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I just completed my first Firefox for Android build and I have to say that Mozilla makes it really easy to get started [1] - I plan to run a personal fork/modif

I just completed my first Firefox for Android build and I have to say that Mozilla makes it really easy to get started [1] - I plan to run a personal fork/modified Android version from now on if this works this smooth. Ignoring the huge download, this has been one of the easiest open source projects to build so far. I'm impressed. 1: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_guide/Build_Instructions/Simple_Firefox_for_Android_build https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_g...

Santosh83 9y ago
What's your reason for building your own FF for Android may I ask? Just curious...
- darklajid 9y ago
  Firefox improves greatly in speed and features - I like that and don't want a long term release thing or a radical fork like the one discussed here. I can live with some plugin issues on the desktop (web extensions being less powerful). But I refuse to use Firefox on Android without 'Share To Bottom' [1]. Feel free to link to xkcd's "you broke my workflow", but without this feature my blood pressure is constantly too high. Whenever I long-press on a link I want either (80% of the time) 'Open in new tab' or (the rest of the time. No exception. Never anything but these two things) 'Copy link'. I never ever want 'Share', but some time in the past Fennec/Firefox for Android moved that option to the top of the menu. I filed bugs for that, got shot down rather quickly and stumbled upon the addon [1] as a workaround. The workaround is now broken and so is literally nearly every single (I rarely just click links, always long-press them. I have sometimes more than 90 tabs open on my Android phone) interaction with a link on the internet. The menu is annoying me with a prominent button that I never want, but press in error again and again (probably adding to Mozilla's heatmap, so that they'll conclude in the future that this was a very good change indeed! Lots of people click "Share"!). So right now I created my own Firefox build and I'm trying to do this the nasty way (still searching my way around in this codebase, but I plan to completely remove the 'Share' menu item. A hardcoded 'Share To Trash' modification, if you will). I'll happily rebuild the browser for this change, for all eternity. (Note that I never understood the 'Share' option in that menu in the first place. Everyone I see around me uses 'Share' from the page menu, i.e. the top-right … thing. To share the page you're _actually_ looking at. Instead of sharing a link to a page (via a popup menu) that you cannot see right now. So the version I envision still allows you to share stuff, just not from the context menu of a link) 1: https://github.com/miraks/ShareToBottom/ https://github.com/miraks/ShareToBottom/
  - cesarb 9y ago
    I've used the "share" option on that long-press menu recently, to share a link through zxing's Barcode Scanner to another person's phone. Unfortunately, doing that seems to somehow have moved that rarely-used option to the top of the menu, above even the frequently used "open in new tab" option.
    - darklajid 9y ago
      Hmm. If that happened only because you clicked it once, then it should be reversible to "never wanted it in the first place" somehow, I hope.. Might be worth investigating..
  - Santosh83 9y ago
    Thanks! It's also disappointing that something as simple (functionally) as this cannot yet be implemented through WebExtensions. I really hope they beef up the API soon...

Santosh83 9y ago

What's your reason for building your own FF for Android may I ask? Just curious...

darklajid 9y ago
Firefox improves greatly in speed and features - I like that and don't want a long term release thing or a radical fork like the one discussed here. I can live with some plugin issues on the desktop (web extensions being less powerful). But I refuse to use Firefox on Android without 'Share To Bottom' [1]. Feel free to link to xkcd's "you broke my workflow", but without this feature my blood pressure is constantly too high. Whenever I long-press on a link I want either (80% of the time) 'Open in new tab' or (the rest of the time. No exception. Never anything but these two things) 'Copy link'. I never ever want 'Share', but some time in the past Fennec/Firefox for Android moved that option to the top of the menu. I filed bugs for that, got shot down rather quickly and stumbled upon the addon [1] as a workaround. The workaround is now broken and so is literally nearly every single (I rarely just click links, always long-press them. I have sometimes more than 90 tabs open on my Android phone) interaction with a link on the internet. The menu is annoying me with a prominent button that I never want, but press in error again and again (probably adding to Mozilla's heatmap, so that they'll conclude in the future that this was a very good change indeed! Lots of people click "Share"!). So right now I created my own Firefox build and I'm trying to do this the nasty way (still searching my way around in this codebase, but I plan to completely remove the 'Share' menu item. A hardcoded 'Share To Trash' modification, if you will). I'll happily rebuild the browser for this change, for all eternity. (Note that I never understood the 'Share' option in that menu in the first place. Everyone I see around me uses 'Share' from the page menu, i.e. the top-right … thing. To share the page you're _actually_ looking at. Instead of sharing a link to a page (via a popup menu) that you cannot see right now. So the version I envision still allows you to share stuff, just not from the context menu of a link) 1: https://github.com/miraks/ShareToBottom/ https://github.com/miraks/ShareToBottom/
- cesarb 9y ago
  I've used the "share" option on that long-press menu recently, to share a link through zxing's Barcode Scanner to another person's phone. Unfortunately, doing that seems to somehow have moved that rarely-used option to the top of the menu, above even the frequently used "open in new tab" option.
  - darklajid 9y ago
    Hmm. If that happened only because you clicked it once, then it should be reversible to "never wanted it in the first place" somehow, I hope.. Might be worth investigating..
- Santosh83 9y ago
  Thanks! It's also disappointing that something as simple (functionally) as this cannot yet be implemented through WebExtensions. I really hope they beef up the API soon...