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Android version comes with a completely new design, and empty "What's new" section in Google Play gave no indication it's going be such a major change. Even mo

Android version comes with a completely new design, and empty "What's new" section in Google Play gave no indication it's going be such a major change. Even more importantly, it has overridden data collection preferences after the update. Check "Settings > Data collection". I had to disable "Marketing data" and "Experiments" toggles. Not cool!

conradfr 6y ago
I got a notification announcing the change. Which is more appropriate than the one about Facebook.
- shantara 6y ago
  Interesting. Was it a regular Android notification or something custom in-app? For me, there was no indication that this update was going to be any different from a minor bugfix they've rolled out a couple of days ago, until I've launched FF for the first time after the update and was a greeted by a full screen splash with the new version info.
  - magicalhippo 6y ago
    Mine popped up in the notification area thingy at the top, like any other app notification. Clicking on it took me to a web page detailing the changes. I've been running Nightly and Regular side-by-side for a while. I still use Regular the most, mainly because I find the new UI quite horrible to use. Nightly is clearly much smoother to use though.
- sixhobbits 6y ago
  Maybe more directly relevant but still very Not OK in my books. I get very few push notifications. Send me an email, put it on your blog, whatever - it's definitely not interesting enough for me to come even close to the "I want this pushed on top of whatever else I was doing" bar though. Brave sent me a push notification this week too :( what browser should I switch to that doesn't try to exploit my 'engagement'
  - coldpie 6y ago
    On Android, most apps include toggles in settings to disable different notification types. It's annoying that they're on by default, but at last you can usually disable them. In Firefox, you can turn off the "Product and feature tips" notifications in settings, and I bet that would prevent that kind of notification appearing. As a last resort, you can disable notifications entirely per-app at the OS level by digging into the Android settings.
    - Rebelgecko 6y ago
      It would be nice if Firefox added a separate category for "Political Call to Action" notifications. That way we wouldn't have to miss out on "Product and Feature Tips", which are occasionally helpful. A bit of a moot point for me since I'm using FF on a Nexus 7 that doesn't support that level of selective muting
    - dahfizz 6y ago
      +1 . Android has great notification management features and they are worth exploring if you care about this kind of thing.
      - johannes1234321 6y ago
        If I have to disable something it's because of "anger", but I don't want "anger" about Mozilla. I want Mozilla to be the good ones.
    - thrwyoilarticle 6y ago
      This notification came through the 'Browser' channel, not 'Mozilla tricks and tips' like you might expect. So, congratulations Mozilla, I've blocked all of the 'Browser' notifications for your browser.
coldpie 6y ago
I suspect that approximately no one reads that "What's new" section, and they know it. Even Google just leaves it with whatever happened to be in the field in summer of 2018 when they stopped updating it.
- phreack 6y ago
  It's infuriating! Netflix even goes as far as condescendingly saying "don't you worry about this kind of stuff, you worry about what to watch next". It's ridiculous, if you're gonna require patch notes they must either be part of the app review, or be optional from the start!
  - mderazon 6y ago
    Agree, this is the worst condescending bullshit I've ever seen. It's better to just leave empty Uber are pretty bad at it as well
  - rurp 6y ago
    I strongly agree, especially since I hate 95% of the changes they make. Netflix has the most user hostile design of any media app that I use. I'm still a subscriber for now, but it will be the first one I cut.
    - FridgeSeal 6y ago
      > Netflix has the most user hostile design of any media app that I use Personally I give that award to Spotify.
      - aksss 6y ago
        Yeah, Spotify feels like a really cluttered small shed in the backyard; like I have to step over all sorts of crap to get what I’m after, and every day the stuff is cluttered up in a slightly different way and somebody randomly hangs a big Michelle Obama poster or some other crap from the ceiling once in a while. Very annoying. Desktop app is mildly more tolerable than mobile.
paulie_a 6y ago
Completely new design that still lacks pull to refresh. Honestly which developer hates that ui design aspect. It's been filed multiple times and more recently as a bug. at this point it rightfully is a bug
- SECProto 6y ago
  I hate pull to refresh. I would like swiping on address bar to switch tabs, though.
  - shantara 6y ago
    Swipe to switch tabs has recently been added to the nightly releases: https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/07/27/firefox-now-supports-tab-switching-with-a-swipe-in-latest-nightlies/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/07/27/firefox-now-support...
  - paulie_a 6y ago
