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One more reason to stick with Firefox
Other browsers already do, firefox users just cant stop licking mozillas balls
Firefox has always had been the most attractive to many people.
On mobile? Very few do
The point is they already do unlike what the article claims
It’s desktop extensions. Most mobile browsers only support a subset of all available extensions (including Firefox!). Now, Firefox will support its whole library of extensions.
They only mention “open extension ecosystem” idk if that means everything and also I haven’t found an extension not working on mine yet I have even installed a flash player extension for flash games on my browser so no opinion on those statements
They only mention “open extension ecosystem”
- The title: “Prepare your Firefox desktop extension for the upcoming Android release”
- End of the first paragraph: “Here’s everything developers need to know to get their Firefox desktop extensions ready for Android usage and discoverability on AMO…”
- End of the second paragraph: “so why not start optimizing your desktop extension for mobile-use right away?”
also I haven’t found an extension not working on mine yet I have even installed a flash player extension for flash games on my browser so no opinion on those statements
And those were installed from the mozilla addon library? With full support for a mobile interface? And you tried every extension available?
I have even installed a flash player extension for flash games
Flash used to be a mobile extension…
What u highlight desktop for, the article is about android and the 10 extensions it has so far, your own highlight says “about upcoming android release” desktop is only mentioned for devs to optimize their shit for mobile use.
And no my extensions were not from mozilla thats my whole point I can get extensions elsewhere this whole time, which is why I mock mobile mozilla users in the comments thinking mozilla did something revolutionary.
I think you’re a little confused about what’s being said here.
I think youre the one confused other mobile browsers already support extensions, too bad 100 people downvoting lack the skill to google
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hahaha that was embarrassing
Why do you choose to be wrong?
O.O doubling down getting second hand cringe here
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You do realize other mobile browsers also come with an ad blocker…right? Look up Vivaldi for example.
Idk what u mean but whatever ad scenario u have going on in your brain, i said extensions supported, which means adblocks included
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Cool! So many useful extensions that I couldn’t use on android.
Mobile FF is already awesome with UBlock Origin and YT background playback extensions. I wish to install an auto redirect extension. (Twitter to Nitter) I know it is doable on beta w/ extensions etc. but I want to see them on normal Firefox.
Have a look at YouTube ReVanced if you want a much better YouTube experience on Android. :)
use Newpipe, it’s free software, unlike revanced.
Or LibreTube
I used to have an app to do the redirection on several sites automically but afair the Nitter thing was just so unstable that I removed the app.
Same, like 30% of the time it worked, the other 70% it would be very slow or not load at all
It might have been some time ago, because even the main instance has been consistently working for me as of recent
Yeah this winter and spring
You can install tamper monkey and use a userscript to redirect. That’s what I do.
That’s nice, maybe they can finally re-enable about:config in the damn thing too. They removed it from mobile Firefox years ago and the lack of it aggravates the hell out of me.
It’s available in nightly (and I think dev) builds
If you don’t want to use the potentially unstable Nightly, Dev or Beta, you can use Fennec (stable builds with dev features).
probably in normal Firefox too, it’s just hidden in all of them
Fennec still supports it, just as it supports add-ons from the official Mozilla store. Don’t see any reason why I should go back to the official app.
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Yup. Unless they break anything, which I can’t really imagine at this point.
Is there an easy way to migrate from the official app to Fennec? Keeping accounts, extensions and settings?
If you have enabled the sync feature in Firefox, it seamlessly works with Fennec; as does the integration between Fennec and Firefox Desktop. Simply log on with your Firefox account in Fennec, and you won’t even feel the difference.
How do I make use of this? I can’t see a way to install them on my Fennec from F Droid
You have to add a custom addons collection. That’s how.
I haven’t gotten around making them and using them, and it seems every guide online is vastly out of date
Doesn’t it already support them ?
edit: yes it already supports them, but it seems that now there will be more focus on mobile
edit2: also they forgot about kiwi, but then it’s not a major browser (and is it still maintained ?). still would’ve been cool if they corrected this
Yeah, kiwi is still supported and got an UI update a month ago. But it’s chromium based if remember correctly.
it also whitelists ad blockers from working on some, presumably “partnered”, websites.
