamburger Menu > History > Tabs From Other Devices, which shows you a list of all your tabs from every synced device.

denis1 11y ago
Yeah, it is a little bit different. AFAIK "Tabs from other devices" shows only tabs that are currently open. Send tab to browser is more like "ah this seems cool, I'll read it on my desktop later > send to device > close tab in current browser". Now when Firefox on the second device syncs it will automatically open a new tab with the URL you wanted to read.

Drdrdrq 11y ago

I use ff on android too, but I think they could do better. I miss chrome feature where it enlarges the touch area i there are multiple links near the touch point. Also, reader (great feature btw!) sometimes doesn't show all content. And sometimes there is no reader button? Then my favorite bug: cookies don't get cleaned if you close the ff app, you must select "exit" from menu. I love ff and mozilla, but I don't think they are trying enough on android to win larger market share.

kuschku 11y ago
The "Link enlargement" feature is in the latest Firefox Nightly, btw ;)
- Drdrdrq 11y ago
  YES!!! Great news, thank you! :)

josteink 11y ago

> > On smartphones, its share of browser usage is virtually nonexistent > that's surprising Not really. Think the desktop. Think MSIE. For a long time it was a horrible browser, but held its market-share simply by being the default. Because people don't know they can change browser. Internet is the blue E. Etc. Now think Android. All phones comes preloaded with Google Chrome, and most people still don't recognize the idea that a browser is something you choose. Since Chrome is a reasonably good browser (apart from sending your every keystroke to the mothership), people have even less incentive to look up alternate browsers. And with Chrome being spammed everywhere Google has a piece of internet real estate (No I will not "upgrade" my Firefox to Chrome. Please stop asking), it keeps on winning usage on the desktop and thus helps cement its market-share on Android too. People genuinely ask why Firefox can't sync with their Google-account, implying that if it can't sync with Google, they don't think it can sync at all. Evidently that's how people work these days. I don't get it either.

rimantas 11y ago
> Think MSIE. For a long time it was a horrible browser, > but held its market-share simply by being the default. That's not entirely true. IE since about ~4 was the best browser around (I choose to ignore IE5 for Mac). NN4 was horrible. The problem with IE was that it stagnated, so when Firefox came out it soon started to kick IEs ass and only then the "default" part became a problem.
- iopq 11y ago
  Back then, people upgraded to FireFox because they wanted their fancy backgrounds to work in MySpace. I'm not even joking.
  - hayksaakian 11y ago
    wow thanks for the nostalgia trip. you're actually right though i think i remember seeing badges on certain myspace pages that suggested you install firefox to see the page correctly.
- 11y ago

zanny 11y ago

When its not default, the default is good (since 4.2 its been Chrome), and there isn't a grassroots movement of enthusiasts to replace all installs of the default, adoption will be awful, every time. What could get Firefox Android marketshare are webapps that depend on it being listed in Google Play. But thats also the problem - I'm not sure what webapp tech Mozilla is pushing today that Google is not pushing an equivalent of. As it is, average fat finger users are not shopping for new web browsers on Android. They probably would on iOS since Safari is turning into another IE disaster, but Apple won't let them.

lugus35 11y ago

I use chrome and firefox on android. Firefox features are really interesting, but firefox is way more slower than chrome.

lentil_soup 11y ago

I try using Firefox Mobile every few months but I sadly keep going back to Chrome. Firefox crashes my phone all the time. Also I keep hitting the "Share Link" option when I want to open in a new tab, why is that the first option? Who shares links that often?

wtbob 11y ago
I just checked, and the share command is an icon to the right while the open-in-new-tab command is the first text command on the menu. I've not noticed crashes either.
- tspiteri 11y ago
  Gp was talking about the pop-up menu you get when you tap and hold a link. As for crashes, they can be phone dependent. For another statistically insignificant data point, I don't get any crashes either.
  - wtbob 11y ago
    > Gp was talking about the pop-up menu you get when you tap and hold a link. So am I—that's exactly what I used and tested, on my current phone.

tonylemesmer 11y ago

Happy user of Firefox on Android with self destructing cookies and ublock origin. As futile as it sounds on Android I don't like using Chrome, but I'm fully aware that all my data might still somehow be ending up at Google despite using FF.

davb 11y ago

I do like Firefox on Android but I won't use it for a single reason - the scroll physics doesn't match native app scroll physics. The scroll acceleration or easing is "off", compared to Chrome on Android and native widget list views. I wouldn't normally complain that Firefox doesn't match Chrome's behaviour in some specific area, but it's incredibly frustrating to be used to scroll behaviour on a platform and have a single app reimplement that in a non-conformant manner. It just feels... icky, and broken. There have been bugs filed about it but nothing seems to have been done. This is the one main thing stopping me from using Firefox on Android and recommending it to others. It might seem minor but it affects the very way I interact with the app, and I use the browser on my phone at least 50% of the time I'm looking at the device.

suby 11y ago

I'd use Firefox for android, but on my device (galaxy s4) scrolling is incredibly laggy where as its perfectly smooth on chrome. This is with all extensions off.

wutbrodo 11y ago

> that's surprising b/c i've had a good experience with firefox on android The earliest Android browser was lacking things that people had gotten used to on desktop (like tabs), but since the introduction of Chrome I would be surprised to see high usage of any third-party browser on Android (and iOS, of course, makes it difficult to consistently use a third-party browser). It's worth noting that even in the days when third-party browsers would have been most compelling, usage was still tiny. I don't think the fact that firefox mobile is good quality really makes it that surprising that usage is low: people simply aren't in the habit of customizing their devices in any real way, especially on mobile.