by dblohm7 on 6/28/22, 4:16 PM
(Former Mozilla developer here, who worked on GeckoView[1], the modern way to embed Gecko into Android apps, including all currently shipped Mozilla browsers on Android)
From an engineering perspective, the sad thing about this is that the work to finish extensions in GeckoView was essentially completed in the months after the initial Fenix release.
When GeckoView was still being rolled out into release, we understandably wanted to restrict the selection of addons only to those that exercised APIs that we knew were ready for production. Since that time, however, the WebExtensions work was essentially completed -- since that time it has entirely been a business decision to continue restricting the selection of addons available.
I didn't personally work on the WebExtensions bits, but I know that those who did were frustrated that their work to finish fleshing out full extension support was being held back for seemingly arbitrary reasons (that were never explained to engineering).
[1] https://geckoview.dev
by moonshinefe on 6/28/22, 4:41 PM
I like using Firefox on Android because uBlock origin makes mobile browsing at least tolerable and it lets me use the "desktop mode" view on certain sites so e.g. I can listen to youtube playlists even if the phone is locked without paying for a premium service (for what I consider basic functionality).
Surprised to hear literally the sole reason I use it on mobile is also neglected. Do they think they're going to out compete Chrome on Google's own platform for casual users or something? I don't get it.
by therealmarv on 6/28/22, 3:16 PM
That's not true. It's more that Mozilla white lists only very few of the addons for the mobile browser.
The fork Iceraven whitelists/allow all (?) of the addons (not all work fully, so the whitelist has a purpose):
https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser
by phreack on 6/28/22, 3:46 PM
This sucks because it also means no one is making add-ons for mobile, it's more of an accident that we even have ublock. There's use cases that the Firefox team will not work on for decades that could be filled by add-ons if they just told people to go wild, absolute top of the list being text reflow to prevent having to scroll sideways to read long text. Opera is still the only browser that does it for some reason years on, but it gets worse every update.
by causi on 6/28/22, 4:09 PM
For those who think Mozilla did a good job with Firefox for Android, how do you justify the fact there's still no way to change the User Agent without swapping to Beta? Sure, there's a "desktop mode" button, but not only does that break and force you to reset the browser if you hit the back button but it doesn't actually change the user agent. Sites that bar mobile devices can still tell you're on mobile and stop you from seeing the page.
by itvision on 6/28/22, 6:01 PM
I've closely been following Mobile Firefox development over the past year - this browser is dead, like totally dead.
Bug reports pile up, nothing is really fixed, a ton of commits about telemetry, some commits here and there changing certain UI elements, some refactoring, almost nothing else. Go check its revision history all you want: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/commits/main
Mozilla has seemingly totally given up on it. It's incredibly sad.
by sbernecchia on 6/28/22, 4:02 PM
by thinkingemote on 6/28/22, 4:09 PM
I was writing an extension for Firefox mobile to improve HN a bit to make it work nicer on mobile. Then whoops Firefox no longer does extensions really. *
Such a wasted missed opportunity for the mobile web. FF could and still might be able to recognise the utility.
(* Yes I can install it via developer mode I think, but it was for you too)
by TrianguloY on 6/28/22, 4:07 PM
Fenix is basically a whole new browser, and that means that all features need to be implemented again (which takes a lot of time, and I don't think Firefox developers have much of it).
Lots of Fennec features are still missing (view source code, save as pdf, install general addons, the whole about:config...). Why they changed is a mystery, maybe the old browser had a core privacy bug or something that couldn't be fixed, but basically they killed Firefox on android.
by guelo on 6/28/22, 2:59 PM
Mozilla doesn't seem to have a clue why people prefer firefox. It's not because of privacy or security, though that's nice. It's certainly not because it behaves similarly to chrome. It was always the extensibility. The power of plugins that allowed adblocking to be invented on firefox. They threw that away in the name of security and supposed clean code. Clean code doesn't get you users.
by 331c8c71 on 6/28/22, 6:33 PM
I use ff almost exlusively both on my laptop and the phone.
The existing gap between even the core features has been puzzling for a while.
On mobile I can add a current page to home screen, collections and the top sites. Neither is available on desktop (with the same profile).
WTF mozilla? What kind of usability is this? I am totally not looking forward switching to another browser but it looks inevitable...
by dang on 6/28/22, 6:44 PM
Submitted title was "Firefox addons are still unavailable on Android, two years after Fenix release". Since that language doesn't appear in the OP, it seems a little editorialized and I've replaced it with the page title now.
If there's a better (more accurate and neutral) title that uses representative language from the article itself, we can change it again.
by sva_ on 6/28/22, 6:31 PM
by nelblu on 6/28/22, 3:52 PM
I use iceraven to get around some of these limitations. Addons that I needed(privacy redirect) work great:
https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser.
