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> Mobile browsing numbers are bleak: Firefox barely exists on phones, with a market share of less than half a percent. This is baffling given that mobile Firefo
by bambax 6y ago
> Mobile browsing numbers are bleak: Firefox barely exists on phones, with a market share of less than half a percent. This is baffling given that mobile Firefox has a rare feature for a mobile browser: it's able to install extensions and so can block ads.
This is true, and indeed very strange. I use FF on mobile and it works perfectly. So Mozilla's problems aren't only technical, there's also a question of market awareness.
That said, there are also technical problems. Some bugs on the desktop linger on for years and are never fixed.
As described in the article, Mozilla spent a lot of energy into side projects that never went anywhere and were only loosely related to the browser.
This is all, obviously, a management problem.
- panpanna 6y ago> I use FF on mobile and it works perfectly. Not anymore! To be consistent with their business screw ups, they addressed this with the latest updates. Now the mobile app a mess like the rest of Mozilla.
- mvdwoord 6y agoThis, I have been a long time FF on Android user, mostly due to the ability to run add-ons (ublock etc). Latest update complete botched it. Couple of hnags/restarts every day, jittery UI, unintuitive button placement (e.g. new tab)... I want to use Firefox (or any decent browser not based on chrome), for several reasons, but this way it gets harder and harder to justify to myself. What alternatives do we have for non-chromium browsers that have a healthy plugin ecosystem?
- panpanna 6y agoNew FF also feels significantly slower. Can't really put my finger on anything specific but it is no longer fluid. Even Edge is now chromium based, I think it's a lost battle.
- dotancohen 6y agoI've noticed the opposite. New FF flies for me on the websites I use, such as HN and Stack Overflow. What sites is it slow for you? Note also that many of the redesigned plugins will be slower than their older, mature counterparts. Give the plugin authors some time to optimize their plugins, and try to cull the amount of plugins you currently use. I've using only Adblock Plus, Tree Style Tab, and Tridactyl.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoIt's faster to me once loaded. What sucks for me is that I switch between apps constantly. When I reopen firefox, it takes about 20 or 30 seconds for the app to load.
- jamienicol 6y agoWhat phone do you have? This certainly isn't expected and we'd really like to get to the bottom of it. Any chance you could file an issue on github?
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoSorry, I can't risk this account getting associated with my real name. It's a Nokia 6.1. I've got a lot of apps running, so my guess is that memory exhaustion is causing the app to completely close when switching away. The whole app and previous page then needs to be reloaded when I reopen the app. I think it's the previous page reloading is causing the biggest part of the delay. What's annoying is that even if I try to switch to another site, it still waits for the previous page to load. I'd like to easily cancel the reload so that I can go to a separate page quickly.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoLooks like this may have already been fixed with an update. Thank you so much!! This app is a godsend.
- hans1729 6y ago>What alternatives do we have for non-chromium browsers that have a healthy plugin ecosystem? The obvious answer is: none. It always was Chrome or Firefox, everything else was so niche that 'healthy plugin ecosystem' is out of reach. And this very likely won't change for the better, pretty much everyone I know ditched Firefox in favor of chrome by now. We all want to love firefox, but at this point, staying invested seems like a waste of energy.
- Liquix 6y agoYou're not wrong, but I also feel it's important we do something (anything) other than give up and use Chrome. Rock & hard place.
- Tom4hawk 6y agoThe situation is weird. I want to give them some money but there is absolutely no way to support firefox development. A long time ago firefox(program) started asking for donations. I've donated 5$(I was a poor student in Poland[1]). After the donation, I found out that money will not be used for FF development (why firefox page did not mention that?). Long story short it was my last donation to them. [1] Now I'm not a student ;)
- ktaylora 6y agoA lot of users struggle with this. Mozilla needs to diversify it's revenue stream, but the options available to them are only tangentially related to Firefox. Basically, (1) the VPN service they are spinning up and (2) Pocket. I opted to pay monthly fees for the full version of Pocket. But what I really want is to pay a monthly fee to support development of Firefox core + extensions.
- MayeulC 6y agoMozilla could create a fundraiser were you vote on features with your money. That could work relatively well, I think. "Nobody pays for a browser", they say. Well, they might pay to see some features in!
