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I'm looking forward to running "real" firefox on ios. If only so that there is another alternative if a page renders poorly in webkit.

coldpie 4y ago
Real Firefox is the thing I miss most when I switched from Android. Browsing the web without NoScript suuuucks.
- deleted 4y ago
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- dcow 4y ago
  I really hope firefox retains support for real web extensions through this manifest v3 bs.
  - godshatter 4y ago
    Mozilla makes $400 million a year from Google, would they really cut off this revenue stream if Google told them to only support manifest v3 or else? Mozilla should never have gotten into a situation where 90% of their funding comes from their biggest competitor.
    - kajecounterhack 4y ago
      Sadly, they're probably headed into a worse situation, where they lose most of that 90% of their funding since their browser marketshare is at an all time low of 3-4%. Renegotiation is this year.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      Google needs Mozilla though - Firefox is the last remaining Chromium competitor Google can use as a counterargument against claims about their de facto monopoly.
      - est31 4y ago
        That's Safari. It has way more users, and website creators actually care about providing Safari support because they want it to work on the non-technical boss's iPhone.
        zargon 4y ago
        There's no Safari on Android.
        dimensi0nal 4y ago
        people typically want their mobile sites to work on both major OSes
        Semaphor 4y ago
        Or on Windows.
        est31 4y ago
        There's no significant Firefox presence on Android either. Sure there is an app, and there are 100+ million installs, corresponding to an install market share of >4%, but people almost never use Firefox. Usage wise, Firefox has a 0.5% market share.
      - rvz 4y ago
        Safari (WebKit) is the one that is the last remaining serious competitor against Chromium. Firefox has already lost years ago and is so useless to counter Chrome that they have to be funded by Google in order to survive. Mozilla's competitiveness for Firefox is close to zero. The EU Digital Markets Act will just further solidify Chrome's dominance.
        sofixa 4y ago
        > Safari (WebKit) is the one that is the last remaining serious competitor against Chromium. Safari isn't available on platforms other than Apple's (which have a minority share of computing devices on the market), so it's obviously not an actual competitor to Chromium based browsers.
- drexlspivey 4y ago
  You can install both Firefox and Chrome plugins in the Orion browser on iOS
  - singularity2001 4y ago
    https://orionfeedback.org/d/2568-noscript-extension-from-firefox-does-nothing https://orionfeedback.org/d/2568-noscript-extension-from-fir...
    - djkoolaide 4y ago
      That's a disappointing thread to read. "Vlad" didn't even bother looking at what NoScript actually does, and why it's better than just having a giant on/off switch for the entire page.
imiric 4y ago
I'm not that optimistic that Mozilla is capable of building a good iOS browser. It's been a few months since I last used it, but the issues of Firefox on iPadOS were not because of the engine. Tabs would frequently lose order, closing a tab would close some other tab, broken keyboard shortcuts, cursor/selection issues in the address bar, random non-responsiveness and just janky UI. The issues were so obvious that it felt like it was built without any QA process, so I resorted to using Safari most of the time, which worked perfectly. Firefox Focus on Android works much better, but it's also a simpler browser. I haven't used the full Firefox on Android, so can't comment on that.
- ben174 4y ago
  Once the native engine is available to the general public, there will be more users. When there are more users, there will likely be more resources thrown at development.
  - ridiculous_fish 4y ago
    Why hasn't this happened on Android?
    - leni536 4y ago
      Firefox is the best Android browser, for the sole reason of being able to use uBlock Origin with it.
      - ridiculous_fish 4y ago
        But it hasn't resulted in "more users." The marketshare of Firefox on mobile is around half a percent.
        californical 4y ago
        I really wonder if that number is accurate, or if Firefox uses all just have their tracking disabled
andsoitis 4y ago
> if a page renders poorly in webkit. what's a URL of a page that renders poorly in webkit?
- Ninjinka 4y ago
  Anything with a high amount of textures in WebGL.
- GranPC 4y ago