What? You just install the uBlock Origin extension. Are you saying it overrides domain and element blocks from uBlock?
It’s open source so if you could point to the code that does it, that would be great: https://github.com/kiwibrowser/src
Firefox does?
Kiwi does, not firefox
oh I didn’t know, pretty cool
at least both chromium and Firefox get a version with add ons
Nightly versions and Fennec.
Mull too
This article was weird for me also I have all my extension already installed like bitwarden for passwords and all kind of adblockers and scriptblockers
Everyone forgets Kiwi Browser :(
Have been using it for years.
Kiwi is a mobile only browser if I’m not mistaken. This article is about DESKTOP extensions working on mobile. Firefox already supported a limited set of (mobile) extensions for a while.
Edit. Sorry. I stand corrected. Might try kiwi even.
Well yes, Kiwi supports Chromium extensions, it’s the same concept
No, no, no! It was supporting all the desktop extensions. For years. Until the damn buggy rewrite for no good reason. And then we were suddenly left with like 5 of them.
For a year after that I was still running the last stable release. But unfortunately the web evolves too fast.
“no good reason”
spoken like someone who has never tried to use that browser. it definitely supported addons, but tried to implement 2015 features to run on 2002-tier hardware
It still does, experimentally, if you enable developer settings, rather unintuitively through a Firefox Add-Ons account. Developer settings are not available in the official release but the Nightly builds as well as some forks, like 🦊Fennec, include them. Of course the addon settings often look out of place on a small screen and things like uBlock’s Block Element picker do not work as intended.
fennec is just the code name for the rewrite, hence the fdroid built-from-source name
theres a limited number of available addons in fennec unless you go through hoops (used to be you could make a ‘collection’ dunno if thats still the dumbass-workaround-of-choice for the dumbass devs)
Well, the bizarre collection workaround is present in Beta and Nightly releases as well, and is intentionally well hidden. It also allows installing/uninstalling extensions quickly when testing on multiple devices, or sharing extension collections with testers. It is indeed needlessly convoluted for users but I would not describe the workaround as dumbass if it works well for the intended audience. You are correct, plenty of Firefox’s advantages can only be achieved by modifying the settings from defaults, often through developers’ hacky about:config keys. Mozilla thinks that mass adoption and their financial security is only possible if they make a noob-friendly browser with a few big buttons and Google search so tech-savvy people need to jump through hoops (profile importing etc.) to quickly set up the browser to their liking.
Its dumbass because if the addons work on mobile, let people use them. Instead they said “you can use these 5 addons, and you can use any addon you please if you jump through our hoops, like setting compact mode to enabled in about:config because we want to gather usage data that shows nobody misses compact mode”.
I’m *genuinely *shocked the folks at mozilla are even bothering to finish addon support.
Like don’t get me wrong, i love firefox and I support them in general, but holy shit is firefox gunning for its current userbase in an attempt to synthesize users that may or may not exist. And I think the way they manage these contentious choices is poor at best. Where the scale is from how-signal-removed-sms to the-windows-11-taskbar, they get 138.2.
At least with firefox beta, you can create your own collection of extensions and use those. That’s what I do and I can install any extension.
More here: https://www.androidpolice.com/install-add-on-extension-mozilla-firefox-android/
I have it on Firefox Nightly with the dev stuff. It’s pretty great tbh
Not all extensions appear to be compatible at the moment. I know if I add a couple of my favorite desktop extensions to my collection that it breaks.
Hmm… interesting. I’m able to use ublock and two extensions for fanfiction. That’s interesting that it just breaks for you.
Maybe you’re lucky with your extensions of choice.
I’m not saying all extensions I tried adding broke the collection - only a couple did; the other extensions worked as expected.
Yeah I suppose so. I have a BUNCH of extension on my desktop Firefox, but I don’t need much on my mobile version tbh. Especially since I have a few extensions that work for websites that already have apps (like I have sponsorblock and pockettube for YouTube but there’s no point in installing them on my mobile FF since I have the YouTube app so…).
I actively don’t use the YouTube app.
No adblocker, sponsorblock, or return the dislike button.