    I don't see what there is to hate. It's a very deliberate gesture
    - viraptor 6y ago
      Unless you're scrolling a lagging Twitter view and can't tell if you're momentarily frozen or already at the top.
    - SECProto 6y ago
      I don't know when the last time I refreshed a website on mobile was. It's entirely possible that it could be coded in such a way that I wouldn't notice or accidentally refresh when I'm simply trying to scroll to the top of a page, but I think it's more likely that I wouldn't intentionally use it ever, but I would trigger it accidentally on occasion
- nyanpasu64 6y ago
  > Completely new design that still lacks pull to refresh. Here's the thing... sometimes when you unload Fenix and then open a link from another app, the browser will fail to load... you get a white screen... and the page never loads, but at least you can pull to refresh, which does nothing... (press Back to get out of this state) So the only time you can "pull to refresh" is when Fenix doesn't work!
fnord123 6y ago
I received a notification before 68.11.0 landed today warning me that an upgrade was coming and things would change. But it was only for 68.11.0 (current stable channel release on Google play store) and not 79.
Zardoz84 6y ago
today I just got a What's coming to Firefox Android popup
BelleOfTheBall 6y ago
> it has overridden data collection preferences Uhhh, what the hell. Is that only a thing on Android or should I be checking all of my devices?
- DragoCubed 6y ago
  It's just on Android.
jackbravo 6y ago
I did get a: A major firfox update is coming! notification on my android phone that linked to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-android-upgrade-faqs?redirectslug=firefox-preview-upgrade-faqs&redirectlocale=en-US https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-android-upgrade...
inetknght 6y ago
> Even more importantly, it has overridden data collection preferences after the update. Check "Settings > Data collection". I had to disable "Marketing data" and "Experiments" toggles. Not cool! Oh ffs thanks for the heads up. Re-defaulting settings is a big reason I jumped ship from other companies' products.
qwertox 6y ago
Is it still different from "Firefox Nightly" (previously named "Firefox Preview")? This Firefox Nightly one uses the Gecko rendering engine, while the standard one uses Android's (or Google's?) Chrome Webview. Has this changed?
- jorams 6y ago
  Neither version of Firefox for Android uses a Chrome webview. The old one is built on Gecko directly, while the new one uses GeckoView.
- sciurus 6y ago
  This is not correct. Both the old Firefox for Android(codename Fennec) and the new one(codename Fenix) use Gecko, Mozilla's rendering engine. What has changed is that Fenix uses Gecko via https://mozilla.github.io/geckoview/ https://mozilla.github.io/geckoview/
  - qwertox 6y ago
    Thank you so much for that link. I think I got mislead by heise.de into thinking that this issue with Chrome WebView existed. Since I have had issues in my app with Chrome/Android WebView, I will start experimenting with GeckoView. I didn't know it existed as a component. Thank you so very much!
- aidenn0 6y ago
  You're thinking of either Firefox focus on Android or Firefox on iOS, both of which use the OS native renderer.
Multicomp 6y ago
This is why I turned off auto update on Firefox, I knew at some point to fenix update was coming down the pipe, and I was not sure if they would bother to inform me of the change. For once my paranoia paid off!
sandoooo 6y ago
This sort of thing (updates as backdoor to get telemetry from people who explicitly opt out of telemetry) is becoming more and more prevalent. GitExtensions also does it - ostensibly a bug, too, but no hurry to fix it of course. On the other side, Visual Studio forces me to open up a port and log in to MS account - tied to my real name and credit card - so it could upload my usage patterns every month, as a condition of the 'free' license. Perhaps that's the model we're converging towards, even for open source.
musicale 6y ago
> I had to disable "Marketing data" and "Experiments" toggles. Not cool! It would be nice if Mozilla adopted privacy-by-default rather than opt-out.
- Proven 6y ago
  Nice for whom? It'd probably cost them $100 mil a year if only those who opted in were tracked.
3ur6ryh3hefhfu 6y ago
I'm confused, is the regular Firefox on the playstore now the same chromium/geckoview/word version that Firefox Preview was for awhile?
- DragoCubed 6y ago
  Yeah that's right. They're rolling it out. Funnily enough, they made Firefox Preview Firefox Nightly. The whole thing is really messy.
tallanvor 6y ago
In one update Mozilla has more or less destroyed my trust in them. They reset privacy settings and pushed out a major change that leaves virtually no add-ons available with no warning. I don't understand what they were thinking with this.
WCityMike 6y ago
The ability to share a link and be presented with a menu that let you bookmark or send it to a different device -- gone. Not particularly pleased with that. I really sometimes grow very frustrated with Mozilla. In Cory Doctorow's _Eastern Standard Tribe_, some people work as saboteurs, planting really unpopular stupid ideas, and sabotaging clean functionality. It feels like Mozilla is really rife with such characters.

