16 ms·

Things about the new Firefox browser for Android

255 points by maverick74 7y ago

wging 7y ago
Am I reading this right? They're going to launch a browser update that removes support for most extensions and claim it's an upgrade?
- recursive 7y ago
  I didn't see anything about removing any extension support. The word "upgrade" also isn't anywhere on the page that I can see. So my guess is no, you're not reading it right.
  - westmeal 7y ago
    Well I've heard that they are moving to a new extension api for the mobile release and it seems like ublock origin is the only thing thats supported for now per this webpage. I use that and umatrix so I'd like to know if uMatrix is going to be supported for mobile in the future... Does the developer for umatrix browse HN?
    - kwierso 7y ago
      I don't know that uMatrix will be supported any time soon, but you can turn uBlock Origin into Advanced mode and get much of the same functionality that way.
  - mqus 7y ago
    See point 3, this is a complete redesign so they don't have support for any other extensions yet, compared to the existing Firefox on android. But what irks me is that they will only support "recommended extensions" in the near future with no indication on how to install "unsupported" extensions or how to get "recommended". Mozillas own FAQ on the subject, with many more questions in the comments there: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/02/11/faq-for-extension-support-in-new-firefox-for-android/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/02/11/faq-for-extension...
    - twelvechairs 7y ago
      But this is only for preview and nightly preview versions? If you don't want things to break occasiinally just use normal Firefox not a pre-release
      - coldpie 7y ago
        This article is about the final release to all Firefox users. It is not about the preview and nightly versions. They are going to break all extensions for all users (except for uBO).
        twelvechairs 7y ago
        It IS about nightly and preview. Also the first comment on the page is on this issue (normal Firefox users) and answer is clear about their transition > At that time, other add-ons will be supported (although there’s a chance that some of the ones you currently have installed will not be supported.) I don't know what else you can expect? That add ons will never be deprecated?
        coldpie 7y ago
        From the article being discussed here <https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/firefox-android-new-features/ https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/firefox-android-new-feature... >: "The biggest ever update to Firefox browser for Android is on its way. Later this spring, everyone using the Firefox browser on their Android phones and tablets will get the update. ... This update will initially include support for one of the most popular extensions on Android, uBlock Origin. Additional extensions will be supported in subsequent releases so you can customize and expand your mobile browsing experience even more." >I don't know what else you can expect? That add ons will never be deprecated? I thought we went through the whole round of destroying support for non-WebExtensions so that we wouldn't have to do this ever again.
  - wging 7y ago
    "3. Extension-ready This update will initially include support for one of the most popular extensions..." Having support for exactly one means you don't support the others. They also say "Additional extensions will be supported in subsequent releases", which implies they aren't supported initially. Also supported by someone's link to https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/02/11/faq-for-extension-support-in-new-firefox-for-android/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/02/11/faq-for-extension..., thanks for that. It's phrased in a way that avoids saying outright what they are actually doing (dropping support), though.
- untog 7y ago
  Yes. Because for the majority of users, who do not use extensions, it is an upgrade. And it comes with built-in tracking prevention and still supports ad blocking, surely the two the big reasons most people use extensions in the first place. And they're going to restore extension functionality, so the power users who depend on extensions can keep the current version and wait if they wish.
  - zeveb 7y ago
    > And they're going to restore extension functionality I put the odds of that somewhere around the same as the odds that GNOME Screensaver will ever support any of the xscreensaver demos it claimed it would … which is to say, I'm not holding my breath.
    - untog 7y ago
      Why?
      - blackearl 7y ago
        Eventually you'll suffocate
      - Reelin 7y ago
        How long did it take them to finish implementing all the equivalent WebExtension APIs after they dropped XUL?
    - paulie_a 7y ago
      I'd be more concerned about gnome leaking data when unlocking the screensaver.
  - cesarb 7y ago
    > can keep the current version and wait if they wish. Unfortunately, web browsers are one of the few applications where "keep the current version" is not a viable option. Web browsers are very exposed to every web site they visit (including code injected by ad networks), and once a new version is released, many serious vulnerabilities on the previous version are revealed (for instance, https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/known-vulnerabilities... is the list for Firefox). Keeping an old version can be a serious security risk.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- coldpie 7y ago
  God Damnit I Hoped They Wouldn't Do This. I love you Firefox but you make it so hard. I've come to depend on NoScript on mobile (the mobile web is a _nightmare_ with JS enabled by default) and now they're going to break it on me. The worst part is the part of this article about how their browser is not ready for extensions is labeled "Extension-ready". No it fucking isn't. Fuck this is so frustrating.
  - kd913 7y ago
    It's not like there isn't really a solution to this. You don't really need NoScript if you can learn how to use ublock origin in advanced mode.
    - coldpie 7y ago
      I've never tried the uBO script blocker, but NoScript's UI is really nice for performing common tasks related to blocking JS. Stuff like allowing temporary permissions per domain, or allowing all on the current tab. Does uBO have similar features?
      - enitihas 7y ago
        You can try the brave browser on Android. Disabling and enabling js temporarily is easy. Even better, enabling js on a website in private mode does not persist. So you can disable all js by default, enable it on trusted sites via 1 click easy to use UI, and enable anywhere in private mode without worrying about forgetting to disable it later.
        boring_twenties 7y ago
        > enable it on trusted sites via 1 click easy to use UI Does this just enable all scripts loaded by that site, or does it allow filtering by domain the scripts themselves are loaded from? E.g. when browsing site.com you want to allow site.com (and often sitestatic.com or something), but still not allow doubleclick.net even though it's loaded by the same page.
      - 7y ago
- yoavm 7y ago
  Actually I think you're right, and in fact they've already done this for those of us who used Firefox Nightly on Android. I had both Nightly and Preview on my phone, and kept using Nightly precisely because it supported all my extensions (Cookie AutoDelete, Bypass Paywall etc). One morning I woke up to see that Nightly was "upgraded" to Preview, and my extensions (except uBlock) were disabled. From what I understood, it seems like the same is going to happen with the stable branch - first it'll be "upgraded" to Preview and only later Preview will get all extensions support. Another bitter thing about this is that as much as the new Preview UI is slicker, it's actually browsing noticeably slower on my Google Pixel.
- jsjddbbwj 7y ago
  I mean, they are Mozilla.
- MadWombat 7y ago
  They did it on desktop already, what did you expect?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    It was unpopular on desktop, but they had an argument as to why they couldn't keep the old extension model without crippling the browser. Firefox mobile already used the new extension type, and if there's some technical limitation that justifies killing existing extensions then I've not heard about it.
    - kwierso 7y ago
      They're not killing it. Preview/Fenix is essentially a complete re-write of the mobile browser, and they just haven't added all of the extension hooks back into the new version yet.
    - sfink 7y ago
      (I work for Mozilla, but not specifically on mobile.) The reason I've heard is that the new GeckoView architecture requires piping each and every WebExtension API through a Java layer (that naturally doesn't exist on desktop). So it's some amount of manual work per API entry. The definition of the MVP only included critical extensions like reader mode and uBlock. And there's still a fair bit of other work remaining for the MVP, so nobody can spare time for noncritical tasks. Whether that's the right definition of the MVP, and how many resources we'll be able to spend on it post-MVP (especially post-layoffs)... your guess is as good as mine, I'm going by the same public info you have. Extensions are a pretty important distinguishing factor of mobile firefox, though.
- Jonnax 7y ago
  Well it's a rewrite that'd much faster than chrome now. Can't things be a work in progress?
  - Macha 7y ago
    Of course they can. The issue is when you push a work in progress as a replacement for a finished solution
  - kelnos 7y ago
    A work in progress that removes significant features that the existing release has is... not a great idea. I'm not sure what percentage of Firefox Android users have more extensions installed than uBlock Origin, but this is a recipe for losing users. And not just any users, but the more-technical power users that tend to be best at evangelizing products to their less-technical friends and family.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    That's great for all the people that want a fast browser that doesn't need to support extensions but accidentally installed Firefox instead.