  I couldn't link to any websites that render incorrectly under Safari on iOS (WebKit) off the top of my head, but I think that's rather a side effect of WebKit being the only engine available on iOS: I don't want my site to be unusable on iOS devices, so I end up spending a lot of time trying to work around bugs that only happen on Apple devices. Sure, this ultimately means that everything Just Works on Apple devices... but it's not because their browser is up to standards. It's just that I'm forced to make it work. To me, this is very reminiscent of the Internet Explorer situation, where I end up baking a bunch of hacks into my code just to ensure it works for the majority.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    are you implying that all other web browsers implement and comply with all web standards? are you implying that no website is leveraging experimental features and hence not standard yet?
    - GranPC 4y ago
      I am not, and that sounds like quite an uncharitable interpretation of my comment. All web browsers have bugs, and practically all web browsers support features that are not part of the standards track. That's not the problem. The problem is two-fold: we have a specific browser engine that lags way behind the standards, and this same engine is literally the only choice for an operating system that runs on over 1 billion[0] devices. When I say "lags way behind the standards", I'm not talking about unsupported features, but rather, well-established features that are supposedly functional but are simply buggy. And they're not niche features: I have personally seen bugs in features like the CSS filter property, Web Audio, and SVG rendering, that are unsolved to this date. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/27/22253162/iphone-users-total-number-billion-apple-tim-cook-q1-2021 https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/27/22253162/iphone-users-tot...
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petesergeant 4y ago
> If only so that there is another alternative if a page renders poorly in webkit I have a less optimistic take. At the moment, the only thing standing between the world and a Chrome-only monoculture is iOS Safari. Nobody in a suit can make a business case for not supporting iOS Safari, given its market share, and also given the fact that the entire C-Suite and senior management team at any given company are using Safari on their iPhone and iPad. A page not working on iOS Safari is a serious business problem that people will take seriously, today. If it gets displaced by Chrome on iOS, with a tiny sliver of us using Firefox, I worry "works on Chrome" will be the only thing that gets solved for.
- h0l0cube 4y ago
  > I worry "works on Chrome" will be the only thing that gets solved for Firefox is my daily driver, and I use their WebKit wrapper on iOS, and I have to agree. I'm not looking forward to a Blink monopoly in the browser space. The upshot is that we might have closer-to-native experiences for websites on iOS.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    > closer-to-native experiences for websites on iOS. What is native? If a website is explicitly testing for Firefox compatibility, they're probably also testing for Safari compatibility due to its increased market share.
    - JohnTHaller 4y ago
      I know a fair few solo developers that don't test Safari compatibility because they don't own Apple hardware. And Safari only runs on Apple hardware (with the exception of Hackintosh).
    - h0l0cube 4y ago
      It's not so much Safari compatibility, but WebKit compatibility. Anyone who wants their website to work on iOS has to test against mobile WebKit, regardless if their target users are on Chrome or Firefox. If these legislative changes go into effect, Webkit market penetration will plummet quickly to only those using Safari, and Apple will have less leverage to hold back on features that don't suit their App Store profits.
dartharva 4y ago
Firefox Android is rather bad at being a mobile browser (it's too slow), and if it is any indicator Firefox iOS will likely be the same.
- wpietri 4y ago
  Is it? It's the only mobile browser I use. I use it on a mid-tier phone (Pixel 5a). It seems fine to me.
  - dartharva 4y ago
    Have you tried comparing it with Bromite, Brave or even Chrome? There is a very noticeable difference. Also, I think Site Isolation* doesn't work in FF Android as it does in FF Desktop. Firefox Android is categorically less secure than its Chromium counterparts. * https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/05/introducing-firefox-new-site-isolation-security-architecture/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/05/introducing-firefox-new-si...
    - wpietri 4y ago
      I have not done much comparison, as it works fine for me. I could believe that it is slower, but I still wouldn't call in slow. Perhaps my using an adblocker with FF makes it better for me.
- CharlieDigital 4y ago
  I've only noticed this in very compute intensive SPAs. But you know what? Having AdBlock makes up for it 10 fold because I never have to see ads on mobile FF.
lobochrome 4y ago
On the other hand: wouldn’t it be nice if Apple would start contributing/forking chromium? WebKit just has too many issues these days…
Synaesthesia 4y ago
It will also be great to have video background enabler, dark mode and ublock origin extensions like on Android.

