5 ms·

For Android, yeah, they have a short list of allowed addons. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/search/?promoted=recommended&sort=random&type=extension ht

by sp332 4y ago

For Android, yeah, they have a short list of allowed addons. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/search/?promoted=recommended&sort=random&type=extension https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/search/?promoted=re... You can get past it if you're willing to run Nightly and jump through these hoops: 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...

benatkin 4y ago
Hmm, well they've chosen a known bad one. What gives. :( How is this ever cool, Mozilla? https://github.com/Tampermonkey/tampermonkey/issues/1545#issuecomment-1177494094 https://github.com/Tampermonkey/tampermonkey/issues/1545#iss...
- justinclift 4y ago
  Reading further down that issue, it doesn't seem to be what it initially sounded like. ?
  - benatkin 4y ago
    Still wild to reserve permission to to that
    - blibble 4y ago
      doing that would be flat out unlawful under the GDPR, regardless of whatever crap they put into their EULA and enough to get that company into rather expensive trouble
plorg 4y ago
You can do this in Beta now as well.
mook 4y ago
I've landed on using the F-droid build instead of Nightly. That also allows custom extension collections, and I believe Mozilla's attitude was that they get more telemetry for Nightly as they consider that an opt-in somehow (or at least they did for the desktop app).
- dewy 4y ago
  How do you install Firefox via F-droid? (I searched, but don't see it listed in my F-droid store directly.) Do you use the FFupdater app?
  - JeremyNT 4y ago
    Not the parent but from F-Droid I use Fennec, which is FF nightly with the branding and some of the more obnoxious anti-features removed: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/
    - mook 4y ago
      If you actually check the version numbers, it's actually the release version (instead of the nightly) with unofficial branding.
      - JeremyNT 4y ago
        You are right, sorry! It's too late to edit my post but this is correct.
  - laurentlbm 4y ago
    I recommend the fork Mull: https://f-droid.org/packages/us.spotco.fennec_dos/ https://f-droid.org/packages/us.spotco.fennec_dos/ It includes privacy-related improvements. See more: https://gitlab.com/divested-mobile/mull-fenix https://gitlab.com/divested-mobile/mull-fenix
noirscape 4y ago
It's worth pointing out that this isn't truly "getting past it". It's still locked to Mozilla's add-on store (preventing you from testing or manually loading extension bundles) and all you're really doing is switching the collection that Fenix loads the extensions from to one you control instead. One of the bigger reasons to use Fennec instead (the old Firefox Android browser, still maintained as a community fork) for me has been the fact that you can also load in the XPI files yourself, which is needed for a few FOSS extensions that aren't submitted to the Firefox Add-On Store due to one reason or another.
- asddubs 4y ago
  what's the difference between the old and new firefox android browser? is it a separate codebase? different UI?
  - noirscape 4y ago
    Completely new codebase yeah. The old codebase is known as Fennec and is directly based on Gecko (the browser engine that powers desktop Firefox). All the same advantages. The UI wasn't excellent, but it did the job perfectly well. The new codebase is known as Fenix and is instead based on GeckoView which isn't an actual browser but rather an library version of Gecko that is intended to replace Androids own System WebView (it was first used in Firefox Focus which was this tiny trackerblocking microbrowser that they offered). The difference sounds tiny but it feels just... way clunkier to use and there's a bunch of features missing since a WebView browser isn't made with those in mind the same way a regular browser is. There's just... loads of features missing or not available and the team working on Fenix is blatantly either mismanaged or underfunded. It's so feature-poor that you still can't actually set your homepage to a URL[0] among many other bugs and missing features. It appears to have gotten so bad that they moved the entire issue tracker over to Bugzilla and moved the repo to a new GitHub repo to hide just how feature poor this browser is. Firefox Fenix is terrible, has been terrible for the past 2 years and I don't understand why they're still developing it instead of shoring up Fennec properly. [0]: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/7551 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/7551

by sp332 4y ago

benatkin 4y ago

Hmm, well they've chosen a known bad one. What gives. :( How is this ever cool, Mozilla? https://github.com/Tampermonkey/tampermonkey/issues/1545#issuecomment-1177494094 https://github.com/Tampermonkey/tampermonkey/issues/1545#iss...

justinclift 4y ago
Reading further down that issue, it doesn't seem to be what it initially sounded like. ?
- benatkin 4y ago
  Still wild to reserve permission to to that
  - blibble 4y ago
    doing that would be flat out unlawful under the GDPR, regardless of whatever crap they put into their EULA and enough to get that company into rather expensive trouble

plorg 4y ago

You can do this in Beta now as well.

mook 4y ago

I've landed on using the F-droid build instead of Nightly. That also allows custom extension collections, and I believe Mozilla's attitude was that they get more telemetry for Nightly as they consider that an opt-in somehow (or at least they did for the desktop app).

dewy 4y ago
How do you install Firefox via F-droid? (I searched, but don't see it listed in my F-droid store directly.) Do you use the FFupdater app?
- JeremyNT 4y ago
  Not the parent but from F-Droid I use Fennec, which is FF nightly with the branding and some of the more obnoxious anti-features removed: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/
  - mook 4y ago
    If you actually check the version numbers, it's actually the release version (instead of the nightly) with unofficial branding.
    - JeremyNT 4y ago
      You are right, sorry! It's too late to edit my post but this is correct.
- laurentlbm 4y ago
  I recommend the fork Mull: https://f-droid.org/packages/us.spotco.fennec_dos/ https://f-droid.org/packages/us.spotco.fennec_dos/ It includes privacy-related improvements. See more: https://gitlab.com/divested-mobile/mull-fenix https://gitlab.com/divested-mobile/mull-fenix

noirscape 4y ago

It's worth pointing out that this isn't truly "getting past it". It's still locked to Mozilla's add-on store (preventing you from testing or manually loading extension bundles) and all you're really doing is switching the collection that Fenix loads the extensions from to one you control instead. One of the bigger reasons to use Fennec instead (the old Firefox Android browser, still maintained as a community fork) for me has been the fact that you can also load in the XPI files yourself, which is needed for a few FOSS extensions that aren't submitted to the Firefox Add-On Store due to one reason or another.

asddubs 4y ago
what's the difference between the old and new firefox android browser? is it a separate codebase? different UI?
- noirscape 4y ago
  Completely new codebase yeah. The old codebase is known as Fennec and is directly based on Gecko (the browser engine that powers desktop Firefox). All the same advantages. The UI wasn't excellent, but it did the job perfectly well. The new codebase is known as Fenix and is instead based on GeckoView which isn't an actual browser but rather an library version of Gecko that is intended to replace Androids own System WebView (it was first used in Firefox Focus which was this tiny trackerblocking microbrowser that they offered). The difference sounds tiny but it feels just... way clunkier to use and there's a bunch of features missing since a WebView browser isn't made with those in mind the same way a regular browser is. There's just... loads of features missing or not available and the team working on Fenix is blatantly either mismanaged or underfunded. It's so feature-poor that you still can't actually set your homepage to a URL[0] among many other bugs and missing features. It appears to have gotten so bad that they moved the entire issue tracker over to Bugzilla and moved the repo to a new GitHub repo to hide just how feature poor this browser is. Firefox Fenix is terrible, has been terrible for the past 2 years and I don't understand why they're still developing it instead of shoring up Fennec properly. [0]: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/7551 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/7551