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Is anyone else worried Firefox on Android is becoming increasingly unusable? How well supported is it my Mozilla I wonder. I often find pages render as blank p

Is anyone else worried Firefox on Android is becoming increasingly unusable? How well supported is it my Mozilla I wonder. I often find pages render as blank pages until I refresh, and scrolling will often hang for multiple seconds. I was playing "Jackbox Games" (which is played via the web and PC), and I found those of us on Firefox found the text boxes were broken. Just downloading PDFs was broken for several weeks, and the official advice was to switch to the beta version of Firefox for Android.

vorpalhex 6y ago
The download thing killed me and almost forced me to switch. Very frustrating and it shows how much mobile Firefox is a second class citizen.
- yabatopia 6y ago
  I used Firefix on Android from the beginning, just like on desktop, but the recent changes pushed me over the edge. It's hard to find a suitable alternative, right now I'm switching between Vivaldi and Kiwi. The current state of Firefox on Android makes me feel really sad.
nmg 6y ago
I agree, the current iteration of Firefox on Android feels half baked, and it makes me sad. I wish they'd make it a first class citizen
Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
What's intriguing to me is no primary password support on FF Android and yet it allows sync with FF protected with a primary password. DDG using Webview with built in ad-blocker seems to be the fastest android web browser I've ever used. I wonder whether it uses Chrome's data compression. But FF Android supports extensions, at least most used ones and I hope with support for more extensions its adoption could grow.
- pitaj 6y ago
  No primary password support? What do you mean? Bitwarden via Android autofill framework works great for me with FF.
  - mook 6y ago
    I believe Mozilla renamed master password to primary password at some point; it's the password used to encrypt the internal password storage.
  - Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
    The master password which you use to protect other passwords in FF Desktop is not necessary/available for FF Android.
zschuessler 6y ago
Firefox on Android has been solid for me, perhaps it's an extension issue? I've definitely run into extension issues on mobile that don't exist on desktop. I also only run two: Dark Reader, and uBlock Origin. It's uBlock that I find causes rendering issues on some releases of the Android app, but I haven't seen that happen in a while. The only thing I do find painful was the app redesign removing the feature to clear all tabs on close-swiping the app. You can clear all tabs by selecting 'Quit' from the menu, but it's a hassle. I wish we could drop the forced tab persistence when closing the app as a setting, like used to be the case.
- CJefferson 6y ago
  I'm not running any extensions, so that can't be the problem (unless lack of an ad blocker is killing performance)
- gorhill 6y ago
  > It's uBlock that I find causes rendering issues uBO just does what the filters in the filter lists dictate, so when you see specific websites broken as a result of uBO enforcing filters, best is to report these cases to the list maintainers so that this can be fixed for all.
IainIreland 6y ago
(Mozilla employee, though not working directly on mobile) Mozilla is invested in Firefox on Android for the long haul. We landed a complete re-architecture this year (Fenix). It hasn't been completely painless -- for example, as you seem to have experienced, we've had to split our development time between working on the new engine and maintaining the old -- but Fenix is already better than Fennec in most ways and is significantly easier to improve moving forward. https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2020/01/17/a-brand-new-browsing-experience-arrives-in-firefox-for-android-nightly/ https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2020/01/17/a-brand-n...
- AndrewDucker 6y ago
  I'm still stuck with the old Firefox for Android until extensions are generally supported. I'm really looking forward to that though, because other than extensions the new one looks great.
  - syndacks 6y ago
    Same here. Is this slated for a future release? If so, do you know which one? I've been trying to find an authoritative source to signal when Android FF will support extensions (that previously worked but no longer do) -- any tips much appreciated.
    - sfink 6y ago
      You can see if it works for the extensions you care about -- https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extension-support-in-firefox-for-android-nightly/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extensio... I wouldn't describe that as "support" quite yet, but it's worth giving a shot to see if it works for you.
- skykooler 6y ago
  You might be able to answer this - are containers coming to Firefox Mobile at any point? That's the main thing that would make me switch from my phone's default browser.
jackewiehose 6y ago
I'm very unhappy with the new FF mobile. The user interface is worse than before in every(!) aspect. There's not a single improvement. And everything feels slower. And there is no offline browsing. On a mobile browser! WTF?! And there is no way to save websites. On a mobile browser, which has very limited connectivity due to its nature. This is just sad. There was a time when I was happy to read about a new FF version for the desktop. Now I'm just waiting that they will ruin it like they did with the mobile version.
- cycomanic 6y ago
  I'm completely the opposite. Always had firefox installed on my phone, but it was just too slow and buggy before. When the new FF mobile came out as preview it pretty much became my only browser. I've used chrome maybe max 3 times last month. It's way faster in my experience. Ad-block works great (one of the issues I had with previous FF on android, extensions would easily bring it to a crawl), and I like how they reworked the UI, I still can't believe nobody thought about putting the location bar on the bottom before. I do also see the blank screen rendering from time to time. However, I have encountered similar things on chrome as well, typically a refresh fixes it. There are some webpages that really don't seem to want to render on FF mobile though (not sure if because of UBO or something else), that's the only time I switch to chrome.
  - d3nj4l 6y ago
    > I still can't believe nobody thought about putting the location bar on the bottom before. This turned out to be a surprisingly big deal to me. Every time I have to use Chrome for some reason I am bothered by how out of the way the location bar is. I think some other browsers have tried to put it at the bottom, but none that are as popular as Firefox or Chrome.
- corty 6y ago
  I agree. The Tab interface is unusable. new FF opens lots more new tabs than the old one. But the list is less readable, less usable, and closing tabs is a chore (!) because there is a list-slide-animation that makes you miss the next X to close and you have to wait for the f-ing animation to finish. Bookmarks are inaccessible, you only see a few on the new-tab-page or in an unordered mess as search results when typing something in the address bar. A loading indicator is missing and loading often hangs for a long time or clicks don't register. I'm seriously researching alternatives, the status quo is hell.
AgentME 6y ago
I've had issues with blank pages and scroll hanging occasionally in the years I've used Firefox on Android, but it seems like those issues have become less common for me lately with the last couple updates. Though I also did a big purge of my tabs lately (getting down to 10 from over 200) and I wonder if that decreased the amount of issues.
yinyang_in 6y ago
I use Firefox on android, want to keep alternative to chrome alive. I like it, it isn't as nice to use as chrome but works well for me