- photon-torpedo 7y ago
  On top of the missing extensions, Firefox Preview (nightly) also crashes a lot. Been giving it a spin in the past two weeks but I don't feel it's ready to replace current Firefox.
  - Semaphor 7y ago
    I’ve had more problems with the old FF android than Preview Nightly.
    - Drdrdrq 7y ago
      What kind? It's rock solid for me here.
      - Semaphor 7y ago
        It’s sometimes not loading pages without me force-closing it.
  - chrysoprace 7y ago
    I'd say that's to be expected of a Nightly release. Have you considered the stable Firefox Preview? I've had some crashes, but not many.
- rdslw 7y ago
  I’m really interested about TRUE reason about skipping of extensions in next version ( you can check current MESS by simply checking of number of firefox apps from mozilla only (sic!)). For the organization of mozilla size it is not technical reason (also considering that this will be downgrade). They have ample of resources, they solved much more difficult problems in recent year, they easily can allocate their resources accordingly, they know what users ask for (simply read this discussion), they know that mobile>desktop. Yet.... There is some other factor at play, and i simply would like to know the truth. Not zuck-truth about connecting people...
  - hoistbypetard 7y ago
    > they know what users ask for (simply read this discussion) This discussion only shows what people who like to spend time online talking about implementation details of HTTP user agents ask for. It does not tell us what most users want.
  - jamesgeck0 7y ago
    It's a rewrite of a huge complicated application. Why does there need to be a conspiracy?
  - roca 7y ago
    What makes you think Mozilla has ample resources? They just laid off some people, which strongly suggests they don't.
- sterwill 7y ago
  I've been using the nightly builds of Firefox Preview for a couple of weeks, and it supports the extension I need the most (uBlock Origin). The new preview is so much faster than the old Firefox for Android I probably won't need to buy a new phone for another year or two. I like the UI changes, too.
  - ebg13 7y ago
    Me too, but does yours crash all the time like mine does or is that something with my phone?
    - jobstijl 7y ago
      For me it did a few updates ago, now it's pretty much stable. I really do like this release and i can live with not all extentions being enabled on the nightly, but for releasing this to stable users i would think they should first fix the extentions.
    - sciurus 7y ago
      For the last few days for me, Firefox Preview Nightly crashes almost immediately but Firefox Preview is still stable. My understanding is that Preview picks up changes from Preview Nightly every two weeks. (Disclaimer: I work for Mozilla but not on our Android browser)
      - dblohm7 7y ago
        I hope you’re reporting these...
        sciurus 7y ago
        Yes, I follow Android's prompt to report the crashes. I don't see them listed in about:crashes though, so I'm unsure how to follow up about them.
- jpangs88 7y ago
  It's true that most the extension support is going away for now. From there GitHub project it doesn't sound like the only thing that won't meet feature parity in the new version. That being said I am using nightly preview and am really enjoying it and would recommend it. And if you still want all those extensions you could always fork the current version like waterfox.
- kelnos 7y ago
  Yes, this is such a foolish move. I have six extensions on my Firefox Android install, and the fact that five of them will not work for who knows how long after initial release makes me want to switch to another browser. I just might. We'll see.
- enitihas 7y ago
  To be fair, current firefox is very slow and resource hungry, and works well only on top of the line phones. For example, I have 2 android phones, 1 with 4GB and 1 with 8 GB of RAM. In the 8 GB one, I can use firefox with ublock origin, but it is a terrible experience on the 4GB phone (which has a slower processor too). The new firefox is much faster and runs snappily on both phones.
  - stiray 7y ago
    This is nonsense, I am running it on samsung galaxy s5 and s7 and both are running without issues. But with a small twist, both are free from google with microg lineage installed and xprivacy lua and netguard blocking all unneeded communication. Maybe you should think about removing all google apps to remove bloatware from your phone to save the resources for somethinv usefull instead od wasting your batter life (30% longer battery life) and cpu to feed google? Anyway, I dont use firefox due to speed but as I dont want any of google products on my phone, regardless of how fast they are. It is not about speed. It is about having some dignity within survailance capitalism. And I am filtering everything trough mitm proxy so I dont need ublock. For the fingerprinting part... I wont update untill they fix this mess.
  - boring_twenties 7y ago
    I'm using it on a Moto G6 which is last I checked literally the cheapest phone you can buy brand new in the US, and Firefox works fine on it. Of course I usually have JavaScript disabled.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    That doesn't match my experience at all. My phone has 4GB of RAM, my firefox has over tabs up (yes I'm a monster but it makes my point a lot stronger here), and other than taking a bit to open from a cold start it's perfectly fine performance-wise.
- danShumway 7y ago
  Ugh. Now I need to choose between disabling updates for Firefox, which is a pretty big security risk, and giving up UMatrix, which I also consider to be at least somewhat of a security risk. It's such a questionable decision. I understand that addons take a while to support, I understand for most users it's still an upgrade since they don't use extensions, I understand that at some point you need real users instead of just beta-testers. But they're taking a huge step backwards for user freedom. It's a bad look for Mozilla. I'm disappointed. I wish they'd develop the apps in parallel until they had actual feature parity. Even if the old version of Firefox got pushed to a separate app; I'd be fine uninstalling Firefox and reinstalling 'Firefox Classic' from Mozilla. I feel like they don't really understand what the community response to this is going to be.
  - Macha 7y ago
    Yeah, I'm not a hardcore extension user on mobile, and even then losing HTTPS Everywhere is going to suck (HSTS isn't everywhere still).
  - kozziollek 7y ago
    I never used uMatrix, but as far as I am aware uBlock Origin has the same functionality if you check "I am an advanced user" in settings. See: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium-mode https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...
    - cobby 7y ago
      No. uMatrux offers way more granular control.
      - 0-_-0 7y ago
        I don't know about that, but it breaks some of uBlock's functionality: https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/706xrr/umatrix_vs_ublock_origin_medium_blocking_mode/dn1goxr/ https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/706xrr/umatrix_vs_...
  - 7y ago
- shultays 7y ago
  Again?
- dralley 7y ago
  >They're going to launch a browser update that removes support for most extensions It's not like they're "removing" it, they rewrote half the browser and not all of the APIs are hooked back up yet. They're going to be added back eventually.
  - fwn 7y ago
    It's not like they're removing it. They'll just push an update and your extensions will be gone. A lot of corporate communication wizards might be required to dress this up as something else than direct removal.
  - shock 7y ago
    > It's not like they're "removing" it, they rewrote half the browser and not all of the APIs are hooked back up yet For most users this is a distinction without a difference.
    - Paul-ish 7y ago
      The distinction to me is they removed it but didn't also deprecate it.
    - petecox 7y ago
      What part of "it ain't finished yet" would most users not understand? It's a Preview release for a reason. Mozilla aren't exactly pulling a KDE 4 here.
      - iggldiggl 7y ago
        It was a preview release, but they've already started rolling it out to the regular Nightly channel and according to this very blog post we're discussing it's supposed to have a "public release later this spring". Given that any changes have to work their way through the Beta channel, too, there's not much time left for landing changes in Nightly that will still make it into the first Release version... so the first official Release version that will be pushed out to everybody will indeed be in an unfinished state.
- Karunamon 7y ago
  This is hardly the first time that Mozilla has done this to its users (re: what happened to Firefox on the desktop). Breaking people's experiences and worfklows in an extreme way is demonstrably not high on their list of concerns.
- soapdog 7y ago
  It is kinda of a complete rewrite as far as I know. This is using GeckoView, lots of things changed and moved places. And yes, I don't think this should be pushed to stable before extension support is in place but apparently the metrics tell a different story.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    Then maybe it's time to stop listening to metrics and start using our brains again.
warnhardcode 7y ago
I like this browser and usually have it set as my default on my phone. I like that I can set links to open in private mode by default quite a bit. My wishlist: 1. collections syncing to my Firefox account and desktop Firefox 2. a menu option to move a page from private mode to normal mode where I'm logged into things; right now I copy/paste the url 3. (sadly) an easy way to open the current page in Chrome. The biggest issue I've run into is some app sign-in flows that roll through the browser or webview break when using Firefox private by default. I switch Chrome to the default temporarily to work around this.
mqus 7y ago
