5 ms·

This, 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/rest

This, 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 ago
New 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 ago
  I'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 ago
    It'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 ago
      What 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 ago
        Sorry, 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 ago
        Looks 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 ago
  You'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 ago
    The 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 ago
      A 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 ago
        Mozilla 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 ago
It 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 ago
  I'm confused, how is that a good outcome, being limited to re-skinning Safari?
  - freediver 6y ago
    If 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 ago
The 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 ago
  I had the same issue - I think it was dark reader that stopped working.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

panpanna 6y ago

New 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 ago
I'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 ago
  It'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 ago
    What 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 ago
      Sorry, 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 ago
        Looks 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 ago
You'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 ago
  The 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 ago
    A 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 ago
      Mozilla 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 ago

It 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 ago
I'm confused, how is that a good outcome, being limited to re-skinning Safari?
- freediver 6y ago
  If 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 ago

The 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 ago
I had the same issue - I think it was dark reader that stopped working.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]