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uBlock Origin is the only reason I use Firefox on Android. Mozilla broke extensions on desktop Firefox before and lost many users. Can't help but wonder what t

by hu3 7y ago

uBlock Origin is the only reason I use Firefox on Android. Mozilla broke extensions on desktop Firefox before and lost many users. Can't help but wonder what the hell are their product managers thinking? How can I recommend Firefox if they keep breaking it with little regard for users? Is there another browser that supports uBlock Origin for Android? I'm not talking about biased half baked built-in ad blockers, I want the full open source extension.

rvnx 7y ago
Kiwi Browser (Chromium-based) runs Nano Adblocker and uBlock Origin with full support (like on Firefox)
- hu3 7y ago
  Thanks! I'm investigating it and sadly it seems a bit stale with last commit made 5 months ago: https://github.com/kiwibrowser/android https://github.com/kiwibrowser/android For browsers this seems like a bit too long without updates. I can imagine maintaining such project is demanding but hopefully the project can gain more attention now with the new version of Firefox breaking extensions on Android.
  - green-bottle 7y ago
    Last I checked Kiwi is not open source. There are bits and pieces of code lying around in the Github repo, but not the full source code. The browser seems to get regular enough updates on play store, has decent ad blocking (at least good enough for my purposes) and to date has the best night mode out of all android browsers I've tried. No white flashes like I've faced in Firefox for Android. The dark mode applies to the whole of the browser UI. I use Bromite, Firefox for Android or Fenix mostly equally during the day and Kiwi at night. Though the fact that it is not open source may put some people off.
  - rvnx 7y ago
    There are almost daily builds on Discord if you want to join
iamnotacrook 7y ago
Did they "break" - ie some bug caused a problem - or did they change the framework add-ons used after giving months of notice? Most users use no add-ons, and wouldn't notice the change, and many of those who do were aware of this ahead of time even if the add-on developers were slow to wake up to the reality.
- coldpie 7y ago
  > Did they "break" - ie some bug caused a problem - or did they change the framework add-ons used after giving months of notice? It's not clear what you're asking. Mozilla changed the add-on API, and the new API does not have all the features that the old API had. Two add-ons that I liked very much died during the switch.
- JadeNB 7y ago
  > Most users use no add-ons Do you have the data for this? I know I live in a techie bubble, but it sure doesn't fit with my experience or the experiences of others I know who talk about it.
  - sp332 7y ago
    This is an old post, but in 2009 about 1/3 of FF users had extensions installed. https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2009/08/11/how-many-firefox-users-use-add-ons/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2009/08/11/how-many-firefox-... Without newer data, you'll have to guess whether the new addon model increased or decreased that fraction.
  - gorhill 7y ago
    Firefox Public Data Report: https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior "Has Add-on" has been between 33-38% for the last two years.
    - fgonzag 7y ago
      And a very good chunk of those (most I'd say) is only running some form of ad blocking.
_delirium 7y ago
I was skeptical of the move to Firefox Quantum originally because of the extension-breaking, but after it happened, I can see the motivation: after upgrading, Firefox got a lot faster and less prone to memory leaks for me, at least on macOS. As I understand it, the performance improvements in the new Quantum engine were incompatible with the way the old extension API worked, so a new one needed to be introduced. To me the tradeoff was worth it, because the increasing sluggishness of FF compared to Chrome, pre-Quantum, was making it harder to stick with.
- orthecreedence 7y ago
  This was my exact experience as well. I had to kill/restart FF every few days because it would randomly start eating CPU (this was on Win 10). Because of this I used Chrome until they disabled back navigation via backspace and forced alt-left instead. This pissed me off enough to try FF again, which was right around when Quantum came out. I've never looked back.
- bscphil 7y ago
  I don't think anyone denies the performance improvements and other advantages of the Quantum project. The claim is that the transition wasn't handled well, as replacement APIs for the deprecated addon system weren't in place until several releases after Quantum debuted, and several of the more deep-reaching abilities addons had were deprecated completely. This broke many people's workflows, destroying trust. This also happened a short time after Mozilla previously broke addons with the e10s changes, requiring many (most?) of them to be rewritten. Basically, people don't trust Mozilla to handle transitions well any more, even when they happen to be worthwhile transitions.