- chaostheory 6y agoIt still works fine on iOS, but that's probably because underneath every browser is Safari. People complain about Apple's draconian choices, but the end result is mostly good for consumers. If people don't like it, there's Android and Tizen.
- ric2b 6y agoI'm confused, how is that a good outcome, being limited to re-skinning Safari?
- freediver 6y agoIf anything is being “reskinned” it is Webkit, the rendering engine, not Safari the browser. Webkit is by far superior choice on anything macOS/iOS related because of performance and energy use.
- JangoSteve 6y agoThe latest Android Firefox update also disabled several of the addons I was using, as apparently they are now incompatible until the addon developers do some extra work to fix whatever backward incompatibility Mozilla introduced with the latest version.
- Dkuku 6y agoI had the same issue - I think it was dark reader that stopped working.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- INTPenis 6y agoI don't see this, how is it a mess exactly? On the parent issue, Firefox on mobile is great because of the same reason Firefox on Desktop is great. Power over your browser. Which is important since browser exploits are using Javascript to compromise phones. Of course regular people don't know this and will probably never care. But it's the reason Firefox probably won't die. Because the people who know tech know its strength and will want to use it. It's shameful for a CEO to get a 400% pay increase, regardless of any other circumstances. But it matters less to me because I'm sure Firefox will always attract enthusiasts who care about their online security.
- chii 6y ago> Of course regular people don't know this and will probably never care. except if firefox wills it, they could have an advertising campaign to show regular people that firefox can block ads (the irony!), and is a much better browser experience when paired with all the plugins! But of course, this threatens the tenuous relationship with google, their major source of revenue. Google keeps firefox alive on a shoestring budget to stop the anti-trust happenings that microsoft went through with Internet Explorer. So the status quo fits just fine for these parties, and the web browser competition gets worse over time.
- neurostimulant 6y agoSome important features such as about:config access has been neutered in the latest firefox mobile. The ability to fully customize the browser is an important feature for the enthusiast folks you mentioned, so by removing access to about:config they effectively alienate their most important and vocal users.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y agoYes, the latest update is rather horrible. Regular things take way more taps than before, some useful capabilities are gone (like NOT asking to save passwords in incognito mode!). I hope they are listening to feedback. I stalwartly use it still, but miss the previous version very much.
- unhammer 6y agoTry the very latest release (81). I wrote earlier[0] that FF79 was too slow to start, buggy on tab switches, and missing most recent sites on the new tab. That's all been fixed as of FF81 as far as I can see. I also really like the new swipe-url-to-switch-tabs feature =D [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24280554 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24280554
- panpanna 6y agoJust updated and you are correct, 81 feels much snappier!
- TheRealPomax 6y agoThen try it on a tablet, and go "What is this BS?" and start using Chrome, despite the fact that there is no NoScript, about:config, etc. Oh wait, no, just NoScript, because about:config doesn't work in Firefox for Android anymore.
- Dahoon 6y agoAbout:config works just fine on my Android phone with Firefox 81.1.1-beta5. What seems to be the problem?
- Zardoz84 6y agoI have it updated and works flawless
- unethical_ban 6y agoThis was not a useful comment. How is it a mess? What changed?
- RandomBacon 6y agoSomething I just noticed (in addition to the complaints of other users which I also share): Javascript bookmarklets no longer work.
- CWuestefeld 6y agoI can't even figure out which is the correct one to install. Google's Play store has at least 4 versions: * Firefox Browser * Firefox Focus * Firefox for Android Beta * Firefox Nightly Can anybody tell me what I'm supposed to install?
- vorticalbox 6y agoFirst one is the main browser. Second is Firefox where all the privacy settings are on and the browser keeps no history. Other two are for people looking to test new features.
- rapnie 6y agoI have to agree with you, and it makes me sad every day. The entire UX is down the drain for me. Even something that always worked like a charm - URL address bar completion - is now broken. I used to type a 'g' and boom it would suggest Github Participating Notifications as first in line. No longer.. now I consistently see other sites, some of which I only visited once. Now part of browsing is dilligent URL address bar data-entry.
- lumberingjack 6y agoNot only are problems on desktop that linger for years they change stuff on a whim on mobile and when the users complain about it on Twitter they tell you to shut up and are not very nice about it at all don't want to hear your opinion
- vex 6y agoPersonally, I use Firefox on PC and would love to use it on my phone. Literally the only reason I use Chrome instead is because of the flow ui tab switching. I just can't stand the Firefox mobile UI for tab switching. I with there was an extension or something to change it. It's a huge shame.
