You must log in or register to comment.
It’s about damn time
My goodness that’s awesome. I never understood why they locked it down in the first place about a year ago. What changed?
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
I haven’t been using Firefox for Android because I heard they don’t have a WebView Implementation so the firefox browser has to be used beside the Chromium WebView meaning there’s an attack surface of two browser engines. I also heard that the Firefox sandboxing and site isolation isn’t very good between websites.
I’ve been using Vanadium WebView and browser because of that.
I don’t know what this means
Android System Webview allows apps to display browser windows in the app rather than taking you to your web browser app. On Android, chromium is used for webview. If you use Firefox as a default browser, the remote attack surface increases because they’re two different browsers with different security issues.
Site isolation enforces security boundaries around each site using the sandbox by placing each site into an isolated sandbox. Firefox doesn’t have that feature so they’re vulnerable to attacks like Spectre.
Now, if only iOS would allow true Safari alternatives. 🥲
They’ll soon be forced to allow sideloading, in the EU at least. Should open the doors for proper alternative browsers.
They’d still be restricted to the Webkit rendering engine though, right?
If you can sideload an app there’s nothing Apple can do to stop you from shipping a new rendering engine.
They can still prevent the JIT from working because the resulting native code would not be signed. That would result in worse JavaScript performance in such browsers, but considering today’s hardware and software optimizations, it may not matter that much in practice.
Yes, but the point of the law is that apps that you install that are not from the official store actually have to work. It even has clauses so that installing stuff from different sources than Apple can’t intentionally be a worse experience than the official app IIRC. That might be just for messaging though.
I don’t think they allow JIT in their App Store apps either.
If you can sideload anything you want, why would that be the case? I don’t think there’s a technical limitation, they just don’t allow it on the app store if it doesn’t use safari.
Oh that’s true, I always thought iOS just didn’t have that capability at all but that makes sense that it would just be blocked at the App Store level.
I loathe the very fact they made people call it “sideloading”. It’s just installing on your own terms, like it used to be the norm.
Well, it’s a carry over from its early days in how it used to work. You needed to install things via USB debugger. Generally that’s all sideloading ever meant, transferring information from one device to another using a generally “local” method (SD card, USB, etc). Now sideloading, on Android at least (as it retains its original meaning elsewhere), just means not from the official repository.
I just activated Windows 10 on a laptop I bought from ebay, and I was reminded that Microsoft too wants people to view its official store as the default way to obtain software.
One of my goals for this weekend is to set up a dual boot for Linux Mint, which I’ve never done before. I’m fully aware of its limitations, but I’m getting so tired of all this crap.
I hope you have fun! You can ask anytime for help, it’s a great learning opportunity
I have an old laptop that I’m planning to use to test different versions of Linux so I can get a feel for it. I will let you know if I have questions. I appreciate the kind offer!
Yeah, I’m not sure what Microsoft is attempting with S mode. Its just such a half baked concept to me. I’d rather a simplified group policy interface or something if they wanted simplified restrictions.
But yeah, dual booting is a great way to transition. You can also do Windows in a VM, but not sure how licensing works or if you can use an OEM license in there.
It just seems much better for me to set up a dual boot. I know it’s more work, but it’s not like it’s irreversible, and I think it would give me a better experience overall.
There are a few Linux distros I can recommend as someone who started doing this as a little tinker project when I was younger.
Pop_OS! Is a really great basic setup to help usher you into Linux. I installed the KDE desktop environment onto my install because I really like and enjoy the KDE experience. You have plenty of other Ubuntu “flavors” to choose from. I’d recommend giving them all a whirl or look and decide which one you think is the best fit for you.
ElementaryOS is great if you want a semi-MacOS experience but I feel it is perfect for someone who doesn’t want to tinker around too much or for family members to use on their 10 year old laptops/desktops.
I also recommend not fully setting your Linux side up (email, saving documents, etc.) until you get done with your testing different distros out. You’ll be thankful you didn’t go through the full setup process if you decide to try a new distro out. Have fun, and remember it’s all a learning experience. Don’t be afraid to ask for question or look anything up. If you finally find a distro you want to make permanent and remember me, I’d love to hear what you settled on. Have a wonderful rest of your day. And enjoy your newfound freedom! 😌
I wonder what the alternatives to App Store will be called. F-Store? iDroid?
Very sad that Firefox does not provide an .ipa file of firefox without webkit. Jailbroken, trollstore and altstore users could benefit of extensions before apple allows sideloading.
This is great.
God I miss the old Firefox for Android :(
Are you suggesting this is bad? What was better about “old” Firefox for Android?
No, this is similar to the old Firefox for Android, which is why I like it.
When you could just browse AMO and add an add-on at will. It was also much smoother.
It was also much smoother
now that’s just rose-tinted glasses speaking. I remember how absolutely abysmal old Firefox’ scrolling was, and how they’ve claimed multiple times that they’ve improved it but it was still horribly sluggish compared to Chromium browsers. I’ve been using Firefox Preview (and then Nightly after enough performance improvements have landed on it) for about a year just to have acceptable experience on mobile.
Honestly the one thing I don’t like is how pages constantly refresh when you alt tab (or w/e the equivalent is on Android - swipe tab I guess?). I know it’s a small thing but it just gets at me. I also like the old UI as it was more Firefox-y; the new one is too white and plain.
I do miss the tab bar, it would be great to have it on the tablet. I can’t comment on how differently the browser behaves now regarding storing loaded pages in memory though, because most of the time I’d have an underpowered phone that would kick out everything out of memory when switching apps anyway.
I agree with you. This is going to be a huge improvement and hopefully get more people to switch from Chrome.
