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On mobile Chrome does not support extensions while Firefox does. Recently on acquiring a new phone I used Chrome for a few days -- I had entirely forgotten how

On mobile Chrome does not support extensions while Firefox does. Recently on acquiring a new phone I used Chrome for a few days -- I had entirely forgotten how terrible the user-experience is without UBlock!

CoryG89 9y ago
I always suspected the reason we never got extensions in mobile Chrome is that they didn't want the ad blockers. I wasn't aware that Firefox mobile started supporting them. Going to give it a try.
- petre 9y ago
  Opera mobile also has an integrated ad blocker but I also use a hosts file to filter just about everything.
- JCharante 9y ago
  I thought it was because most app stores didn't allow apps to download code to be executed.
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    What app store does that other than Apple's? And a rule like that doesn't allow full web browsers so it's unrelated to the question of whether full web browsers have extensions.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Nah, that's just Apple's. Google Play has always been much less restrictive.
- coldpie 9y ago
  Firefox for Android is really good. Most passive browsing extensions work just as well on mobile as they do on desktop.
- bobajeff 9y ago
  Just want to point out that's there is a really old issue for this: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=113111 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=113111 It's been assigned to some unknown person since 2015. Though I'm not so sure the reason for it's delay in coming to Android isn't technical rather than organizational. Brave for Android is based off of Chromium and it didn't have extensions either. It sounds like the way extension APIs were initially implemented didn't lend itself to a Android port. "We never had the Android version compiling with extension support in the first place - in our early development internally, we hacked/commented/disabled random parts of extension code just to get the binary to compile, and we later tidied this up to disable extensions in a neater way to save binary size. So, you are basically talking about actually implementing extension support for android from scratch, including adding every thing that extensions require but aren't currently implemented for Android. This isn't likely to be especially easy. " - https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/m/#!topic/chromium-dev/GhVf5bicbVc https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/m/#!topic/chr... Though I don't understand why since Firefox mobile extensions are based off a similarly designed system (Jetpack) to Chromes. It seems that if nothing else they could create a new API for extensions on Android.
  - Sylos 9y ago
    > Though I don't understand why since Firefox mobile extensions are based off a similarly designed system (Jetpack) to Chromes. Moreover, Mozilla is currently actually switching to an extended version of Chrome's extension API (which Mozilla calls "WebExtensions"). They had no problem implementing that on Android Firefox. Obviously, yes, there are APIs that just don't make sense on a mobile browser, but you have a well-defined API, so just blacklist extensions that require these APIs.
- pc2g4d 9y ago
  Firefox is my preferred mobile browser for numerous reasons. I hope it's a good experience for you.
mangix 9y ago
or do adblocking on the router level
- kalmari 9y ago
  true i took a proxy level on a desktop called privoxy. on a phone i use vpn it works with apps and everything else mostly well(i know im an ass).
altern8tif 9y ago
Go with Brave on mobile (https://www.brave.com/ https://www.brave.com/). They've got an ad-blocker built in.
- bmurphy1976 9y ago
  Also, disable javascript by default. It's really easy to turn it on per-site using the brave button in the toolbar. The single best improvement I've made to my mobile browsing experience in years wasn't getting a new faster phone, it was installing Brave and disabling javascript.
  - jaipilot747 9y ago
    For Firefox on Android I've been using JavaScript Toggle Enabled [1] for a while. Does what it says on the tin. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/toggle-javascript-enabled/reviews/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/toggle-javasc...
    - kibwen 9y ago
      And if someone's too lazy to install an add-on or on an unfamiliar computer, disabling Javascript is a simple as going to about:config, typing in "java", and double-clicking "javascript.enabled" to set it to false.
    - bmurphy1976 9y ago
      I personally find Firefox way too janky to use on my mobile device. It's getting better but still needs some time in the oven. Brave is a Chrome fork so for those of us who prefer Chrome it's a better option (for now anyway).
      - gcb0 9y ago
        use firefox with the noScript (cross fingers to have uMatrix on mobile soon!) then use your 10 top websites with whitelisted javascript access on firefox mobile, and full javascript on chrome and came back to say which one was faster.
dingo_bat 9y ago
If you have a Samsung phone, the stock browser also supports adblockers (you can get many from the play store).
slizard 9y ago
Oh yes, my biggest pain is that Firefox can't replace the webview browser, so I still get tracked and shown ads if I use the Google app or any other app with the in-app webview browser.