> "[...]everyone using the Firefox browser on their Android phones and tablets will get the update." Well, everyone who has at least Android 5... which excludes about 10% of the android landscape[1]. Most of these people probably still haven't upgraded because they a)can't afford it or b) use their devices until they're broken and will not buy a new device simply because it's newer. I understand the move, but still, Mozilla has to communicate this in the right way and not "Everyone will have to update and if you can't, sorry for you, not our business" [1] https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/ https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/
- bootloop 7y ago
  Who says these 10% are using Firefox in the first place?
- jsjddbbwj 7y ago
  Android 5 was released in 2014. It's time to move on.
  - mqus 7y ago
    Is anything which is older than 6 years considered legacy now? Should this be the expected lifetime of smartphones? Please not.
    - bhhaskin 7y ago
      The current expected lifetime of a smartphone (and laptop for that matter) is about 2-3 years. After that the batteries start to degrade. when the batteries start to degrade most devices start to down clock to preserve battery life. And even if they don't down clock they stop being as useful as their intended purpose.
    - yoavm 7y ago
      It doesn't mean that you should toss your phone away, but from a security perspective your operating system is very much a legacy if it didn't get any updates for 6 years. Luckily on Android your can often flash an alternative ROM when official updates are over.
AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
Glad to see support for uBlock Origin landing, finally. Although to be honest, I've been using FF Preview for about a month now, and I haven't observed any ads to speak of. The tracking blockers may be enough on their own.
- Semaphor 7y ago
  I’ve seen a few, but the majority gets caught :)
dwheeler 7y ago
Sounds good. Does lastpass work on this version of Firefox? Lastpass is a really popular password manager, but last I checked it didn't work on Firefox on Android (Lastpass works fine on Firefox on desktop).
- mapleoin 7y ago
  I use the Lastpass Android app with the onscreen overlay. It works fine.
- hashhar 7y ago
  LastPass's Android app works. But maybe you can try out Bitwarden while you're at it. It's open source and can be self-hosted (and is audited).
- toastal 7y ago
  Firefox also has their own with Lockwise that does device syncing to Android, autfill, etc. Could be good enough for many.
wesCsrlson 7y ago
Pretty sure Mozilla sold out long ago to our privacy invading overlords. Shame
- metalliqaz 7y ago
  yeah, better to use Chrome to protect your privacy /s
  - jshevek 7y ago
    Not Chrome. Brave: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22419284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22419284
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
conradfr 7y ago
We'll see. To be honest I don't really have a problem with the current Firefox on Android. Maybe I'll get accustomed to the bottom url bar. I also use Firefox Focus for links from external apps.
- andrewshadura 7y ago
  The bar position is a setting, you don't to get used to it.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  Honestly, if you don't use extensions, it seems to be pretty great. (I say, as a heavy user of extensions who's fairly annoyed right now.) It is snappy and polished.
kaeforas 7y ago
Well this is worrying, afaik Firefox Preview still kernel panics some LineageOS roms (like mine) [1]. [1] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5663 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5663
- jeroenhd 7y ago
  To be honest, if a userland application is capable of kernel panicking a phone, that's a bug in the kernel, not in the application. There's also a bug in Android (official and LOS) which I've encountered many times related to location detection in certain always-on GPS apps, causing a systems freeze and a reboot. This sucks, but it's a bug with Android, not with the application itself. The Android/LOS peeps should really take a look at this though. I don't expect this to be the only app that can cause this and with some severe bad luck the crash might even be exploitable.
Sindisil 7y ago
If they fix the frequent crashes, and even more frequent inability to render a page at all (just a white screen, even after refreshing), then I'll definitely give it a go. I'd love to switch back, but had to retreat to Brave for the time being...
- jamienicol 7y ago
  What phone are you using?
  - landtuna 7y ago
    I have this issue on the Galaxy S10e (stock). I get the white screen of death after a while. I uninstalled it because my phone was swapping out the second to last app when I had Firefox Preview installed, even when not using it. (Maybe it was being the default web view inside other apps?) The phone seems fine with it gone as I use regular Firefox.
  - Sindisil 7y ago
    Moto Z² Play running Android 8.
unwiredben 7y ago
I just tried this again after being back on Firefox Beta on Android for a few months. It's really gotten quite nice, and they added back the reader mode which I use a lot to simplify long pages on my phone. The only thing I occasionally use that's not there right now is the ability to open a site from a tab open on my desktop.
yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
> 3. Extension-ready > This update will initially include support for one of the most popular extensions on Android, uBlock Origin. Additional extensions will be supported in subsequent releases ... if it supports exactly 1 extension, it is absolutely not "extension-ready"!
- sfink 7y ago
  I'm guessing the wording was meant to suggest extension ready vs extension supporting. As in, the codebase is capable of adding full extension support, no rearchitecture needed. No user-facing advantage yet, sadly.
Misdicorl 7y ago
I'm on nightly on my phone so have had this experience for a while. I very much dislike the new homescreen with collections instead of the 2x4 of most frecently visited sites. Collections would be ok if it kept the old UI of a 2x4 grid. Instead I get to see 2 sites at first, and have to scroll to see more. If I close a tab, I'm not able to use the bottom 1/4 of the screen for ~2 seconds while the undo popup hangs out. This means even more scrolling. This decluttering really sucks imo. The other annoying thing is that the upgrade starts up with an empty collection screen. The upgrade should have created a default collection populated with my 2x4 grid for me. Come on Mozilla, stop giving me paper cuts like this.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  Ah, the old "we know what's best for our users" mentality. Take something good away in favor of a worse UX, with no config setting to switch back, even though old and new could co-exist.
  - Misdicorl 7y ago
    I definitely understand them not wanting to maintain two parallel settings here. I think this failure sits squarely on the project manager who decided to couple the new behavior (collections instead of frecency) together with a new ui. I'd bet dollars to donuts that they didn't test the changes independently, and they're probably tightly linked in the code. I imagine collections were the driving force here. If the new behavior (collections) were shipped separately, I imagine they would have certainly migrated installations to have a default `recents` collection that users could then easily delete (or migrate and maintain manually)! What a nice situation that would have been as everyone would have gotten exactly what they wanted. If the new UI were tested separately, I can't imagine it would have gotten positive feedback. But maybe I'm just an old grump and most people like it better? It seems like shipping the UI change as a separate feature would have easily identified that the grid view was something a lot of people liked.
- mariushn 7y ago
  Sounds like Gnome. They know better than users. To make such changes, commercial products I've worked on did these steps: 1. test with some users in 1:1 sessions 2. incorporate the feedback (or consider dropping the alternative, if most all feedback was negative) 3. implement metrics 4. launch to 0.5 - 1% of users. See metrics AND feedback. 5. incorporate feedback 6. gradually launch to more 7. at some point, remove the old way I agree it's hard to do these with volunteer work. That's how some hard issues are never solved, but Gnome gets new apps or rewrites on existing apps with almost every release -- that's the fun work. It's volunteered, so take it, or leave it, or DYI, or pay somebody. PS: I've reached out to a few Mozilla staff via LinkedIn with a proposal for a new commercial product, but nobody replied. Anyone has a contact there? Proposal: A Google Suite alternative for businesses, provided by Mozilla both as a cloud service and on-premise. Dual licensing, AGPL and Enterprise: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17czxzh20c8ouhrX-iZPS2BH8e03yQL8a3EnaGO37A6w/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/17czxzh20c8ouhrX-iZPS2BH8...
Tistron 7y ago
I really wish they'd get around to implementing saving credit card info, that's one reason I go back to chrome now and then. and there are some bugs with opening Firefox, clicking the address field on a tab that is loading and writing a search and pressing enter. That search is somehow lost if the timing of loading what was already in the tab is unfortunate. Maybe this never happens on a brand new phone on a high speed connection, but for me it is the biggest nuisance with Firefox mobile.
kibwen 7y ago
I'll keep using Mobile Firefox, and my experience with the new version is indeed favorable, but I admit that I'm frustrated and confused that this is being pushed to stable users before complete extension support is implemented. Thankfully uBlock Origin is supported or I'd be looking for a new browser, but my less-important extensions aren't so lucky. At best I could imagine that Mozilla is privy to internal metrics showing that some overwhelming proportion of users have uBlock Origin as their only extension, which I could absolutely believe. Still, what sort of timeframe will it take to support the remaining addons, and why couldn't the new browser have baked on the nightly channel for a while longer until extension support was completed?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- kwierso 7y ago
