Firefox to become first mobile browser to support desktop extensions later this year

Popsip , 10 months ago

Awesome, I won’t need to switch to the desktop version just because I’m missing a few extension.

nortorc , 10 months ago

I remember wanting to try out Firefox on Android but not being able to use it with Tampermonkey which was a real bummer. Better late than never, I guess?

One question on my mind is why it took so long. Is Android a harder platform to make extensions available on or something?

Clusterfck , 10 months ago

It did support extensions until they basically redesigned the app from the ground up a few years back. They said they’d focus on stability first then move on from there.

1ird , 10 months ago

You can use tamper monkey now.

MichaelTen , 10 months ago

Kiwi already does

crummysocks , 10 months ago

Test

krebstar , 10 months ago

But not on ios…How do we get adblocking in ios?

redditReallySucks , 10 months ago

Firefox on iOS is just safari with a Firefox logo

d7eeem , 10 months ago

The weird thing is Safari has extensions

JTskulk , 10 months ago

You don’t lol. Beg Tim Apple for it.

sir_reginald , 8 months ago

you’re buying the wrong phone. this is a limitation imposed only by apple, forcing every browser on iOS to be Safari re-skinned

257m , 10 months ago

Iceraven already has extensions so it’s not the first.

mishimaenjoyer , 10 months ago

i hope mozilla is already working on an iOS version for the EU market ;)

aquarisces , 10 months ago

This is the only reason why I keep using Safari on iOS. If Firefox can get extensions working for iOS I’ll switch over the day it’s available.

mishimaenjoyer , 10 months ago

i miss(ed) exactly two things on iOS: a proper imageboard reader (fixed, there are now chance and janchan) and stand alone firefox, wich is now just a matter of time.

sab , 10 months ago

I don’t see how they would, since ios Firefox doesn’t use the same rendering engine it uses on other platforms, Gecko. Instead it has to use Safari, just like any other browser on there.

Duplicating support for all existing extensions would be pretty much impossible if you don’t control the rendering engine.

lustyargonian , 10 months ago

That’s going to change in EU as Apple will be forced to allow side loading apps.

mishimaenjoyer , 10 months ago

this. they simply have to port the version they're developing for android now and we're golden. i guess it might find it's way on non-eu-devices by community builds and testflight.

lustyargonian , 10 months ago

Yeah it’ll be a big task nonetheless. Firefox for Android needed gecko components to be ready to make use of gecko view, their rendering “engine”. iOS may be need its own version of gecko view, at least the bindings for it, as well as a new set of components for all the UI elements a full fledged browser may need.

sab , 10 months ago

I heard about allowing alternative app stores, but I’m not sure if that also removes the browser engine restrictions. (would make sense though, from an anti-monopoly pov)

lustyargonian , 10 months ago

The restriction is from App Store, and bypassing it removes that hurdle. Microsoft faced the same issue when they were trying to launch their cloud streaming service within their app, not because they technically couldn’t, but because Apple wouldn’t let them to.

sab , 10 months ago

Ahhh, that makes sense. Thanks!

MrFlamey , 10 months ago

I’ve been using Kiwi browser for ages and it’s had extension support the entire time since I quit using Firefox on mobile. I would still be using Firefox if it hadn’t just kept randomly not loading pages anymore and requiring a restart, because it did at least support the one extension I can’t live without; ublock origin, but the bugs were just too much. I might give Firefox mobile another shot when this new version hits stable release.

Lantern , 10 months ago

Not saying it’s a better implementation, but Safari already does this.

Xander_Meters , 10 months ago

Yeah the article specifies android but the lemmy post generalises it

avidamoeba , 10 months ago

Does this mean that the storage API will finally be available on mobile? At the moment this is probably my biggest annoyance since I have to manually transfer allow lists for various extensions across desktop and mobile.

HulkSmashBurgers , 10 months ago

Awesome!

I also hope that someday mobile firefox has tagging functionality like on desktop (and tags are synch-able, like bookmarks)

brlemworld , 10 months ago

This is awesome!

thecam , 10 months ago

Now Brave needs to do the same and also create its own extension store

Ubermeisters , 10 months ago

Brave is a ticking clock counting down. They can continue putting off some of the chromium updates that Google is pushing but eventually they are going to go the way of the rest of the chromium forks.

xantiv , 10 months ago

Any reason to switch from Fennec?

thecam , 10 months ago

Wont Feddec support mobile extensions in the future?

viking , 10 months ago

Fennec supports add-ons since forever ago. I’ve been using it for 3+ years with a full set of my desktop add-ons installed.

viking , 10 months ago

Don’t think so. Fennec has been doing a great job all through, I’ll stick to it unless there’s any breaking issue in the future.

ch1cken , 10 months ago (edited 7 months ago)

deleted_by_author

Steuls , 10 months ago

It supported them in the Nightly release. This is for the main release