Hopefully it’s a sign of more good things to come.
just use collections and firefox beta
It had a tab bar.
It had addons without collections.
Huh, I’m still using it.
Yesssss
For every one who want to test it out you can use iceraven browser a Firefox fork that supports way more extensions than stock Firefox mobile https://github.com/fork-maintainers/iceraven-browser
You can also use the Nightly app and load addon collections. It’s an absolute pain in the arse, and a lot of extensions don’t work, but it’s one way to get them.
I didn’t know that this feature is already dort of waring in the nightly build but it makes sence that they will test it out in nightly
Honestly, it’s as if they don’t really want you using it. It’s a legitimate feature but hidden away and quite difficult to use. Here’s a guide on getting it set up. I’ve been using it since it came out and haven’t had too many issues, but a lot of addons just don’t work as intended.
About damn time, they should never have disabled it in the first place.
Let’s just appreciate the fact that basically no other browser has this.
With chrome/ium you can’t even block ads.
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 already supported ublock origin on mobile and a handful of other extensions. This is just them opening it up to more extensions.
Sorry but even with all that said, you’ll never lure me to the evil side. I’m sticking with Firefox until it dies an atrocious death
We’re talking about actual web browsers here, not spyware that uses your device to run a botnet
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.
Take your meds
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.
I use kiwi browser for the extension support.
It’s enabled in the beta version, although limited to a small number of extensions.
Can we have tabs when using a tablet please?
Let’s tab tablets
You don’t have tabs using a tablet?
I think he means tabs along the top like on a PC browser.
Correct.
And why not phones too if the user prefers it that way. Can we have our user preferences back please?
No no, that would make way too much sense.
Written on a Fold 4 that’s currently not using Firefox ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)
Nice. What I need now is the ability to group tabs together
Have you tried sidebery? When I found tree layout for tabs to be a thing I haven’t looked back.
Thank you! I am going to install it right now on my desktop PC. I was referring to the android version btw 😂
Ahh, of course, that should’ve been obvious 😅
great, now waiting for them to finally fix the supremely janky tab behavior.
no need for beta anymore or are there still some restrictions in place?
I use FF on android for a couple months now. Solid browser and sync to desktol and add blocker are nice.
BUT: their page reloading is far too aggressive. You can’t buy anything online, since once 2FA is required and you need to open your bank app, confirm, and switch back, the page reloads and the 2FA didn’t get through. Tickets and such are the only reason I have still chrome installed.
This is Android aggressively killing apps, not Firefox.
Possibly, but previously I’ve been able to load a site, open a media-rich page in a new tab, then close that tab to go back to the original page.
On a newer build of FF for Android, that first page is re-loaded from the internet.
I feel this pain. But you try to stop a video that started playing in Firefox. I dare you.
Its in notification with background play lol
Yes but a video should stop if you swipe away the apps card from multitasking view. This action is tantamount to closing the app.
The video pauses atm of swiping away from the recent deck something magical is happening with your phone i use lineageos btw
Mine stop maybe because i have background battery restriction/autostart prevention. Not sure tho
Strange. I’ll look into those settings. Thanks
I checked this with youtube now and it pauses the video as soon as its in the background and I can play from notifications. Try updating too btw
Huh, good to know.
I’ve found edge to be quite aggressive on the reloads as well (at least, on desktop).
Makes it difficult for developing anything that has to deal with tabs going to “sleep” (like websocket reconnects, rehydrations, reauths).I’m a hair away from ditching chrome
Hmm, I’m not experiencing that. Could Android (well, the flavour used by your phone) be killing background apps too aggressively or something like that?
Edit: could also be a RAM thing. I have 12GB.
Wow, I’m pretty sure my laptop has less RAM than that. ~Cherri
You can get 32GB of laptop RAM for like $60 to $80 if you find sales, and even one 16GB stick would be an upgrade for you. Modern bloat is so bad that having 8 gigs of RAM is the equivalent of having 4 a few years ago.
My laptop only supports expanding the RAM up to 12 GB IIRC. ~Red
I’m not experiencing that issue either and I have half the amount of RAM that you do. I’ve noticed an unnecessary autorefresh only after closing out of the browser for a long time, never in the middle of switching between apps. But, that does sound like annoying behavior.
Yeah, I open my 2FA app in split screen when I do this
This annoyed me too. I use Firefox Nightly with
accessibility.blockautorefreshset inabout:config, and it helps.had that issue since updating my phone to android 13, mozilla really needs to fix it
I also feel RAM too aggressive since A13, but it could be my custom ROM as well.
why it was restricted in the first place?
Maybe they couldn’t guarantee that the mobile version could run well with all of them? That’s what I’ve always assumed.
deleted by creator
Which I think is kinda weird decision since they could’ve just hidden a setting that unlocks all addons in the options. But maybe they were so incompatible at the time that it wasn’t worth the headache.
There is a hidden way to activate more extensions and most - if not the vast majority - extensions work fine.
If you use Beta or Nightly, you can turn on dev tools and use a custom addon list from a collection in your user account. https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extension-support-in-firefox-for-android-nightly/
There is a hidden setting for essentially that. It might be exclusive to Nightly though, idk since all I need is UBO
Because there were enough incompatibilities to make it a hassle. But when they were sorting out the Web Manifest v3, they designed it with desktop and mobile in mind, so new extensions won’t have problems.
It makes less sense since extensions actually ran on Android, e.g. via Nightly and creating your own list of exceptions. Also if you downgrade and install in an old Fennec version, extension will continue to function if you then update to the latest.
I think the move was an attempt to create a walled garden. But for whatever reason, they have now decided against it. Thank goodness.
It would be nice to have stuff here to break this down