  I think the metrics actually show that most users don't use extensions. But of the group that do use extensions, I'd guess an adblocker is the top one.
  - Drdrdrq 7y ago
    The question is - _an_ adblocker or _the_ adblocker (ublock)? As a long time FF Android user I prefer uMatrix and will wait with upgrade, hoping they fix this quickly. Otherwise... Not sure what I'll do. This is bad. :-(
    - bscphil 7y ago
      As far as I know, uMatrix is not a (dynamic) ad blocker. That is, if some requests to subdomain.domain.net are for ads and some of the requests are for important page content, uMatrix isn't capable of distinguishing between the two. A real ad blocker uses block lists compiled (at least in part) by other people that can distinguish between two different URLs on the same domain.
      - Drdrdrq 7y ago
adadahdjej 7y ago
The top comments are so negative. I find the steps towards making uBlock origin directly available, and extensions available in subsequent releases laudable. I have been using Firefox mobile for at least 8 years and it's been getting faster and better with every new release.
jeroenhd 7y ago
Well, this is quite telling of Mozilla's marketing department; the link to the developer edition at the bottom is being blocked by my PiHole. It's sad to see Mozilla's open values being wasted by whatever marketing/data people they've hired to switch to massive telemetry and tracking for their own products. Their related articles are all over the place about protecting yourself from tracking companies but Mozilla themselves are as bad as any company on their own blog site. I hope it'll be a while until the launch. I like the direction they're going with the collections and the UI. And sure, it's faster already, but without extensions I might as well just use Chrome or Brave or Edgeium for all that matters. The preview also has several weird freezes and crashes during the minimal use I give it. They also packaged their own certificate store like usual so my custom root certificate doesn't work. Unlike the current version of FF, they haven't added UI to add certificates to it yet. In other words, people relying on intranet access with corporate certificates will have to switch to Chrome. This is a breaking issue for me; I'm not willing to mess around with implementing the weird API my DNS provider uses to use Let's Encrypt's wildcard certificates just so an update for Firefox lets me access my intranet.
The_rationalist 7y ago
It's nice that they used Kotlin, the codebase is beautiful to look at.
drummer 7y ago
Is there a way to download a .apk of the preview?
- v0lta 7y ago
  Just download 'Firefox Preview' in the Play Store. That's the version which will eventually replace the old one.
  - drummer 7y ago
    I want to avoid the play store. So I was looking for an official apk source.
    - severine 7y ago
      From https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/8350#issuecomment-585246432 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/8350#issuecom... > We do a staged roll-out before publishing APKs. As far as I'm aware neither are at 100% which is a requirement for posting the builds. The APK is available from automation in the meantime if you want: https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/tasks/index/project.mobile.fenix.v2.production/latest* https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/tasks/index/proje...
Brakenshire 7y ago
Any progress on Servo? What the mobile web needs is a parallel layout engine.
agluszak 7y ago
But you still can't change tabs with a swipe like in Chrome, and to be honest it's the only thing keeping me from switching to FF
- agluszak 7y ago
  Well, at least I could contribute this feature myself someday, while many annoyances in Chrome I won't be ever able to fix :)
  - vntok 7y ago
    What prevents you from contributing to this feature targeting Chrome?
    - hu3 7y ago
      Their bias.
- mcjiggerlog 7y ago
  Scheduled for Q2 - https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/3481 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/3481
loufe 7y ago
I've been using Firefox Preview for months and it is the first time I don't hate using the browser on my phone. Huge props to the Firefox team for it.
ajnin 7y ago
I'm using Firefox Preview regularly for a few month now, and it really is a huge step up in performance. Javascript and CSS-heavy sites now behave as they should, and browsing feels smooth overall. However the UI changes are a big step back and the main reason why I've not completely switched over from the regular Firefox (now I won't have that choice it looks like) : - The address/search bar is much much inferior. Much less relevant results now come up first. When typing the domain name of a site I visit daily said site will come up low on the list, needing to scroll, while some autocompleted address I've never visited once will be on top. - Extensions are not supported. A single supported extension does not count. - The thumbnails are removed from the tab list. Not a huge loss but I had gotten used to it - Popups each time you close a tab use up unnecessary screen space. Also they often just stay there. - The address bar is now at the bottom. Change for the sake of change. I don't know if all of these issues will transfer to the new Firefox, but I wish they would have brought in the engine changes only. Current UI is fine.
- chrysoprace 7y ago
  > The address bar is now at the bottom. Change for the sake of change. This can be changed in Settings > Toolbar > Top.
- isbjorn16 7y ago
  I know you say a single supported extension does not count, but they did include the one extension that was an absolute deal breaker for me if it didn't exist. They -don't- support extensions yet, but they did make it approachable for people like me who simply won't browse the web without an adblocker.
  - endemic 7y ago
    Agreed, to be honest uBlock Origin is the only extension I'm currently running on mobile, and "deal-breaker" is exactly how I'd describe browsing without it. I'll probably give this new build a try.
    - SECProto 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
oftenwrong 7y ago
I use many extensions on Firefox for Android. It's why I use Firefox, and Firefox is a big reason for why I use Android. I already switched from Nightly to the Release version to continue using extensions.
pmontra 7y ago
Maybe the could publish the current version with a different name (Firefox Rusty?) for the ones of us who want to keep using their extensions. The current Firefox feels fast enough on my phone. I can wait to install the new one when extensions support is complete.
davidy123 7y ago
The github issue discussing extension support is here https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5315#issuecomment-582309086 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5315#issuecom... I find the attitudes about extensions and UX in general to be evolving in a strange way. People used to focus on the 80/20 rule, make what 80% of people want to do easy, and the remaining 20% possible. But now many people seem to be saying "if most people don't need it, it's not important." But that just takes products down a path of diminishing ability that is dictated by a few UX people and the personas they test with, and when we're talking about a general purpose product like a browser it means fewer opportunities for anyone to create and use innovative features.
- anoncake 7y ago
  Even worse, it means people can't rely on your features anymore. A feature that could disappear at any time might as well not exist.
mnm1 7y ago
The Firefox Preview Nightly (with ublock) is an incredible improvement, especially regarding speed. I got a new phone this past August (moto g7) and I was already wondering if I needed another new phone because FF on android was so slow. It was unbearable. I was about to ditch it completely and resign myself to ads. FF is doing a great job overall with their browsers on android and desktop (except for the loss of sourcemap support for some that makes it unusable for JS debugging). I suppose there was a lot of room for improvement since the old FF was incredibly slow. I hope they do not let this new version degrade into what it was in the future.
mike-cardwell 7y ago
Can I use this, or does it come with DoH? I hate that I have to even ask this question.
dreamcompiler 7y ago
I hope they make it impossible for sites to determine whether you're in private mode. Lots of sites refuse to work in private mode, and frankly, they shouldn't have any way to tell. Private mode is nice because it's the easiest way to delete all their tracking cookies when you leave the site.
h4waii 7y ago
If you're not very happy with Firefox for Android, consider switching to Bromite [0]. It's based on Chromium, but includes many privacy patches, including ad blocking, and is completely open source. Releases are available through an official F-Droid repository as well as GitHub. It is a very well run project. 0. https://github.com/bromite/bromite https://github.com/bromite/bromite
justlexi93 7y ago
I don't have Firefox on my smartphone, I still use Chrome.
toastal 7y ago
I wish there was still about:config. It's much more fine-grained and you can turn on experimental features like lazy loading images.
csande17 7y ago
I've heard that extensions aren't supported in the new Firefox for Android, but did they also drop support for Personas/Themes? The blog post mentions light or dark themes, but not custom ones. (Am I the only person in the world who installed a theme on Firefox for Android?)
lousken 7y ago
Firefox preview has two really annoying bugs - a) when closing a tab the option to revert that action gets stuck most of the time on my screen and it's hard to get the timing right - if you do it too soon you gonna actually restore the tab but if you do it later it'll stop working and just disappear b) downloading some attachments creates 0byte or incomplete file in my download folder, not sure what's going on there

