It also works on the Fennec branch for people who want a fully stable build that has full addon support, but yeah this is going to open it up to a lot more people, so hopefully more people will use Firefox
That’s just regular Firefox with the addon restrictions and trademarks removed,. That doesn’t just magically spawn API support. I thought you meant the 68.x branch which actually had broad extension support and received one additional update over Firefox 68 because the ESR branch was further updated for a bit: apkmirror.com/…/fennec-f-droid-68-12-0-release/
I was a bit hung up on the term ‘branch’ because in my understanding Fennec F-Droid falls more under patch set. Mozilla used Fennec as code name for Firefox Mobile before the GeckoView migration and I had hoped the old Fennec branch would live on in some shape or form.
Yeah I’m aware of that name’s origins. People use “branch” to describe Waterfox and Mull as well. If you ask about “Fennec branch” in current year, it’s what I’ve linked. Nearly anyone who talks about it is referring to that. Just a heads up.
Its current poor extension support is the reason I’ve been using Kiwi Browser, which is a basic Chromium build with full extension support, including loading from local storage.
Same here. I use custom collections on Fennec F-Droid but the inability to properly sideload keeps me on the auto rebased builds of Kiwi Browser. That and support for the black OLED theme and night mode website retheming built in.
Very glad to see this come to Firefox though! Hopefully they can also get those other bits added in.
At least when using Kiwi in desktop mode (via Samsung DeX), Kiwi doesn’t fill out passwords for me. There also is no interest in supporting Firefox Sync.
It’s very anti competitive and monopolistic if you ask me
I don’t disagree, but while I would love having full Firefox on iOS, the one positive of the current situation is that it is the only thing keeping Google from a complete browser monopoly. Firefox marketshare is insignificant, and without WebKit on iOS devices, Chromium browsers would make up 95% of the browser market. I think that would be worse overall in the long-term than iPhone users being stuck with Safari skins.
That’s a lie sir. Brave blocks ads out of the box. Vivaldi also has ad block filters. You can add custom filters to both browsers. Also edge has shitty ad blocker. Kiwi browser supports almost all chrome extensions. Basically almost all except chrome and still you can block most of the ads using correct dns server.
Firefox is as much botnet as others. Full of telemetry, diagnostics, pocket and other shit. That’s why there are secure forks. Firefox in stock form is as much botnet as others. Also firefox is selling out to the same google so don’t pretent it’s better because it’s not.
Accepting a ton of money from Google to make it the default search engine isn’t selling out to them. Any concerned user will know how to change the default.
but people don’t care about tests, they care only about what’s fast and comfortable for their device. maybe firefox might be a better option for users in the latter once the browser plug-ins come to play.
On my 3 year old budget model android phone, things run fast 99% of the time. I have considered myself a power user for years. Having said all of that, I’ve recently switched from chrome to Firefox on android and it definitely feels not noticeably slower. I don’t doubt you, it’s just that phone hardware has gotten so good that decent software rarely (feels like at least) pushes it to the limit for more than fractions of a second at a time.
it’s just that phone hardware has gotten so good that decent software rarely (feels like at least) pushes it to the limit for more than fractions of a second at a time.
I second this, processing time and network speeds have been getting better over the years. The difference in speed in Chrome and Firefox is a “little” noticeable but that’s why I don’t care and use Fennec as my go to browser everyday. I mean, it’s better than the days where it will take more than 20 seconds to load a page.
Technology has gotten better, all kinds of people have access to the internet these days and use it to learn something, or watch something they like. But it’s kinda sad that big tech companies have started to be greedy and try to either milk them for money or become a monopoly themselves.
Feels exactly the same to me (if not slightly faster due to adblocking). You might just be mistaking familiarity with Chrome for it being tangibly better.
Ive been exclusively using firefox mobile for more than a year but just installed bromite because I had some issues with firefox. Its mostly that scrolling feels smoother, which might just be animation trickery
Hm yeah weird. I tried chrome just to test and the scrolling is definitely slightly different but I don’t think it’s smoother. Just kinda tweaked differently I guess. Haven’t tried bromite tho.
In general what chromium browsers have out of the box in firefox you have to install addons to have that functionality and still it’s worse experience. For example pwa support. Worst thing is that websites and now software only supports chromium.
Literally was just telling my partner how much better browsing is since switching to Firefox on android. The ability to install extensions period is a huge upgrade, but also there are several available that are fantastic and not features available on chrome. Not sure what you mean about needing extensions to match chrome features. In fact, none of the extensions I’ve installed are features present in chrome. Plus I can block ads and trackers, activate dark mode everywhere, and use YouTube for audio with my screen off. I am kicking myself for being lazy. On top of giving Google personal data for no reason, I’ve had a worse browsing experience for years.
If it’s not that feature, it’s likely either memory tuning or battery optimization stuff. Some phone manufacturers set those values to levels that are more aggressive than they really need to be, leading to processes being terminated in the background when they ideally shouldn’t.
It’s funny how some people are willing to use weird android mods that can’t run half of the apps to protect their privacy while others can’t even wait 0.01s longer for a page to load.
Personnaly I do realize that 99.99% of people run stock android/iOS but sometimes forget and am surprised that the same people don’t have any ad blocker.
They wanted to have compatibility with Chrome extensions. But that was all just a n EEE move by Google. More perfidious since they created the open standard in the first place
Just add a custom addon collection. The most useful one for me so far has been Mozilla’s translation extension, which they’ve adapted to mobile very well. Oh and libredirect, works perfectly even tho it has the desktop UI
Yep, after I found this out I ditched Chrome immediately once they started rolling out Google Search ads that couldn’t be blocked via DNS. Firefox mobile feels a little less smooth than Chrome admittedly, but the ability to add extensions like ublock/darkreader/consent-o-matic make is a no contest in terms of overall user experience.
The one knock is that they took bypass paywalls out of their extension store and the workaround to install it is somewhat cumbersome, so now I’m annoyingly using Kiwi browser for paywalled content and Firefox for everything else. Hopefully this update will make it so I only need one browser again.
So you can! That’s awesome, thanks. For anyone who wants to know:
You can create a custom addon collection on addons.mozilla.org
Then to add your custom collection in mull (or ff nightly, I guess) enable debug mode by going to settings > about mull and tapping the logo 5 times. Then go back and under the advanced section you can find “custom add-on collection”
Didn’t Apple announce that they were going to remove restrictions on 3rd party browsers on iPhones and iPads? You might be seeing a Gecko based Firefox soon.
I doubt they’d limit it by country, but the question of how soon is very valid. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t use Apple products. Their stranglehold over the ecosystem is highly annoying.
Not an expert but as I've understood it it's pretty similar to Fennec, less tracking and more private than your regular Firefox. I don't know anything about either ones development team size or activity either so I can't recommend one over the other. Hopefully someone with more knowledge can chime in.
blog.mozilla.org
Active