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Comment by shubidubi | Hacker News Reader

I'm using Firefox for a while now (both on desktop and mobile) and I love it. The only missing part for me on Android is that Firefox doesn't open native apps (YouTube, maps, Instagram etc..) when you open a link. The integration with built in apps like chrome has is not there.

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That functionality is actually there. For any website that you visit where your phone also has an app to open those links in, a little Android head will appear in the address bar you and you can touch that to open with the app. Not intuitive really but it always works well once you get used to it.

I wish it was possible to configure Firefox for Android to automatically launch the native app instead of showing an Android head. It's one additional step that annoys me and slows me down, as it will needlessly load the page in Firefox instead of loading the content in the app.

Ad blocking on your first example, YouTube, is actually one of my favorite things about Firefox Mobile.

Fuck watching half a minute of ads on YouTube before the thing I actually wanted.

Furthermore, if you're watching from within Firefox you can lock the screen without the video stopping.

Both of these features are available in YouTube on chrome if you pay for YouTube. I know paying for web services isn't something people like, but there it is.

How did I not know that? Thanks for the tip

Have you tried out NewPipe?

Newpipe is broken isn't it? Everybody should just install kiwi, it's chromium for Android WITH extensions (YouTube background audio, uBlock, etc)

um, newpipe does work for me.

Try long-clicking on a link to YouTube. If you have an appropriate app installed (either official YouTube or sth like Newpipe) the last item in the menu popping up should be sth like "open with $APP"

The same is true for some other applications

I highly recommend Firefox preview. It's really fast, no ads and trackers blocked without extensions. They also put the address bar at the bottom which is so much better.

Alternatively, you can always enable full screen mode, on mac it's a little bit complicated but a greasy script is quite easy to make.

You can jump back by CTRL-L for address bar

It's really annoying. If you have a matching app installed there's an Android icon in the URL bar to open it in that app instead, but it's an extra step.

I'm glad it behaves like that because for me it's really annoying when the browser throws me out to another app (especially youtube, which is so much better with adblock in the browser).

Maps is the main app that I wish would open automatically. Each time someone shares a location with me or if I need to drive somewhere it's very lengthy to open the native app. Sometimes the address doesn't stick and I need to type it again.

I wish it was configurable per app. For example, having YouTube links stays in Firefox, but have links to the Play Store apps open within the app.

That could be a feature.

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