- joelthelion 6y agoWhat's wrong with it?
- vex 6y agoWith chrome flow tab ui I can rapidly scroll through full width page previews, and I can initiate this by swiping from the top down. In Firefox the tab previews are so small as to be almost useless, and I have to press a button.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- yokto 6y agoThe UI received a big update a few weeks ago, maybe it is to your liking now?
- vex 6y agoStill not as good. With chrome flow tab ui I can rapidly scroll through full width page previews, and I can initiate this by swiping from the top down. In Firefox the tab previews are so small as to be almost useless, and I have to press a button.
- superiorflush 6y agoSame for me! I have been dying to switch but tab management and switching is so jarring in FF vs Chrome (on Android). Not only that, but scrolling is also buggy because it keeps accelerating. Insufferable while online shopping, because I like to scroll-stop-scroll-stop-scroll and FF just speeds up the scrolling if the stops are too short.
- 0-O-0 6y agoOnly partly true - you can install adblocker for safari on iOS and block ads just fine.
- dfdz 6y agoI’m surprised that I had to scroll to the bottom of this thread to find a greyed our comment saying this... Adblock with safari on iOS works great
- TheArcane 6y agoIs there a unique value proposition to use Firefox on iOS, since due to Apple policy, they can't have addons? Even Firefox Focus' content blocker works on Safari and not the main Firefox app
- thebigspacefuck 6y agoIt’s better than Safari and it’s not Chrome. Brave is similar and has ad blocking, but I didn’t like it as much.
- BrendanEich 6y agoIn late 2018 we rebased desktop Brave from Electron to a chromium front end fork, so if you tried Brave earlier than then, I hope you'll give it another try. Thanks.
- Tom4hawk 6y agoThe only reason to use it on iOS is to synchronize your profile with Firefox Sync.
- gnicholas 6y agoFirefox Focus also wipes itself frequently, which means that you can't be tracked across sites as easily. I look forward to updating to iOS 14 so I can set FFF as my default browser. My typical workflow is: (1) search for something in FFF, (2) if it's something I want to stay alive so I can read later, I share it to FF, (3) if it's something that I need to be logged in for, I share it to Safari, where I'm logged into various sites. It is annoying that I have to manually open FFF each time, instead of being able to use Siri to trigger a search or the systemwide search. Hopefully both of these search options will use my default browser in iOS 14.
- srtjstjsj 6y agoFirefox mobile has an awkward UI and weak rendering engine.
- wutbrodo 6y agoI don't know if the usage is high enough to make a dent, but Brave seems like a better alternative on mobile: all the quality of Chrome without the downsides. To expand on the quality point: I used Firefox a long time past most of my laymen friends had switched to Chrome, despite it being painfully slower, and I spent years giving it trial periods on a regular basis. But the quality gap was just too reliable and persistent, with it always being slower, jankier, and less featureful (from a product perspective, I still can't believe how many years it took for them to get per-tab processes). When I've tried it recently on mobile, it's seemed quite a bit slower, and Combined with a decline in confidence in their ability to be an effective organization that started with Eich's ouster and has only gotten worse over time, it's difficult for me to see why most users would choose mobile FF over Brave. The only advantage i can see is extensions, but it's my impression that most users don't much care to use them.
- chaostheory 6y agoOne thing I don't understand is how Firefox doesn't have a VR browser in Windows, but it has one on Oculus.
- dblohm7 6y agoThere was one for Windows that was Servo-based. But both the Android and Windows projects were shut down by the layoffs.
- xster 6y agoWait that's not true is it? On iOS, Safari supports content blocker since like iOS 9, and on Android, not only you can get browser ad blocks, you can get OS-wide ad blocks through local VPN blockers.
- thirdsun 6y agoiOS content blockers pale in comparison to uBlock Origin. I use Firefox + uBlock on my Macs and wish I could do so on iPad and iPhone too.
- drieddust 6y agoExecutive running Government firms often have no reasons to compete with the evolving market. Sometimes it is incompetence, other times its malice. I don't know what it is for sure but seems like its malice. No one knows what deals they are making with the devil under table.