From the github link : The ability to attempt to install a much longer list of add-ons than Mozilla's Fenix version of Firefox accepts. Currently the browser queries this AMO collection Most of them will not work, because they depend on code that Mozilla is still working on writing in android-components, but you may attempt to install them. If you don't see an add-on you want, you can request it.
by eadmund on 6/28/22, 5:03 PM
And Print to PDF still doesn't work, which is another regression. Why Mozilla why‽
by bwat48 on 6/28/22, 3:01 PM
misleading title, some addons are available... e.g. I use ublock origin in firefox on android
by Pakdef on 6/28/22, 4:44 PM
Most the addons that I use work with collections, but collections are cumbersome to use. Why don't they just have an option to unblock all addons and give you a warning that some might not work?
The day they do that on Desktop, I don't know which browser I'll switch to...
by xthrowawayxx on 6/28/22, 7:04 PM
I exclusively use Firefox on Android because of the addons. For me it's the killer feature. Dark mode, ad blocks, YouTube while screen is off. It's made android so much more enjoyable.
by AshamedCaptain on 6/28/22, 6:38 PM
To this day Firefox for Android still does not have a tab bar on tablets. Which is double ridiculous since the previous two rewrites both did have one (in fact I contributed to the former...).
by kashyapc on 6/28/22, 5:00 PM
For a year now, I began using DuckDuckGo's (DDG) "Privacy Browser" on Android. By default it removes ads and third-party trackers; no need for add-ons. So far DDG's browser works roughly on par with my older setup of stock Android Firefox plus a couple of usual extensions. I wonder why DDG's Android browser isn't more well-known.
by rsoto on 6/28/22, 11:21 PM
I remember back in late 2018, early 2019 I downloaded the Nightly version, Mozilla had been hinting on a rewrite for a while and I wanted to see what they were up to. This version seemed solid, although a work in progress: you could not customize the listed sites in the home screen, addons were disabled and the settings seemed lacking compared to what we had in the stable release, but work was solid.
Then, out of nowhere, they phase out what we currently have with this half-baked Nightly version. The app updated itself overnight and now all the addons are no longer supported (Violentmonkey was a big one for me as I could customize some websites with a user script), the home page icons can't be rearranged, the history can't be deleted and overall this updated app seems like a worse deal that we previously had.
Mozilla has stopped caring about their products. It seems that nobody in there is dogfooding Firefox, and it shows. They have a big advantage because of Google still not allowing addons on Mobile Chrome, and instead of opening up the whole ecosystem (which previously most of the desktop addons were compatible with the mobile app), they double down on allowing only a very short list of preapproved addons.
by jimmaswell on 6/28/22, 6:12 PM
I wish the developers would all organize, break off ties with Mozilla, and endorse a fork as the new real Firefox.
by thewebcount on 6/28/22, 6:33 PM
I'm confused by this. Yesterday there was an article about how Apple only lets browsers use WebKit for rendering, and that was considered bad because it means that mobile browsers can't support add-ons. But it looks like Firefox doesn't support them anyway, so what's the problem again?
by iamevn on 6/29/22, 6:03 PM
Do any of the mobile Firefox forks have a better story for tab management? I've been on nightly for a long time (for its janky addon support) and the way I can't manually sort and group tabs is extremely frustrating to me.
by vsskanth on 6/28/22, 3:27 PM
I use bypass-paywalls-clean addon and I'm forced to use Firefox Nightly and deal with all its weird bugs (it's nightly so that's expected) because of this.
Things have improved quite a bit though. They finally fixed that stupid scrolling bug that cuts off a part of the page below the nav bar. That finally got me off Kiwi Browser.
Eagerly waiting for all add-ons to be allowed in stable.
by jacooper on 6/28/22, 8:09 PM
For people who want to use extensions on mobile, check Kiwi browser, an open source chromium based browser with full support for extensions.
by timvisee on 6/29/22, 7:11 AM
I've been using Firefox on Android with a set of custom extensions for a while now, and it is fanatic!
No more ads, no more cookie banners.
by paol on 6/28/22, 3:19 PM
...and that's why I'm still running FF 68 on my phone. Well that and a bunch of UI regressions.
by Markoff on 6/28/22, 8:28 PM
by 1vuio0pswjnm7 on 6/29/22, 12:09 AM
Would be nice if one could run uBlock Matrix on Fennec.
by Pxtl on 6/28/22, 4:39 PM
After dealing with performance, janky scrolling, and crashing in FF and dealing with weird UI bugs in Edge (keyboard overlaps page instead of resizing page), I've sadly had to return to Chrome on my phone.