255 points by maverick74 7y ago

Am I reading this right? They're going to launch a browser update that removes support for most extensions and claim it's an upgrade?

recursive 7y ago
I didn't see anything about removing any extension support. The word "upgrade" also isn't anywhere on the page that I can see. So my guess is no, you're not reading it right.
- westmeal 7y ago
  Well I've heard that they are moving to a new extension api for the mobile release and it seems like ublock origin is the only thing thats supported for now per this webpage. I use that and umatrix so I'd like to know if uMatrix is going to be supported for mobile in the future... Does the developer for umatrix browse HN?
  - kwierso 7y ago
    I don't know that uMatrix will be supported any time soon, but you can turn uBlock Origin into Advanced mode and get much of the same functionality that way.
- mqus 7y ago
  See point 3, this is a complete redesign so they don't have support for any other extensions yet, compared to the existing Firefox on android. But what irks me is that they will only support "recommended extensions" in the near future with no indication on how to install "unsupported" extensions or how to get "recommended". Mozillas own FAQ on the subject, with many more questions in the comments there: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/02/11/faq-for-extension-support-in-new-firefox-for-android/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/02/11/faq-for-extension...
  - twelvechairs 7y ago
    But this is only for preview and nightly preview versions? If you don't want things to break occasiinally just use normal Firefox not a pre-release
    - coldpie 7y ago
      This article is about the final release to all Firefox users. It is not about the preview and nightly versions. They are going to break all extensions for all users (except for uBO).
      - twelvechairs 7y ago
        It IS about nightly and preview. Also the first comment on the page is on this issue (normal Firefox users) and answer is clear about their transition > At that time, other add-ons will be supported (although there’s a chance that some of the ones you currently have installed will not be supported.) I don't know what else you can expect? That add ons will never be deprecated?
        coldpie 7y ago
        From the article being discussed here <https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/firefox-android-new-features/ https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/firefox-android-new-feature... >: "The biggest ever update to Firefox browser for Android is on its way. Later this spring, everyone using the Firefox browser on their Android phones and tablets will get the update. ... This update will initially include support for one of the most popular extensions on Android, uBlock Origin. Additional extensions will be supported in subsequent releases so you can customize and expand your mobile browsing experience even more." >I don't know what else you can expect? That add ons will never be deprecated? I thought we went through the whole round of destroying support for non-WebExtensions so that we wouldn't have to do this ever again.
- wging 7y ago
  "3. Extension-ready This update will initially include support for one of the most popular extensions..." Having support for exactly one means you don't support the others. They also say "Additional extensions will be supported in subsequent releases", which implies they aren't supported initially. Also supported by someone's link to https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/02/11/faq-for-extension-support-in-new-firefox-for-android/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/02/11/faq-for-extension..., thanks for that. It's phrased in a way that avoids saying outright what they are actually doing (dropping support), though.
untog 7y ago
Yes. Because for the majority of users, who do not use extensions, it is an upgrade. And it comes with built-in tracking prevention and still supports ad blocking, surely the two the big reasons most people use extensions in the first place. And they're going to restore extension functionality, so the power users who depend on extensions can keep the current version and wait if they wish.
- zeveb 7y ago
  > And they're going to restore extension functionality I put the odds of that somewhere around the same as the odds that GNOME Screensaver will ever support any of the xscreensaver demos it claimed it would … which is to say, I'm not holding my breath.
  - untog 7y ago
    Why?
    - blackearl 7y ago
      Eventually you'll suffocate
    - Reelin 7y ago
      How long did it take them to finish implementing all the equivalent WebExtension APIs after they dropped XUL?
  - paulie_a 7y ago
    I'd be more concerned about gnome leaking data when unlocking the screensaver.
- cesarb 7y ago
  > can keep the current version and wait if they wish. Unfortunately, web browsers are one of the few applications where "keep the current version" is not a viable option. Web browsers are very exposed to every web site they visit (including code injected by ad networks), and once a new version is released, many serious vulnerabilities on the previous version are revealed (for instance, https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/known-vulnerabilities... is the list for Firefox). Keeping an old version can be a serious security risk.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
coldpie 7y ago
God Damnit I Hoped They Wouldn't Do This. I love you Firefox but you make it so hard. I've come to depend on NoScript on mobile (the mobile web is a _nightmare_ with JS enabled by default) and now they're going to break it on me. The worst part is the part of this article about how their browser is not ready for extensions is labeled "Extension-ready". No it fucking isn't. Fuck this is so frustrating.
- kd913 7y ago
  It's not like there isn't really a solution to this. You don't really need NoScript if you can learn how to use ublock origin in advanced mode.
  - coldpie 7y ago
    I've never tried the uBO script blocker, but NoScript's UI is really nice for performing common tasks related to blocking JS. Stuff like allowing temporary permissions per domain, or allowing all on the current tab. Does uBO have similar features?
    - enitihas 7y ago
      You can try the brave browser on Android. Disabling and enabling js temporarily is easy. Even better, enabling js on a website in private mode does not persist. So you can disable all js by default, enable it on trusted sites via 1 click easy to use UI, and enable anywhere in private mode without worrying about forgetting to disable it later.
      - boring_twenties 7y ago
        > enable it on trusted sites via 1 click easy to use UI Does this just enable all scripts loaded by that site, or does it allow filtering by domain the scripts themselves are loaded from? E.g. when browsing site.com you want to allow site.com (and often sitestatic.com or something), but still not allow doubleclick.net even though it's loaded by the same page.
    - 7y ago
yoavm 7y ago
Actually I think you're right, and in fact they've already done this for those of us who used Firefox Nightly on Android. I had both Nightly and Preview on my phone, and kept using Nightly precisely because it supported all my extensions (Cookie AutoDelete, Bypass Paywall etc). One morning I woke up to see that Nightly was "upgraded" to Preview, and my extensions (except uBlock) were disabled. From what I understood, it seems like the same is going to happen with the stable branch - first it'll be "upgraded" to Preview and only later Preview will get all extensions support. Another bitter thing about this is that as much as the new Preview UI is slicker, it's actually browsing noticeably slower on my Google Pixel.
jsjddbbwj 7y ago
I mean, they are Mozilla.
MadWombat 7y ago
They did it on desktop already, what did you expect?
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  It was unpopular on desktop, but they had an argument as to why they couldn't keep the old extension model without crippling the browser. Firefox mobile already used the new extension type, and if there's some technical limitation that justifies killing existing extensions then I've not heard about it.
  - kwierso 7y ago
    They're not killing it. Preview/Fenix is essentially a complete re-write of the mobile browser, and they just haven't added all of the extension hooks back into the new version yet.
  - sfink 7y ago
    (I work for Mozilla, but not specifically on mobile.) The reason I've heard is that the new GeckoView architecture requires piping each and every WebExtension API through a Java layer (that naturally doesn't exist on desktop). So it's some amount of manual work per API entry. The definition of the MVP only included critical extensions like reader mode and uBlock. And there's still a fair bit of other work remaining for the MVP, so nobody can spare time for noncritical tasks. Whether that's the right definition of the MVP, and how many resources we'll be able to spend on it post-MVP (especially post-layoffs)... your guess is as good as mine, I'm going by the same public info you have. Extensions are a pretty important distinguishing factor of mobile firefox, though.
Jonnax 7y ago
Well it's a rewrite that'd much faster than chrome now. Can't things be a work in progress?
- Macha 7y ago
  Of course they can. The issue is when you push a work in progress as a replacement for a finished solution
- kelnos 7y ago
  A work in progress that removes significant features that the existing release has is... not a great idea. I'm not sure what percentage of Firefox Android users have more extensions installed than uBlock Origin, but this is a recipe for losing users. And not just any users, but the more-technical power users that tend to be best at evangelizing products to their less-technical friends and family.
- anoncake 7y ago
  That's great for all the people that want a fast browser that doesn't need to support extensions but accidentally installed Firefox instead.
photon-torpedo 7y ago
On top of the missing extensions, Firefox Preview (nightly) also crashes a lot. Been giving it a spin in the past two weeks but I don't feel it's ready to replace current Firefox.
- Semaphor 7y ago
  I’ve had more problems with the old FF android than Preview Nightly.
  - Drdrdrq 7y ago
    What kind? It's rock solid for me here.
    - Semaphor 7y ago
      It’s sometimes not loading pages without me force-closing it.
- chrysoprace 7y ago
  I'd say that's to be expected of a Nightly release. Have you considered the stable Firefox Preview? I've had some crashes, but not many.
rdslw 7y ago
I’m really interested about TRUE reason about skipping of extensions in next version ( you can check current MESS by simply checking of number of firefox apps from mozilla only (sic!)). For the organization of mozilla size it is not technical reason (also considering that this will be downgrade). They have ample of resources, they solved much more difficult problems in recent year, they easily can allocate their resources accordingly, they know what users ask for (simply read this discussion), they know that mobile>desktop. Yet.... There is some other factor at play, and i simply would like to know the truth. Not zuck-truth about connecting people...
- hoistbypetard 7y ago
  > they know what users ask for (simply read this discussion) This discussion only shows what people who like to spend time online talking about implementation details of HTTP user agents ask for. It does not tell us what most users want.
- jamesgeck0 7y ago
  It's a rewrite of a huge complicated application. Why does there need to be a conspiracy?
- roca 7y ago
  What makes you think Mozilla has ample resources? They just laid off some people, which strongly suggests they don't.
sterwill 7y ago
I've been using the nightly builds of Firefox Preview for a couple of weeks, and it supports the extension I need the most (uBlock Origin). The new preview is so much faster than the old Firefox for Android I probably won't need to buy a new phone for another year or two. I like the UI changes, too.
- ebg13 7y ago
  Me too, but does yours crash all the time like mine does or is that something with my phone?
  - jobstijl 7y ago
    For me it did a few updates ago, now it's pretty much stable. I really do like this release and i can live with not all extentions being enabled on the nightly, but for releasing this to stable users i would think they should first fix the extentions.
  - sciurus 7y ago
    For the last few days for me, Firefox Preview Nightly crashes almost immediately but Firefox Preview is still stable. My understanding is that Preview picks up changes from Preview Nightly every two weeks. (Disclaimer: I work for Mozilla but not on our Android browser)
    - dblohm7 7y ago
      I hope you’re reporting these...
      - sciurus 7y ago
        Yes, I follow Android's prompt to report the crashes. I don't see them listed in about:crashes though, so I'm unsure how to follow up about them.
jpangs88 7y ago
It's true that most the extension support is going away for now. From there GitHub project it doesn't sound like the only thing that won't meet feature parity in the new version. That being said I am using nightly preview and am really enjoying it and would recommend it. And if you still want all those extensions you could always fork the current version like waterfox.
kelnos 7y ago
Yes, this is such a foolish move. I have six extensions on my Firefox Android install, and the fact that five of them will not work for who knows how long after initial release makes me want to switch to another browser. I just might. We'll see.
enitihas 7y ago
To be fair, current firefox is very slow and resource hungry, and works well only on top of the line phones. For example, I have 2 android phones, 1 with 4GB and 1 with 8 GB of RAM. In the 8 GB one, I can use firefox with ublock origin, but it is a terrible experience on the 4GB phone (which has a slower processor too). The new firefox is much faster and runs snappily on both phones.
- stiray 7y ago
  This is nonsense, I am running it on samsung galaxy s5 and s7 and both are running without issues. But with a small twist, both are free from google with microg lineage installed and xprivacy lua and netguard blocking all unneeded communication. Maybe you should think about removing all google apps to remove bloatware from your phone to save the resources for somethinv usefull instead od wasting your batter life (30% longer battery life) and cpu to feed google? Anyway, I dont use firefox due to speed but as I dont want any of google products on my phone, regardless of how fast they are. It is not about speed. It is about having some dignity within survailance capitalism. And I am filtering everything trough mitm proxy so I dont need ublock. For the fingerprinting part... I wont update untill they fix this mess.
- boring_twenties 7y ago
  I'm using it on a Moto G6 which is last I checked literally the cheapest phone you can buy brand new in the US, and Firefox works fine on it. Of course I usually have JavaScript disabled.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  That doesn't match my experience at all. My phone has 4GB of RAM, my firefox has over tabs up (yes I'm a monster but it makes my point a lot stronger here), and other than taking a bit to open from a cold start it's perfectly fine performance-wise.
danShumway 7y ago
Ugh. Now I need to choose between disabling updates for Firefox, which is a pretty big security risk, and giving up UMatrix, which I also consider to be at least somewhat of a security risk. It's such a questionable decision. I understand that addons take a while to support, I understand for most users it's still an upgrade since they don't use extensions, I understand that at some point you need real users instead of just beta-testers. But they're taking a huge step backwards for user freedom. It's a bad look for Mozilla. I'm disappointed. I wish they'd develop the apps in parallel until they had actual feature parity. Even if the old version of Firefox got pushed to a separate app; I'd be fine uninstalling Firefox and reinstalling 'Firefox Classic' from Mozilla. I feel like they don't really understand what the community response to this is going to be.
- Macha 7y ago
  Yeah, I'm not a hardcore extension user on mobile, and even then losing HTTPS Everywhere is going to suck (HSTS isn't everywhere still).
- kozziollek 7y ago
  I never used uMatrix, but as far as I am aware uBlock Origin has the same functionality if you check "I am an advanced user" in settings. See: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium-mode https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...
  - cobby 7y ago
    No. uMatrux offers way more granular control.
    - 0-_-0 7y ago
      I don't know about that, but it breaks some of uBlock's functionality: https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/706xrr/umatrix_vs_ublock_origin_medium_blocking_mode/dn1goxr/ https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/706xrr/umatrix_vs_...
- 7y ago
shultays 7y ago
Again?
dralley 7y ago
>They're going to launch a browser update that removes support for most extensions It's not like they're "removing" it, they rewrote half the browser and not all of the APIs are hooked back up yet. They're going to be added back eventually.
- fwn 7y ago
  It's not like they're removing it. They'll just push an update and your extensions will be gone. A lot of corporate communication wizards might be required to dress this up as something else than direct removal.
- shock 7y ago
  > It's not like they're "removing" it, they rewrote half the browser and not all of the APIs are hooked back up yet For most users this is a distinction without a difference.
  - Paul-ish 7y ago
    The distinction to me is they removed it but didn't also deprecate it.
  - petecox 7y ago
    What part of "it ain't finished yet" would most users not understand? It's a Preview release for a reason. Mozilla aren't exactly pulling a KDE 4 here.
    - iggldiggl 7y ago
      It was a preview release, but they've already started rolling it out to the regular Nightly channel and according to this very blog post we're discussing it's supposed to have a "public release later this spring". Given that any changes have to work their way through the Beta channel, too, there's not much time left for landing changes in Nightly that will still make it into the first Release version... so the first official Release version that will be pushed out to everybody will indeed be in an unfinished state.
Karunamon 7y ago
This is hardly the first time that Mozilla has done this to its users (re: what happened to Firefox on the desktop). Breaking people's experiences and worfklows in an extreme way is demonstrably not high on their list of concerns.
soapdog 7y ago
It is kinda of a complete rewrite as far as I know. This is using GeckoView, lots of things changed and moved places. And yes, I don't think this should be pushed to stable before extension support is in place but apparently the metrics tell a different story.
- anoncake 7y ago
  Then maybe it's time to stop listening to metrics and start using our brains again.

