5 ms·

Firefox preview is really great. Performance is much, much better than the regular Firefox for Android. Now that it supports the most important extensions, ther

Firefox preview is really great. Performance is much, much better than the regular Firefox for Android. Now that it supports the most important extensions, there's really no reason not to switch.

nicoburns 7y ago
Indeed, this (ublock) is what I've been waiting for to switch. I'm definitely going to give it at least a proper go.
- skrowl 7y ago
  I need Nano Adblock, Nano Defender, TamperMonkey, and BitWarden. Did they give a list of when / which addons?
  - icebraining 7y ago
    They say all "recommend extensions" should be working by the first half of 2020; I think these are it: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/search/?recommended=true&sort=random&type=extension https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/search/?recommended...
dTal 7y ago
Fenix (Firefox Preview) is not currently free software, as it contains proprietary Google libraries like com.google.android.gms and com.google.firebase. F-Droid currently maintain the Google-free fork of Firefox that is available on F-Droid, but they have said they lack the resources to do the same for Fenix as well. Until this is resolved, there is an excellent reason not to switch. https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/162#issuecomment-575199313 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/162#issuecomm...
- craftyguy 7y ago
  Agreed. For an organization that preaches "privacy", Mozilla still continues to make stupid decisions about including google crap everywhere.
  - dependenttypes 7y ago
    There was a post a while ago about Firefox being the browser that calls home the most. I am unsure if Mozilla cared about privacy in a long time really.
    - SquishyPanda23 7y ago
      Here's a talk about some of the privacy-preserving telemetry they're working on https://youtube.com/watch?v=w7AHAq-mU-M https://youtube.com/watch?v=w7AHAq-mU-M
    - craftyguy 7y ago
      It's literally the 2nd sentence on firefox.com: > Automatic privacy is here. They "care" about it, but they don't care about it.
- staticassertion 7y ago
  Sorry, what's the excellent reason?
  - craftyguy 7y ago
    It's not free software, it includes proprietary google tracking libraries.
    - staticassertion 7y ago
      Oh, yeah I'm OK with Firefox including some blobs from the platform provider.
      - heavyset_go 7y ago
        Some people use LineageOS and others, and don't install platform libraries that are proprietary, so this information is more relevant to them and not so much to you.
        staticassertion 7y ago
        Makes sense for sure.
      - craftyguy 7y ago
        That doesn't mean everyone is OK with it. Some of us place a high value on free software and privacy.
      - GeorgeWBasic 7y ago
        If you're okay with Google tracking libraries, why not just use Chrome instead?
        elaus 7y ago
        Because that's a huge difference in regards of "tracking".
- muizelaar 7y ago
  How is this different from linking against Direct3D on Windows?
  - dTal 7y ago
    Because a) it's uneccesary and b) the proprietary libraries are in the app, unlike Direct3D where you could theoretically run the program without the proprietary libs (eg in Wine).
xwowsersx 7y ago
Agreed, it is very very good. I haven't used it as my default yet, but regularly switch to it especially when I need to read an article with reader view. It's kind of crazy how a lot of writing on the web is made so unreadable due to ads and poor design choices.
bscphil 7y ago
Personally, I've found the browser engine performance to be barely faster (within the margin of error, certainly), but more importantly the browser chrome is now horribly slow. Opening menus and stuff like that seems to take much longer than before.
- iggldiggl 7y ago
  And as is the nature with such rewrites, it is still missing quite a few little (or sometimes not so little) features that the current Firefox gained over the years...
coldpie 7y ago
> Now that it supports the most important extensions I'm cautiously optimistic. Do you know if NoScript works?

Firefox preview is really great. Performance is much, much better than the regular Firefox for Android. Now that it supports the most important extensions, there's really no reason not to switch.

nicoburns 7y ago

Indeed, this (ublock) is what I've been waiting for to switch. I'm definitely going to give it at least a proper go.

skrowl 7y ago
I need Nano Adblock, Nano Defender, TamperMonkey, and BitWarden. Did they give a list of when / which addons?
- icebraining 7y ago
  They say all "recommend extensions" should be working by the first half of 2020; I think these are it: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/search/?recommended=true&sort=random&type=extension https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/search/?recommended...

dTal 7y ago

Fenix (Firefox Preview) is not currently free software, as it contains proprietary Google libraries like com.google.android.gms and com.google.firebase. F-Droid currently maintain the Google-free fork of Firefox that is available on F-Droid, but they have said they lack the resources to do the same for Fenix as well. Until this is resolved, there is an excellent reason not to switch. https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/162#issuecomment-575199313 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/162#issuecomm...

craftyguy 7y ago
Agreed. For an organization that preaches "privacy", Mozilla still continues to make stupid decisions about including google crap everywhere.
- dependenttypes 7y ago
  There was a post a while ago about Firefox being the browser that calls home the most. I am unsure if Mozilla cared about privacy in a long time really.
  - SquishyPanda23 7y ago
    Here's a talk about some of the privacy-preserving telemetry they're working on https://youtube.com/watch?v=w7AHAq-mU-M https://youtube.com/watch?v=w7AHAq-mU-M
  - craftyguy 7y ago
    It's literally the 2nd sentence on firefox.com: > Automatic privacy is here. They "care" about it, but they don't care about it.
staticassertion 7y ago
Sorry, what's the excellent reason?
- craftyguy 7y ago
  It's not free software, it includes proprietary google tracking libraries.
  - staticassertion 7y ago
    Oh, yeah I'm OK with Firefox including some blobs from the platform provider.
    - heavyset_go 7y ago
      Some people use LineageOS and others, and don't install platform libraries that are proprietary, so this information is more relevant to them and not so much to you.
      - staticassertion 7y ago
        Makes sense for sure.
    - craftyguy 7y ago
      That doesn't mean everyone is OK with it. Some of us place a high value on free software and privacy.
    - GeorgeWBasic 7y ago
      If you're okay with Google tracking libraries, why not just use Chrome instead?
      - elaus 7y ago
        Because that's a huge difference in regards of "tracking".
muizelaar 7y ago
How is this different from linking against Direct3D on Windows?
- dTal 7y ago
  Because a) it's uneccesary and b) the proprietary libraries are in the app, unlike Direct3D where you could theoretically run the program without the proprietary libs (eg in Wine).

xwowsersx 7y ago

Agreed, it is very very good. I haven't used it as my default yet, but regularly switch to it especially when I need to read an article with reader view. It's kind of crazy how a lot of writing on the web is made so unreadable due to ads and poor design choices.

bscphil 7y ago

Personally, I've found the browser engine performance to be barely faster (within the margin of error, certainly), but more importantly the browser chrome is now horribly slow. Opening menus and stuff like that seems to take much longer than before.

iggldiggl 7y ago
And as is the nature with such rewrites, it is still missing quite a few little (or sometimes not so little) features that the current Firefox gained over the years...

coldpie 7y ago

> Now that it supports the most important extensions I'm cautiously optimistic. Do you know if NoScript works?