vorpalhex 6y ago

The download thing killed me and almost forced me to switch. Very frustrating and it shows how much mobile Firefox is a second class citizen.

yabatopia 6y ago
I used Firefix on Android from the beginning, just like on desktop, but the recent changes pushed me over the edge. It's hard to find a suitable alternative, right now I'm switching between Vivaldi and Kiwi. The current state of Firefox on Android makes me feel really sad.

nmg 6y ago

I agree, the current iteration of Firefox on Android feels half baked, and it makes me sad. I wish they'd make it a first class citizen

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago

What's intriguing to me is no primary password support on FF Android and yet it allows sync with FF protected with a primary password. DDG using Webview with built in ad-blocker seems to be the fastest android web browser I've ever used. I wonder whether it uses Chrome's data compression. But FF Android supports extensions, at least most used ones and I hope with support for more extensions its adoption could grow.

pitaj 6y ago
No primary password support? What do you mean? Bitwarden via Android autofill framework works great for me with FF.
- mook 6y ago
  I believe Mozilla renamed master password to primary password at some point; it's the password used to encrypt the internal password storage.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
  The master password which you use to protect other passwords in FF Desktop is not necessary/available for FF Android.

zschuessler 6y ago

Firefox on Android has been solid for me, perhaps it's an extension issue? I've definitely run into extension issues on mobile that don't exist on desktop. I also only run two: Dark Reader, and uBlock Origin. It's uBlock that I find causes rendering issues on some releases of the Android app, but I haven't seen that happen in a while. The only thing I do find painful was the app redesign removing the feature to clear all tabs on close-swiping the app. You can clear all tabs by selecting 'Quit' from the menu, but it's a hassle. I wish we could drop the forced tab persistence when closing the app as a setting, like used to be the case.