warnhardcode 7y ago

I like this browser and usually have it set as my default on my phone. I like that I can set links to open in private mode by default quite a bit. My wishlist: 1. collections syncing to my Firefox account and desktop Firefox 2. a menu option to move a page from private mode to normal mode where I'm logged into things; right now I copy/paste the url 3. (sadly) an easy way to open the current page in Chrome. The biggest issue I've run into is some app sign-in flows that roll through the browser or webview break when using Firefox private by default. I switch Chrome to the default temporarily to work around this.

mqus 7y ago

> "[...]everyone using the Firefox browser on their Android phones and tablets will get the update." Well, everyone who has at least Android 5... which excludes about 10% of the android landscape[1]. Most of these people probably still haven't upgraded because they a)can't afford it or b) use their devices until they're broken and will not buy a new device simply because it's newer. I understand the move, but still, Mozilla has to communicate this in the right way and not "Everyone will have to update and if you can't, sorry for you, not our business" [1] https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/ https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/

bootloop 7y ago
Who says these 10% are using Firefox in the first place?
jsjddbbwj 7y ago
Android 5 was released in 2014. It's time to move on.
- mqus 7y ago
  Is anything which is older than 6 years considered legacy now? Should this be the expected lifetime of smartphones? Please not.
  - bhhaskin 7y ago
    The current expected lifetime of a smartphone (and laptop for that matter) is about 2-3 years. After that the batteries start to degrade. when the batteries start to degrade most devices start to down clock to preserve battery life. And even if they don't down clock they stop being as useful as their intended purpose.
  - yoavm 7y ago
    It doesn't mean that you should toss your phone away, but from a security perspective your operating system is very much a legacy if it didn't get any updates for 6 years. Luckily on Android your can often flash an alternative ROM when official updates are over.