I also don’t use the app for a website if the mobile website is good enough. Less software on my phone, so a reduced amount of storage used on apps, fewer updates, hopefully reduced CPU and battery consumption, fewer security issues, reduced data collection, and my phone is just a little cleaner to use. Everyone has their own preference, this is just mine :)
But didn’t it used to support desktop extensions on mobile before the redesign about 3 years ago? Also, hasn’t Kiwi had extensions for like 6 years?
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That was definitely the most infuriating thing they’d done with the mobile browser. The whole project started decades ago with a simple plan: make the most bare-bones browser, and let people customize it with any extensions they wanted. Then all of a sudden, it turned into having <10 approved extensions, and fuck your customization.
It’s gotten much better over time since then, but damn if there weren’t a few really bad years.
I think they went evil because letting google pay 80% of your bills isn’t really tenable… but some incredibly boneheaded decisions. Instead of offering their own suite of privacy focused products they tried to cram pocket down everyone’s throats.
I love Firefox but they have made some crushingly bad calls over the years.
It does make me suspect that when Google first funded them, the real handshake had little to do with using them as their default search engine, and instead had to do with cutting back on their focus on privacy to pursue literally anything else. But that’s just a conspiracy theory of mine.
Google funds Firefox so that it serves as a controlled opposition and to avoid antitrust action. However, most of the stupid decisions by Mozilla are self-inflicted by top management who are more focused on being an NGO than a tech company.
I like these types of conspiracy theories
you still can get them, they are just hidden
Didn’t their pre-version 79 app already support extensions?
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I don’t know about pre-79, but their current version supports a very, very limited selection of extensions, many of which are to specifically improve the mobile version of Firefox. Currently, only a total of 22 extensions are supported, many of which share the same purposes.
I mean, ad blocking is like 95% of the reason why I want extensions.
And the other 5% is blocking all those stupid consent popups.
They actually have at least four adblockers available in mobile Firefox on Android: uBlock Origin, AdGuard AdBlocker, Ghostery, and AdNauseum.
yeah I’m actually disappointed when they stop doing that
Is still does, experimentally, if you enable developer settings, rather unintuitively through a Firefox Add-Ons account. Developer settings are not available in the official release but the Nightly builds as well as some forks, like 🦊Fennec, include them.
Yes. It did.
They already support uBlock origin and that’s all I need.
On android I find its also a good idea to have a system wide ad blocker solution because android and all their apps are so inundated by ads, so I recommend dns66 (which can be found on fdroid) which has multiple blocklists you can subscribe to. This will cover some ads thats are built directly into apps and almost all ads that would appear in websites on a browser. This helps a lot since some apps will open a browser window for -reasons- and they sometimes have their own internal browser or they will just use chrome by default, not respecting your default browser choice, and in those cases you cant have ublock installed to protect you and those pages are so ad-overloaded that finding what you are looking for is next to impossible.
Yeah I wish I could edit my hosts file for example so it blocks all advertisement websites.
Try Blokada
I’m using dns.adguard.com as private dns provider in Android s network settings. Am i doing it wrong? I never see ads in any apps or browsers though… they are blocked everywhere
Seems like many people aren’t aware that’s an option
I’ve got a Pihole set up running on my NAS but unfortunately it’s really difficult to find ad tracking lists that both 1) block ads effectively and 2) don’t break a large portion of webpages
Dark Reader too
Whoa 🤯. Never realized this somehow. That’s awesome. No ads on mobile.
On iOS or just Android?
Oh on Android for me.
Lol what? I remember using Kiwi browser like 7 years ago and it had extension support…
I use kiwi browser now. It’s still there and getting updates.
So did Dolphin…
So did Firefox, oddly enough
Wow I haven’t seen this name for a long time
They’re finally starting to recover from that crappy firefox 79 update 😮💨
It supported desktop extensions before, then they got rid of that and now they’re going to do it again?
Just when Google thought it could kill adblocking…
Well as far as adblocking goes, mobile FireFox already supports uBlock Origin.
Kiwi broswer already does it, same with the Orion browser for iOS
That’s why the article itself adds the “major browser” qualification.