CoryG89 9y ago

I always suspected the reason we never got extensions in mobile Chrome is that they didn't want the ad blockers. I wasn't aware that Firefox mobile started supporting them. Going to give it a try.

petre 9y ago
Opera mobile also has an integrated ad blocker but I also use a hosts file to filter just about everything.
JCharante 9y ago
I thought it was because most app stores didn't allow apps to download code to be executed.
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  What app store does that other than Apple's? And a rule like that doesn't allow full web browsers so it's unrelated to the question of whether full web browsers have extensions.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Nah, that's just Apple's. Google Play has always been much less restrictive.
coldpie 9y ago
Firefox for Android is really good. Most passive browsing extensions work just as well on mobile as they do on desktop.
bobajeff 9y ago
Just want to point out that's there is a really old issue for this: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=113111 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=113111 It's been assigned to some unknown person since 2015. Though I'm not so sure the reason for it's delay in coming to Android isn't technical rather than organizational. Brave for Android is based off of Chromium and it didn't have extensions either. It sounds like the way extension APIs were initially implemented didn't lend itself to a Android port. "We never had the Android version compiling with extension support in the first place - in our early development internally, we hacked/commented/disabled random parts of extension code just to get the binary to compile, and we later tidied this up to disable extensions in a neater way to save binary size. So, you are basically talking about actually implementing extension support for android from scratch, including adding every thing that extensions require but aren't currently implemented for Android. This isn't likely to be especially easy. " - https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/m/#!topic/chromium-dev/GhVf5bicbVc https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/m/#!topic/chr... Though I don't understand why since Firefox mobile extensions are based off a similarly designed system (Jetpack) to Chromes. It seems that if nothing else they could create a new API for extensions on Android.
- Sylos 9y ago
  > Though I don't understand why since Firefox mobile extensions are based off a similarly designed system (Jetpack) to Chromes. Moreover, Mozilla is currently actually switching to an extended version of Chrome's extension API (which Mozilla calls "WebExtensions"). They had no problem implementing that on Android Firefox. Obviously, yes, there are APIs that just don't make sense on a mobile browser, but you have a well-defined API, so just blacklist extensions that require these APIs.
pc2g4d 9y ago
Firefox is my preferred mobile browser for numerous reasons. I hope it's a good experience for you.

mangix 9y ago

or do adblocking on the router level

kalmari 9y ago
true i took a proxy level on a desktop called privoxy. on a phone i use vpn it works with apps and everything else mostly well(i know im an ass).

altern8tif 9y ago

Go with Brave on mobile (https://www.brave.com/ https://www.brave.com/). They've got an ad-blocker built in.

bmurphy1976 9y ago
Also, disable javascript by default. It's really easy to turn it on per-site using the brave button in the toolbar. The single best improvement I've made to my mobile browsing experience in years wasn't getting a new faster phone, it was installing Brave and disabling javascript.
- jaipilot747 9y ago
  For Firefox on Android I've been using JavaScript Toggle Enabled [1] for a while. Does what it says on the tin. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/toggle-javascript-enabled/reviews/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/toggle-javasc...
  - kibwen 9y ago
    And if someone's too lazy to install an add-on or on an unfamiliar computer, disabling Javascript is a simple as going to about:config, typing in "java", and double-clicking "javascript.enabled" to set it to false.
  - bmurphy1976 9y ago
    I personally find Firefox way too janky to use on my mobile device. It's getting better but still needs some time in the oven. Brave is a Chrome fork so for those of us who prefer Chrome it's a better option (for now anyway).
    - gcb0 9y ago
      use firefox with the noScript (cross fingers to have uMatrix on mobile soon!) then use your 10 top websites with whitelisted javascript access on firefox mobile, and full javascript on chrome and came back to say which one was faster.

dingo_bat 9y ago

If you have a Samsung phone, the stock browser also supports adblockers (you can get many from the play store).

slizard 9y ago

Oh yes, my biggest pain is that Firefox can't replace the webview browser, so I still get tracked and shown ads if I use the Google app or any other app with the in-app webview browser.