AdmiralAsshat 7y ago

Glad to see support for uBlock Origin landing, finally. Although to be honest, I've been using FF Preview for about a month now, and I haven't observed any ads to speak of. The tracking blockers may be enough on their own.

Semaphor 7y ago
I’ve seen a few, but the majority gets caught :)

dwheeler 7y ago

Sounds good. Does lastpass work on this version of Firefox? Lastpass is a really popular password manager, but last I checked it didn't work on Firefox on Android (Lastpass works fine on Firefox on desktop).

mapleoin 7y ago
I use the Lastpass Android app with the onscreen overlay. It works fine.
hashhar 7y ago
LastPass's Android app works. But maybe you can try out Bitwarden while you're at it. It's open source and can be self-hosted (and is audited).
toastal 7y ago
Firefox also has their own with Lockwise that does device syncing to Android, autfill, etc. Could be good enough for many.

wesCsrlson 7y ago

Pretty sure Mozilla sold out long ago to our privacy invading overlords. Shame

metalliqaz 7y ago
yeah, better to use Chrome to protect your privacy /s
- jshevek 7y ago
  Not Chrome. Brave: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22419284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22419284

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

conradfr 7y ago

We'll see. To be honest I don't really have a problem with the current Firefox on Android. Maybe I'll get accustomed to the bottom url bar. I also use Firefox Focus for links from external apps.

andrewshadura 7y ago
The bar position is a setting, you don't to get used to it.
yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
Honestly, if you don't use extensions, it seems to be pretty great. (I say, as a heavy user of extensions who's fairly annoyed right now.) It is snappy and polished.

kaeforas 7y ago

Well this is worrying, afaik Firefox Preview still kernel panics some LineageOS roms (like mine) [1]. [1] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5663 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5663

jeroenhd 7y ago
To be honest, if a userland application is capable of kernel panicking a phone, that's a bug in the kernel, not in the application. There's also a bug in Android (official and LOS) which I've encountered many times related to location detection in certain always-on GPS apps, causing a systems freeze and a reboot. This sucks, but it's a bug with Android, not with the application itself. The Android/LOS peeps should really take a look at this though. I don't expect this to be the only app that can cause this and with some severe bad luck the crash might even be exploitable.

Sindisil 7y ago

If they fix the frequent crashes, and even more frequent inability to render a page at all (just a white screen, even after refreshing), then I'll definitely give it a go. I'd love to switch back, but had to retreat to Brave for the time being...

jamienicol 7y ago
What phone are you using?
- landtuna 7y ago
  I have this issue on the Galaxy S10e (stock). I get the white screen of death after a while. I uninstalled it because my phone was swapping out the second to last app when I had Firefox Preview installed, even when not using it. (Maybe it was being the default web view inside other apps?) The phone seems fine with it gone as I use regular Firefox.
- Sindisil 7y ago
  Moto Z² Play running Android 8.

unwiredben 7y ago

I just tried this again after being back on Firefox Beta on Android for a few months. It's really gotten quite nice, and they added back the reader mode which I use a lot to simplify long pages on my phone. The only thing I occasionally use that's not there right now is the ability to open a site from a tab open on my desktop.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago

> 3. Extension-ready > This update will initially include support for one of the most popular extensions on Android, uBlock Origin. Additional extensions will be supported in subsequent releases ... if it supports exactly 1 extension, it is absolutely not "extension-ready"!

sfink 7y ago
I'm guessing the wording was meant to suggest extension ready vs extension supporting. As in, the codebase is capable of adding full extension support, no rearchitecture needed. No user-facing advantage yet, sadly.

Misdicorl 7y ago

I'm on nightly on my phone so have had this experience for a while. I very much dislike the new homescreen with collections instead of the 2x4 of most frecently visited sites. Collections would be ok if it kept the old UI of a 2x4 grid. Instead I get to see 2 sites at first, and have to scroll to see more. If I close a tab, I'm not able to use the bottom 1/4 of the screen for ~2 seconds while the undo popup hangs out. This means even more scrolling. This decluttering really sucks imo. The other annoying thing is that the upgrade starts up with an empty collection screen. The upgrade should have created a default collection populated with my 2x4 grid for me. Come on Mozilla, stop giving me paper cuts like this.

stronglikedan 7y ago
Ah, the old "we know what's best for our users" mentality. Take something good away in favor of a worse UX, with no config setting to switch back, even though old and new could co-exist.
- Misdicorl 7y ago
  I definitely understand them not wanting to maintain two parallel settings here. I think this failure sits squarely on the project manager who decided to couple the new behavior (collections instead of frecency) together with a new ui. I'd bet dollars to donuts that they didn't test the changes independently, and they're probably tightly linked in the code. I imagine collections were the driving force here. If the new behavior (collections) were shipped separately, I imagine they would have certainly migrated installations to have a default `recents` collection that users could then easily delete (or migrate and maintain manually)! What a nice situation that would have been as everyone would have gotten exactly what they wanted. If the new UI were tested separately, I can't imagine it would have gotten positive feedback. But maybe I'm just an old grump and most people like it better? It seems like shipping the UI change as a separate feature would have easily identified that the grid view was something a lot of people liked.
mariushn 7y ago
Sounds like Gnome. They know better than users. To make such changes, commercial products I've worked on did these steps: 1. test with some users in 1:1 sessions 2. incorporate the feedback (or consider dropping the alternative, if most all feedback was negative) 3. implement metrics 4. launch to 0.5 - 1% of users. See metrics AND feedback. 5. incorporate feedback 6. gradually launch to more 7. at some point, remove the old way I agree it's hard to do these with volunteer work. That's how some hard issues are never solved, but Gnome gets new apps or rewrites on existing apps with almost every release -- that's the fun work. It's volunteered, so take it, or leave it, or DYI, or pay somebody. PS: I've reached out to a few Mozilla staff via LinkedIn with a proposal for a new commercial product, but nobody replied. Anyone has a contact there? Proposal: A Google Suite alternative for businesses, provided by Mozilla both as a cloud service and on-premise. Dual licensing, AGPL and Enterprise: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17czxzh20c8ouhrX-iZPS2BH8e03yQL8a3EnaGO37A6w/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/17czxzh20c8ouhrX-iZPS2BH8...

