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Comment by jhasse | Hacker News Reader

> On Android, the extension support alone makes it so much better than the competition.

Firefox doesn't open links handled by apps directly with the app, like almost every other Android browser does. This makes it unusable for me.

Here's the bug report (7 years old) btw: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=806385

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I consider that a feature. If I go to youtube.com with firefox, it means that I intentionally want to avoid opening the app, so I don't want every video I click on in firefox to open with the youtube app.

However, I think there was an option to have it enabled if you wish to.

> However, I think there was an option to have it enabled if you wish to.

No, otherwise that bug would have been marked as fixed.

+1. YouTube example is spot-on, as this is no.1 case where I actively avoid the app in favor of the browser. YoutTube's app and mobile website have some ridiculously stupid extra filtering that silently removes many videos - videos that are suddenly accessible if you check the "Request desktop version" box in the browsers. It's almost an universal occurrence that the video I'm searching for is one that gets silently filtered out in the app.

Nb. with extensions you can also get background play and even ad blocking on YouTube.

> background play

Oooh, I so very much want that. Thanks, I'll check it out!

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-backgro...

Eh, that's interesting, I quite prefer that behavior over Chrome's, as it gives me more control with (what I feel is) minimal extra effort.

it slows down your workflow with minimum effort too. transforming/accessing data quickly is a big part of doing anything on mobile and i don't need a browser that stops the flow in between

I personally don't mind that. Also, it gives you a button to open the page in the app, so it's not like it makes it unusable.

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