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I switched to Iceraven [0] last year and never looked back. It is a fork of the new Firefox for Android but with a much longer list of extensions and about:conf

by gaudat 4y ago

I switched to Iceraven [0] last year and never looked back. It is a fork of the new Firefox for Android but with a much longer list of extensions and about:config support. I specifically need the latter to route traffic through a local proxy before. [0]: https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser Oh and it is written in Kotlin. Maybe I should learn it just to try hacking more features in.

m4rtink 4y ago
Interesting, thanks! Will definitely try it out as well! :-) Still, sad that people have to invest their time to do this, instead of Mozilla providing it as default functionality by default. :P
petodo 4y ago
Why not use Kiwi Browser? No limited list of extensions, all extensions just work.
- m4rtink 4y ago
  That's also one of the few options if you want to run a browser with web extensions on Android, yeah. Most extensions do work, but its not 100%. Also its Chromium/Blink based, so one needs to use the Chrome extensions + at least for a while it looked like its not maintained, but I might have missed something.
  - petodo 4y ago
    it was abandoned for while, now regularly updated
    - m4rtink 4y ago
      Thanks for the heads up - tried it yesterday and it indeed looks much better now! :-)
wizeman 4y ago
You can install whatever add-ons you want on Firefox for Android (as long as they're compatible), you're not limited to the default list. See here [1] for instructions (these were written for Nightly but they work on the stable channel now). [1] 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...
- m4rtink 4y ago
  "It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.‘" Sorry, I could not resist posting this quote because that's very much what that guide for using custom addons in Firefox reminds me of. Previously, you would just go to the addons page and install the addon, like on desktop. Now since the Android Firefox rewrite you need to: - use nigtly, not normal Android firefox - do some funky clicking on logos to enable a hidden setting - create a Mozilla account - create an addon list for that account - finding the addon list id and manually typing it into my specially configured nigly version of Android Firefox THEN finally I can run than one addon & I can probably repeat most of that process every time I want to add another addon or enable this on another device. Perfect! If I really wanted to kill an annoying feature while still technically providing a an almost impossible way for people to use it, that's exactly how I would do it! This also makes sure the amount of users of any non-blessed extensions (that are on an official list and can be installed easily) will be so small as to brush off any bug reports and feature requests. Even extension authors will likely not prioritize Android support in their projects due to the horrendous UX preventing users from actually installing their extensions.
  - wizeman 4y ago
    > - use nigtly, not normal Android firefox As I mentioned, this is not necessary anymore. But I agree with the rest of your post.
    - m4rtink 4y ago
      Thank! That is at least some progress after so long. :P

by gaudat 4y ago

m4rtink 4y ago

Interesting, thanks! Will definitely try it out as well! :-) Still, sad that people have to invest their time to do this, instead of Mozilla providing it as default functionality by default. :P

petodo 4y ago

Why not use Kiwi Browser? No limited list of extensions, all extensions just work.

m4rtink 4y ago
That's also one of the few options if you want to run a browser with web extensions on Android, yeah. Most extensions do work, but its not 100%. Also its Chromium/Blink based, so one needs to use the Chrome extensions + at least for a while it looked like its not maintained, but I might have missed something.
- petodo 4y ago
  it was abandoned for while, now regularly updated
  - m4rtink 4y ago
    Thanks for the heads up - tried it yesterday and it indeed looks much better now! :-)

wizeman 4y ago

You can install whatever add-ons you want on Firefox for Android (as long as they're compatible), you're not limited to the default list. See here [1] for instructions (these were written for Nightly but they work on the stable channel now). [1] 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...

m4rtink 4y ago
"It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.‘" Sorry, I could not resist posting this quote because that's very much what that guide for using custom addons in Firefox reminds me of. Previously, you would just go to the addons page and install the addon, like on desktop. Now since the Android Firefox rewrite you need to: - use nigtly, not normal Android firefox - do some funky clicking on logos to enable a hidden setting - create a Mozilla account - create an addon list for that account - finding the addon list id and manually typing it into my specially configured nigly version of Android Firefox THEN finally I can run than one addon & I can probably repeat most of that process every time I want to add another addon or enable this on another device. Perfect! If I really wanted to kill an annoying feature while still technically providing a an almost impossible way for people to use it, that's exactly how I would do it! This also makes sure the amount of users of any non-blessed extensions (that are on an official list and can be installed easily) will be so small as to brush off any bug reports and feature requests. Even extension authors will likely not prioritize Android support in their projects due to the horrendous UX preventing users from actually installing their extensions.
- wizeman 4y ago
  > - use nigtly, not normal Android firefox As I mentioned, this is not necessary anymore. But I agree with the rest of your post.
  - m4rtink 4y ago
    Thank! That is at least some progress after so long. :P