conradfr 6y ago

I got a notification announcing the change. Which is more appropriate than the one about Facebook.

shantara 6y ago
Interesting. Was it a regular Android notification or something custom in-app? For me, there was no indication that this update was going to be any different from a minor bugfix they've rolled out a couple of days ago, until I've launched FF for the first time after the update and was a greeted by a full screen splash with the new version info.
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  Mine popped up in the notification area thingy at the top, like any other app notification. Clicking on it took me to a web page detailing the changes. I've been running Nightly and Regular side-by-side for a while. I still use Regular the most, mainly because I find the new UI quite horrible to use. Nightly is clearly much smoother to use though.
sixhobbits 6y ago
Maybe more directly relevant but still very Not OK in my books. I get very few push notifications. Send me an email, put it on your blog, whatever - it's definitely not interesting enough for me to come even close to the "I want this pushed on top of whatever else I was doing" bar though. Brave sent me a push notification this week too :( what browser should I switch to that doesn't try to exploit my 'engagement'
- coldpie 6y ago
  On Android, most apps include toggles in settings to disable different notification types. It's annoying that they're on by default, but at last you can usually disable them. In Firefox, you can turn off the "Product and feature tips" notifications in settings, and I bet that would prevent that kind of notification appearing. As a last resort, you can disable notifications entirely per-app at the OS level by digging into the Android settings.
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    It would be nice if Firefox added a separate category for "Political Call to Action" notifications. That way we wouldn't have to miss out on "Product and Feature Tips", which are occasionally helpful. A bit of a moot point for me since I'm using FF on a Nexus 7 that doesn't support that level of selective muting
  - dahfizz 6y ago
    +1 . Android has great notification management features and they are worth exploring if you care about this kind of thing.
    - johannes1234321 6y ago
      If I have to disable something it's because of "anger", but I don't want "anger" about Mozilla. I want Mozilla to be the good ones.
  - thrwyoilarticle 6y ago
    This notification came through the 'Browser' channel, not 'Mozilla tricks and tips' like you might expect. So, congratulations Mozilla, I've blocked all of the 'Browser' notifications for your browser.

coldpie 6y ago

I suspect that approximately no one reads that "What's new" section, and they know it. Even Google just leaves it with whatever happened to be in the field in summer of 2018 when they stopped updating it.

phreack 6y ago
It's infuriating! Netflix even goes as far as condescendingly saying "don't you worry about this kind of stuff, you worry about what to watch next". It's ridiculous, if you're gonna require patch notes they must either be part of the app review, or be optional from the start!
- mderazon 6y ago
  Agree, this is the worst condescending bullshit I've ever seen. It's better to just leave empty Uber are pretty bad at it as well
- rurp 6y ago
  I strongly agree, especially since I hate 95% of the changes they make. Netflix has the most user hostile design of any media app that I use. I'm still a subscriber for now, but it will be the first one I cut.
  - FridgeSeal 6y ago
    > Netflix has the most user hostile design of any media app that I use Personally I give that award to Spotify.
    - aksss 6y ago
      Yeah, Spotify feels like a really cluttered small shed in the backyard; like I have to step over all sorts of crap to get what I’m after, and every day the stuff is cluttered up in a slightly different way and somebody randomly hangs a big Michelle Obama poster or some other crap from the ceiling once in a while. Very annoying. Desktop app is mildly more tolerable than mobile.

paulie_a 6y ago

Completely new design that still lacks pull to refresh. Honestly which developer hates that ui design aspect. It's been filed multiple times and more recently as a bug. at this point it rightfully is a bug

SECProto 6y ago
I hate pull to refresh. I would like swiping on address bar to switch tabs, though.
- shantara 6y ago
  Swipe to switch tabs has recently been added to the nightly releases: https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/07/27/firefox-now-supports-tab-switching-with-a-swipe-in-latest-nightlies/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/07/27/firefox-now-support...
- paulie_a 6y ago
  I don't see what there is to hate. It's a very deliberate gesture
  - viraptor 6y ago
    Unless you're scrolling a lagging Twitter view and can't tell if you're momentarily frozen or already at the top.
  - SECProto 6y ago
    I don't know when the last time I refreshed a website on mobile was. It's entirely possible that it could be coded in such a way that I wouldn't notice or accidentally refresh when I'm simply trying to scroll to the top of a page, but I think it's more likely that I wouldn't intentionally use it ever, but I would trigger it accidentally on occasion
nyanpasu64 6y ago
> Completely new design that still lacks pull to refresh. Here's the thing... sometimes when you unload Fenix and then open a link from another app, the browser will fail to load... you get a white screen... and the page never loads, but at least you can pull to refresh, which does nothing... (press Back to get out of this state) So the only time you can "pull to refresh" is when Fenix doesn't work!