by hu3 7y ago

rvnx 7y ago

Kiwi Browser (Chromium-based) runs Nano Adblocker and uBlock Origin with full support (like on Firefox)

hu3 7y ago
Thanks! I'm investigating it and sadly it seems a bit stale with last commit made 5 months ago: https://github.com/kiwibrowser/android https://github.com/kiwibrowser/android For browsers this seems like a bit too long without updates. I can imagine maintaining such project is demanding but hopefully the project can gain more attention now with the new version of Firefox breaking extensions on Android.
- green-bottle 7y ago
  Last I checked Kiwi is not open source. There are bits and pieces of code lying around in the Github repo, but not the full source code. The browser seems to get regular enough updates on play store, has decent ad blocking (at least good enough for my purposes) and to date has the best night mode out of all android browsers I've tried. No white flashes like I've faced in Firefox for Android. The dark mode applies to the whole of the browser UI. I use Bromite, Firefox for Android or Fenix mostly equally during the day and Kiwi at night. Though the fact that it is not open source may put some people off.
- rvnx 7y ago
  There are almost daily builds on Discord if you want to join

iamnotacrook 7y ago

Did they "break" - ie some bug caused a problem - or did they change the framework add-ons used after giving months of notice? Most users use no add-ons, and wouldn't notice the change, and many of those who do were aware of this ahead of time even if the add-on developers were slow to wake up to the reality.

coldpie 7y ago
> Did they "break" - ie some bug caused a problem - or did they change the framework add-ons used after giving months of notice? It's not clear what you're asking. Mozilla changed the add-on API, and the new API does not have all the features that the old API had. Two add-ons that I liked very much died during the switch.
JadeNB 7y ago
> Most users use no add-ons Do you have the data for this? I know I live in a techie bubble, but it sure doesn't fit with my experience or the experiences of others I know who talk about it.
- sp332 7y ago
  This is an old post, but in 2009 about 1/3 of FF users had extensions installed. https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2009/08/11/how-many-firefox-users-use-add-ons/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2009/08/11/how-many-firefox-... Without newer data, you'll have to guess whether the new addon model increased or decreased that fraction.
- gorhill 7y ago
  Firefox Public Data Report: https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior "Has Add-on" has been between 33-38% for the last two years.
  - fgonzag 7y ago
    And a very good chunk of those (most I'd say) is only running some form of ad blocking.

_delirium 7y ago

I was skeptical of the move to Firefox Quantum originally because of the extension-breaking, but after it happened, I can see the motivation: after upgrading, Firefox got a lot faster and less prone to memory leaks for me, at least on macOS. As I understand it, the performance improvements in the new Quantum engine were incompatible with the way the old extension API worked, so a new one needed to be introduced. To me the tradeoff was worth it, because the increasing sluggishness of FF compared to Chrome, pre-Quantum, was making it harder to stick with.

orthecreedence 7y ago
This was my exact experience as well. I had to kill/restart FF every few days because it would randomly start eating CPU (this was on Win 10). Because of this I used Chrome until they disabled back navigation via backspace and forced alt-left instead. This pissed me off enough to try FF again, which was right around when Quantum came out. I've never looked back.
bscphil 7y ago
I don't think anyone denies the performance improvements and other advantages of the Quantum project. The claim is that the transition wasn't handled well, as replacement APIs for the deprecated addon system weren't in place until several releases after Quantum debuted, and several of the more deep-reaching abilities addons had were deprecated completely. This broke many people's workflows, destroying trust. This also happened a short time after Mozilla previously broke addons with the e10s changes, requiring many (most?) of them to be rewritten. Basically, people don't trust Mozilla to handle transitions well any more, even when they happen to be worthwhile transitions.