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Comment by diegoloop | Hacker News Reader

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diegoloop·

I'm missing a good reason to drop safari and start using Firefox.

- private browsing - tabs management - search suggestions

Apparently all what this version can offers is already available in Safari.

I wish they could sell me Firefox better

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I use Safari on iPad, but on iPhone it is unusable for many websites, since it doesn't support text reflow (my opinion). So on iPhone I use Mercury, but sometimes it is a bit slow. So on iPhone there is still a room for a better browser, imho.

Agree, a better iOS browser is indeed needed. I tried Mercury, which does what I want (esp. ad blocking), but does it too slowly.

After 2+ years, I'm still using Atomic Browser on iPhone + iPad, even though it hasn't been updated in years and now triggers some websites' warning, "You appear to be using an old unsupported version of Firefox".

You should absolutely try iCab Mobile. See my post here¹.

iCab has been around for a really long time on desktops. Seriously, it existed before even Mac OS X², so it’s no surprise that the dev would carry all that experience over to the iOS version.

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¹ — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10554192

² — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICab

The only reason is sync. If you use Firefox on your desktop, this app gives you all your bookmarks and passwords and such on your phone.

If you don't use Firefox on your desktop, it's just a new skin for Safari.

I have been testing Firefox for iOS for a couple weeks. I prefer Firefox's tab management over Safari's: a simple 2D view that shows more tabs (instead of a fancy 3D stack) and easy swipe to close tabs (instead of tapping—and often missing—a tiny X button in the corner of the tab).

Release early, release often.

Apple forbids them from supporting anything that Safari can’t do either by forcing them to just use a reskinned Safari.

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