fnord123 6y ago

I received a notification before 68.11.0 landed today warning me that an upgrade was coming and things would change. But it was only for 68.11.0 (current stable channel release on Google play store) and not 79.

Zardoz84 6y ago

today I just got a What's coming to Firefox Android popup

BelleOfTheBall 6y ago

> it has overridden data collection preferences Uhhh, what the hell. Is that only a thing on Android or should I be checking all of my devices?

DragoCubed 6y ago
It's just on Android.

jackbravo 6y ago

I did get a: A major firfox update is coming! notification on my android phone that linked to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-android-upgrade-faqs?redirectslug=firefox-preview-upgrade-faqs&redirectlocale=en-US https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-android-upgrade...

inetknght 6y ago

> Even more importantly, it has overridden data collection preferences after the update. Check "Settings > Data collection". I had to disable "Marketing data" and "Experiments" toggles. Not cool! Oh ffs thanks for the heads up. Re-defaulting settings is a big reason I jumped ship from other companies' products.

qwertox 6y ago

Is it still different from "Firefox Nightly" (previously named "Firefox Preview")? This Firefox Nightly one uses the Gecko rendering engine, while the standard one uses Android's (or Google's?) Chrome Webview. Has this changed?

jorams 6y ago
Neither version of Firefox for Android uses a Chrome webview. The old one is built on Gecko directly, while the new one uses GeckoView.
sciurus 6y ago
This is not correct. Both the old Firefox for Android(codename Fennec) and the new one(codename Fenix) use Gecko, Mozilla's rendering engine. What has changed is that Fenix uses Gecko via https://mozilla.github.io/geckoview/ https://mozilla.github.io/geckoview/
- qwertox 6y ago
  Thank you so much for that link. I think I got mislead by heise.de into thinking that this issue with Chrome WebView existed. Since I have had issues in my app with Chrome/Android WebView, I will start experimenting with GeckoView. I didn't know it existed as a component. Thank you so very much!
aidenn0 6y ago
You're thinking of either Firefox focus on Android or Firefox on iOS, both of which use the OS native renderer.

Multicomp 6y ago

This is why I turned off auto update on Firefox, I knew at some point to fenix update was coming down the pipe, and I was not sure if they would bother to inform me of the change. For once my paranoia paid off!

sandoooo 6y ago

This sort of thing (updates as backdoor to get telemetry from people who explicitly opt out of telemetry) is becoming more and more prevalent. GitExtensions also does it - ostensibly a bug, too, but no hurry to fix it of course. On the other side, Visual Studio forces me to open up a port and log in to MS account - tied to my real name and credit card - so it could upload my usage patterns every month, as a condition of the 'free' license. Perhaps that's the model we're converging towards, even for open source.

musicale 6y ago

> I had to disable "Marketing data" and "Experiments" toggles. Not cool! It would be nice if Mozilla adopted privacy-by-default rather than opt-out.

Proven 6y ago
Nice for whom? It'd probably cost them $100 mil a year if only those who opted in were tracked.

3ur6ryh3hefhfu 6y ago

I'm confused, is the regular Firefox on the playstore now the same chromium/geckoview/word version that Firefox Preview was for awhile?

DragoCubed 6y ago
Yeah that's right. They're rolling it out. Funnily enough, they made Firefox Preview Firefox Nightly. The whole thing is really messy.

tallanvor 6y ago

In one update Mozilla has more or less destroyed my trust in them. They reset privacy settings and pushed out a major change that leaves virtually no add-ons available with no warning. I don't understand what they were thinking with this.

WCityMike 6y ago

The ability to share a link and be presented with a menu that let you bookmark or send it to a different device -- gone. Not particularly pleased with that. I really sometimes grow very frustrated with Mozilla. In Cory Doctorow's _Eastern Standard Tribe_, some people work as saboteurs, planting really unpopular stupid ideas, and sabotaging clean functionality. It feels like Mozilla is really rife with such characters.