coldpie 4y ago

Real Firefox is the thing I miss most when I switched from Android. Browsing the web without NoScript suuuucks.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dcow 4y ago
I really hope firefox retains support for real web extensions through this manifest v3 bs.
- godshatter 4y ago
  Mozilla makes $400 million a year from Google, would they really cut off this revenue stream if Google told them to only support manifest v3 or else? Mozilla should never have gotten into a situation where 90% of their funding comes from their biggest competitor.
  - kajecounterhack 4y ago
    Sadly, they're probably headed into a worse situation, where they lose most of that 90% of their funding since their browser marketshare is at an all time low of 3-4%. Renegotiation is this year.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    Google needs Mozilla though - Firefox is the last remaining Chromium competitor Google can use as a counterargument against claims about their de facto monopoly.
    - est31 4y ago
      That's Safari. It has way more users, and website creators actually care about providing Safari support because they want it to work on the non-technical boss's iPhone.
      - zargon 4y ago
        There's no Safari on Android.
        dimensi0nal 4y ago
        people typically want their mobile sites to work on both major OSes
        Semaphor 4y ago
        Or on Windows.
        est31 4y ago
        There's no significant Firefox presence on Android either. Sure there is an app, and there are 100+ million installs, corresponding to an install market share of >4%, but people almost never use Firefox. Usage wise, Firefox has a 0.5% market share.
    - rvz 4y ago
      Safari (WebKit) is the one that is the last remaining serious competitor against Chromium. Firefox has already lost years ago and is so useless to counter Chrome that they have to be funded by Google in order to survive. Mozilla's competitiveness for Firefox is close to zero. The EU Digital Markets Act will just further solidify Chrome's dominance.
      - sofixa 4y ago
        > Safari (WebKit) is the one that is the last remaining serious competitor against Chromium. Safari isn't available on platforms other than Apple's (which have a minority share of computing devices on the market), so it's obviously not an actual competitor to Chromium based browsers.
drexlspivey 4y ago
You can install both Firefox and Chrome plugins in the Orion browser on iOS
- singularity2001 4y ago
  https://orionfeedback.org/d/2568-noscript-extension-from-firefox-does-nothing https://orionfeedback.org/d/2568-noscript-extension-from-fir...
  - djkoolaide 4y ago
    That's a disappointing thread to read. "Vlad" didn't even bother looking at what NoScript actually does, and why it's better than just having a giant on/off switch for the entire page.

imiric 4y ago

I'm not that optimistic that Mozilla is capable of building a good iOS browser. It's been a few months since I last used it, but the issues of Firefox on iPadOS were not because of the engine. Tabs would frequently lose order, closing a tab would close some other tab, broken keyboard shortcuts, cursor/selection issues in the address bar, random non-responsiveness and just janky UI. The issues were so obvious that it felt like it was built without any QA process, so I resorted to using Safari most of the time, which worked perfectly. Firefox Focus on Android works much better, but it's also a simpler browser. I haven't used the full Firefox on Android, so can't comment on that.

ben174 4y ago
Once the native engine is available to the general public, there will be more users. When there are more users, there will likely be more resources thrown at development.
- ridiculous_fish 4y ago
  Why hasn't this happened on Android?
  - leni536 4y ago
    Firefox is the best Android browser, for the sole reason of being able to use uBlock Origin with it.
    - ridiculous_fish 4y ago
      But it hasn't resulted in "more users." The marketshare of Firefox on mobile is around half a percent.
      - californical 4y ago
        I really wonder if that number is accurate, or if Firefox uses all just have their tracking disabled

andsoitis 4y ago

> if a page renders poorly in webkit. what's a URL of a page that renders poorly in webkit?