Tistron 7y ago

I really wish they'd get around to implementing saving credit card info, that's one reason I go back to chrome now and then. and there are some bugs with opening Firefox, clicking the address field on a tab that is loading and writing a search and pressing enter. That search is somehow lost if the timing of loading what was already in the tab is unfortunate. Maybe this never happens on a brand new phone on a high speed connection, but for me it is the biggest nuisance with Firefox mobile.

kibwen 7y ago

I'll keep using Mobile Firefox, and my experience with the new version is indeed favorable, but I admit that I'm frustrated and confused that this is being pushed to stable users before complete extension support is implemented. Thankfully uBlock Origin is supported or I'd be looking for a new browser, but my less-important extensions aren't so lucky. At best I could imagine that Mozilla is privy to internal metrics showing that some overwhelming proportion of users have uBlock Origin as their only extension, which I could absolutely believe. Still, what sort of timeframe will it take to support the remaining addons, and why couldn't the new browser have baked on the nightly channel for a while longer until extension support was completed?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kwierso 7y ago
I think the metrics actually show that most users don't use extensions. But of the group that do use extensions, I'd guess an adblocker is the top one.
- Drdrdrq 7y ago
  The question is - _an_ adblocker or _the_ adblocker (ublock)? As a long time FF Android user I prefer uMatrix and will wait with upgrade, hoping they fix this quickly. Otherwise... Not sure what I'll do. This is bad. :-(
  - bscphil 7y ago
    As far as I know, uMatrix is not a (dynamic) ad blocker. That is, if some requests to subdomain.domain.net are for ads and some of the requests are for important page content, uMatrix isn't capable of distinguishing between the two. A real ad blocker uses block lists compiled (at least in part) by other people that can distinguish between two different URLs on the same domain.
    - Drdrdrq 7y ago

adadahdjej 7y ago

The top comments are so negative. I find the steps towards making uBlock origin directly available, and extensions available in subsequent releases laudable. I have been using Firefox mobile for at least 8 years and it's been getting faster and better with every new release.

jeroenhd 7y ago

Well, this is quite telling of Mozilla's marketing department; the link to the developer edition at the bottom is being blocked by my PiHole. It's sad to see Mozilla's open values being wasted by whatever marketing/data people they've hired to switch to massive telemetry and tracking for their own products. Their related articles are all over the place about protecting yourself from tracking companies but Mozilla themselves are as bad as any company on their own blog site. I hope it'll be a while until the launch. I like the direction they're going with the collections and the UI. And sure, it's faster already, but without extensions I might as well just use Chrome or Brave or Edgeium for all that matters. The preview also has several weird freezes and crashes during the minimal use I give it. They also packaged their own certificate store like usual so my custom root certificate doesn't work. Unlike the current version of FF, they haven't added UI to add certificates to it yet. In other words, people relying on intranet access with corporate certificates will have to switch to Chrome. This is a breaking issue for me; I'm not willing to mess around with implementing the weird API my DNS provider uses to use Let's Encrypt's wildcard certificates just so an update for Firefox lets me access my intranet.

The_rationalist 7y ago

It's nice that they used Kotlin, the codebase is beautiful to look at.

drummer 7y ago

Is there a way to download a .apk of the preview?

v0lta 7y ago
Just download 'Firefox Preview' in the Play Store. That's the version which will eventually replace the old one.
- drummer 7y ago
  I want to avoid the play store. So I was looking for an official apk source.
  - severine 7y ago
    From https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/8350#issuecomment-585246432 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/8350#issuecom... > We do a staged roll-out before publishing APKs. As far as I'm aware neither are at 100% which is a requirement for posting the builds. The APK is available from automation in the meantime if you want: https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/tasks/index/project.mobile.fenix.v2.production/latest* https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/tasks/index/proje...

Brakenshire 7y ago

Any progress on Servo? What the mobile web needs is a parallel layout engine.

agluszak 7y ago

But you still can't change tabs with a swipe like in Chrome, and to be honest it's the only thing keeping me from switching to FF

agluszak 7y ago
Well, at least I could contribute this feature myself someday, while many annoyances in Chrome I won't be ever able to fix :)
- vntok 7y ago
  What prevents you from contributing to this feature targeting Chrome?
  - hu3 7y ago
    Their bias.
mcjiggerlog 7y ago
Scheduled for Q2 - https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/3481 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/3481

loufe 7y ago

I've been using Firefox Preview for months and it is the first time I don't hate using the browser on my phone. Huge props to the Firefox team for it.

ajnin 7y ago

I'm using Firefox Preview regularly for a few month now, and it really is a huge step up in performance. Javascript and CSS-heavy sites now behave as they should, and browsing feels smooth overall. However the UI changes are a big step back and the main reason why I've not completely switched over from the regular Firefox (now I won't have that choice it looks like) : - The address/search bar is much much inferior. Much less relevant results now come up first. When typing the domain name of a site I visit daily said site will come up low on the list, needing to scroll, while some autocompleted address I've never visited once will be on top. - Extensions are not supported. A single supported extension does not count. - The thumbnails are removed from the tab list. Not a huge loss but I had gotten used to it - Popups each time you close a tab use up unnecessary screen space. Also they often just stay there. - The address bar is now at the bottom. Change for the sake of change. I don't know if all of these issues will transfer to the new Firefox, but I wish they would have brought in the engine changes only. Current UI is fine.

chrysoprace 7y ago
> The address bar is now at the bottom. Change for the sake of change. This can be changed in Settings > Toolbar > Top.
isbjorn16 7y ago
I know you say a single supported extension does not count, but they did include the one extension that was an absolute deal breaker for me if it didn't exist. They -don't- support extensions yet, but they did make it approachable for people like me who simply won't browse the web without an adblocker.
- endemic 7y ago
  Agreed, to be honest uBlock Origin is the only extension I'm currently running on mobile, and "deal-breaker" is exactly how I'd describe browsing without it. I'll probably give this new build a try.
  - SECProto 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

oftenwrong 7y ago

I use many extensions on Firefox for Android. It's why I use Firefox, and Firefox is a big reason for why I use Android. I already switched from Nightly to the Release version to continue using extensions.

pmontra 7y ago

Maybe the could publish the current version with a different name (Firefox Rusty?) for the ones of us who want to keep using their extensions. The current Firefox feels fast enough on my phone. I can wait to install the new one when extensions support is complete.

davidy123 7y ago

The github issue discussing extension support is here https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5315#issuecomment-582309086 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5315#issuecom... I find the attitudes about extensions and UX in general to be evolving in a strange way. People used to focus on the 80/20 rule, make what 80% of people want to do easy, and the remaining 20% possible. But now many people seem to be saying "if most people don't need it, it's not important." But that just takes products down a path of diminishing ability that is dictated by a few UX people and the personas they test with, and when we're talking about a general purpose product like a browser it means fewer opportunities for anyone to create and use innovative features.

anoncake 7y ago
Even worse, it means people can't rely on your features anymore. A feature that could disappear at any time might as well not exist.

mnm1 7y ago

The Firefox Preview Nightly (with ublock) is an incredible improvement, especially regarding speed. I got a new phone this past August (moto g7) and I was already wondering if I needed another new phone because FF on android was so slow. It was unbearable. I was about to ditch it completely and resign myself to ads. FF is doing a great job overall with their browsers on android and desktop (except for the loss of sourcemap support for some that makes it unusable for JS debugging). I suppose there was a lot of room for improvement since the old FF was incredibly slow. I hope they do not let this new version degrade into what it was in the future.

mike-cardwell 7y ago

Can I use this, or does it come with DoH? I hate that I have to even ask this question.

dreamcompiler 7y ago

I hope they make it impossible for sites to determine whether you're in private mode. Lots of sites refuse to work in private mode, and frankly, they shouldn't have any way to tell. Private mode is nice because it's the easiest way to delete all their tracking cookies when you leave the site.

h4waii 7y ago

If you're not very happy with Firefox for Android, consider switching to Bromite [0]. It's based on Chromium, but includes many privacy patches, including ad blocking, and is completely open source. Releases are available through an official F-Droid repository as well as GitHub. It is a very well run project. 0. https://github.com/bromite/bromite https://github.com/bromite/bromite

justlexi93 7y ago

I don't have Firefox on my smartphone, I still use Chrome.

toastal 7y ago

I wish there was still about:config. It's much more fine-grained and you can turn on experimental features like lazy loading images.

csande17 7y ago

I've heard that extensions aren't supported in the new Firefox for Android, but did they also drop support for Personas/Themes? The blog post mentions light or dark themes, but not custom ones. (Am I the only person in the world who installed a theme on Firefox for Android?)

lousken 7y ago

Firefox preview has two really annoying bugs - a) when closing a tab the option to revert that action gets stuck most of the time on my screen and it's hard to get the timing right - if you do it too soon you gonna actually restore the tab but if you do it later it'll stop working and just disappear b) downloading some attachments creates 0byte or incomplete file in my download folder, not sure what's going on there