CJefferson 6y ago
I'm not running any extensions, so that can't be the problem (unless lack of an ad blocker is killing performance)
gorhill 6y ago
> It's uBlock that I find causes rendering issues uBO just does what the filters in the filter lists dictate, so when you see specific websites broken as a result of uBO enforcing filters, best is to report these cases to the list maintainers so that this can be fixed for all.

IainIreland 6y ago

(Mozilla employee, though not working directly on mobile) Mozilla is invested in Firefox on Android for the long haul. We landed a complete re-architecture this year (Fenix). It hasn't been completely painless -- for example, as you seem to have experienced, we've had to split our development time between working on the new engine and maintaining the old -- but Fenix is already better than Fennec in most ways and is significantly easier to improve moving forward. https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2020/01/17/a-brand-new-browsing-experience-arrives-in-firefox-for-android-nightly/ https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2020/01/17/a-brand-n...

AndrewDucker 6y ago
I'm still stuck with the old Firefox for Android until extensions are generally supported. I'm really looking forward to that though, because other than extensions the new one looks great.
- syndacks 6y ago
  Same here. Is this slated for a future release? If so, do you know which one? I've been trying to find an authoritative source to signal when Android FF will support extensions (that previously worked but no longer do) -- any tips much appreciated.
  - sfink 6y ago
    You can see if it works for the extensions you care about -- https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extension-support-in-firefox-for-android-nightly/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extensio... I wouldn't describe that as "support" quite yet, but it's worth giving a shot to see if it works for you.
skykooler 6y ago
You might be able to answer this - are containers coming to Firefox Mobile at any point? That's the main thing that would make me switch from my phone's default browser.

jackewiehose 6y ago

I'm very unhappy with the new FF mobile. The user interface is worse than before in every(!) aspect. There's not a single improvement. And everything feels slower. And there is no offline browsing. On a mobile browser! WTF?! And there is no way to save websites. On a mobile browser, which has very limited connectivity due to its nature. This is just sad. There was a time when I was happy to read about a new FF version for the desktop. Now I'm just waiting that they will ruin it like they did with the mobile version.

cycomanic 6y ago
I'm completely the opposite. Always had firefox installed on my phone, but it was just too slow and buggy before. When the new FF mobile came out as preview it pretty much became my only browser. I've used chrome maybe max 3 times last month. It's way faster in my experience. Ad-block works great (one of the issues I had with previous FF on android, extensions would easily bring it to a crawl), and I like how they reworked the UI, I still can't believe nobody thought about putting the location bar on the bottom before. I do also see the blank screen rendering from time to time. However, I have encountered similar things on chrome as well, typically a refresh fixes it. There are some webpages that really don't seem to want to render on FF mobile though (not sure if because of UBO or something else), that's the only time I switch to chrome.
- d3nj4l 6y ago
  > I still can't believe nobody thought about putting the location bar on the bottom before. This turned out to be a surprisingly big deal to me. Every time I have to use Chrome for some reason I am bothered by how out of the way the location bar is. I think some other browsers have tried to put it at the bottom, but none that are as popular as Firefox or Chrome.
corty 6y ago
I agree. The Tab interface is unusable. new FF opens lots more new tabs than the old one. But the list is less readable, less usable, and closing tabs is a chore (!) because there is a list-slide-animation that makes you miss the next X to close and you have to wait for the f-ing animation to finish. Bookmarks are inaccessible, you only see a few on the new-tab-page or in an unordered mess as search results when typing something in the address bar. A loading indicator is missing and loading often hangs for a long time or clicks don't register. I'm seriously researching alternatives, the status quo is hell.

AgentME 6y ago

I've had issues with blank pages and scroll hanging occasionally in the years I've used Firefox on Android, but it seems like those issues have become less common for me lately with the last couple updates. Though I also did a big purge of my tabs lately (getting down to 10 from over 200) and I wonder if that decreased the amount of issues.

yinyang_in 6y ago

I use Firefox on android, want to keep alternative to chrome alive. I like it, it isn't as nice to use as chrome but works well for me