Ninjinka 4y ago
Anything with a high amount of textures in WebGL.
GranPC 4y ago
I couldn't link to any websites that render incorrectly under Safari on iOS (WebKit) off the top of my head, but I think that's rather a side effect of WebKit being the only engine available on iOS: I don't want my site to be unusable on iOS devices, so I end up spending a lot of time trying to work around bugs that only happen on Apple devices. Sure, this ultimately means that everything Just Works on Apple devices... but it's not because their browser is up to standards. It's just that I'm forced to make it work. To me, this is very reminiscent of the Internet Explorer situation, where I end up baking a bunch of hacks into my code just to ensure it works for the majority.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  are you implying that all other web browsers implement and comply with all web standards? are you implying that no website is leveraging experimental features and hence not standard yet?
  - GranPC 4y ago
    I am not, and that sounds like quite an uncharitable interpretation of my comment. All web browsers have bugs, and practically all web browsers support features that are not part of the standards track. That's not the problem. The problem is two-fold: we have a specific browser engine that lags way behind the standards, and this same engine is literally the only choice for an operating system that runs on over 1 billion[0] devices. When I say "lags way behind the standards", I'm not talking about unsupported features, but rather, well-established features that are supposedly functional but are simply buggy. And they're not niche features: I have personally seen bugs in features like the CSS filter property, Web Audio, and SVG rendering, that are unsolved to this date. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/27/22253162/iphone-users-total-number-billion-apple-tim-cook-q1-2021 https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/27/22253162/iphone-users-tot...

deleted 4y ago

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deleted 4y ago

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petesergeant 4y ago

> If only so that there is another alternative if a page renders poorly in webkit I have a less optimistic take. At the moment, the only thing standing between the world and a Chrome-only monoculture is iOS Safari. Nobody in a suit can make a business case for not supporting iOS Safari, given its market share, and also given the fact that the entire C-Suite and senior management team at any given company are using Safari on their iPhone and iPad. A page not working on iOS Safari is a serious business problem that people will take seriously, today. If it gets displaced by Chrome on iOS, with a tiny sliver of us using Firefox, I worry "works on Chrome" will be the only thing that gets solved for.

h0l0cube 4y ago
> I worry "works on Chrome" will be the only thing that gets solved for Firefox is my daily driver, and I use their WebKit wrapper on iOS, and I have to agree. I'm not looking forward to a Blink monopoly in the browser space. The upshot is that we might have closer-to-native experiences for websites on iOS.
- judge2020 4y ago
  > closer-to-native experiences for websites on iOS. What is native? If a website is explicitly testing for Firefox compatibility, they're probably also testing for Safari compatibility due to its increased market share.
  - JohnTHaller 4y ago
    I know a fair few solo developers that don't test Safari compatibility because they don't own Apple hardware. And Safari only runs on Apple hardware (with the exception of Hackintosh).
  - h0l0cube 4y ago
    It's not so much Safari compatibility, but WebKit compatibility. Anyone who wants their website to work on iOS has to test against mobile WebKit, regardless if their target users are on Chrome or Firefox. If these legislative changes go into effect, Webkit market penetration will plummet quickly to only those using Safari, and Apple will have less leverage to hold back on features that don't suit their App Store profits.

dartharva 4y ago

Firefox Android is rather bad at being a mobile browser (it's too slow), and if it is any indicator Firefox iOS will likely be the same.

wpietri 4y ago
Is it? It's the only mobile browser I use. I use it on a mid-tier phone (Pixel 5a). It seems fine to me.
- dartharva 4y ago
  Have you tried comparing it with Bromite, Brave or even Chrome? There is a very noticeable difference. Also, I think Site Isolation* doesn't work in FF Android as it does in FF Desktop. Firefox Android is categorically less secure than its Chromium counterparts. * https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/05/introducing-firefox-new-site-isolation-security-architecture/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/05/introducing-firefox-new-si...
  - wpietri 4y ago
    I have not done much comparison, as it works fine for me. I could believe that it is slower, but I still wouldn't call in slow. Perhaps my using an adblocker with FF makes it better for me.
CharlieDigital 4y ago
I've only noticed this in very compute intensive SPAs. But you know what? Having AdBlock makes up for it 10 fold because I never have to see ads on mobile FF.

lobochrome 4y ago

On the other hand: wouldn’t it be nice if Apple would start contributing/forking chromium? WebKit just has too many issues these days…

Synaesthesia 4y ago

It will also be great to have video background enabler, dark mode and ublock origin extensions like on Android.