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Comment by jonny383 | Hacker News Reader

If Firefox pushes this before implementing support for extensions (namely uBlock or other ad-blocking / privacy extensions) then Firefox is well and truly toast on Android.

Correct me if I am wrong but the only reason non-tech people use Firefox on Android is to block ads.

Perhaps this is a push from Mozilla to try and get some search revenue flowing again?

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For me personally, uBlock (and other extensions) is the only reason I am using Firefox on Android. If this feature is removed, I will either go back to Samsung Browser or check something else.

Web-extentions are comming, i hope that it will be fully functionnal before it replaces the current firefox https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/pull/7280

"Hope" in this case shouldn't be enough unless they also decide to bake ublock origin right in.

I'm a bit torn on the latter idea, actually: as much as I would love it if Mozilla would give such a well-deserved middle finger to the advertising world for their bad behavior, I also think it would create a kind of relationship between gorhill and Mozilla that would result in an unhealthy power dynamic.

Yes, the same goes for me. Even though I really like these changes, this needs to be added. Will switch to Stable until then, I guess.

If you are checking something else, I recommend Brave. I've switched from Firefox to Brave and I am mostly satisfied.

What does it offer that Firefox does not ?

People here seem to "hope" that extension support will be implemented.

If my stable Firefox for Android gets updated into a browser without uBlock Origin I will immediately switch to some chromish alternative with adblocking. There's no reason for firefox for android once extension support is gone, featurewise.

I use Firefox for Android for one reason: the ability to not load images on cell data. I'm surprised other browsers don't have that, but it's huge for me since I pay by the megabyte (Google Fi). It saves me $10/month easily.

edit: oh, it looks like that's missing, too. Nooooo....

Plus ublock origin can save a lot of data.

I am on a slow university network and I keep JavaScript off by default using UBO. It takes 3 clicks to enable it for sites that really need it, but web is much faster with it.

Try the duckduckgo android browser, most ads fail in it without extensions required.

My favorite feature is the "fire" icon that closes all tabs, deletes all cookies and history and basically reinitializes the browser.

HN mods should investigate the systematic downvoting of pro-Brave comments. It happens on every discussion of browsers.

I "systematically" downvote comments that exist solely to advertise an alternative to the software being discussed. I would do the exact same thing to "hey, use firefox" comments on a Brave-related article.

They keep getting voted down because comments like "just use brave" don't actually add anything relevant to the discussion about the subject article.

I have 2 reasons uBlock and the fact that I can use my own sync server.

How do you do that? I have been wanting to run my own sync for a long time but haven't been able to figure it out.

https://mozilla-services.readthedocs.io/en/latest/howtos/run...

was the guide I used

Okay. Thank you. Do you run your own accounts server or just use Mozilla's?

I use still Mozillas but have planned to replace it some day.

Samsung browser is a piece of garbage that is constantly phoning home, like all other pre-installed Samsung apps.

Look into Kiwi Browser. It's a chromium based android browser that supports extensions https://kiwibrowser.com/

I've been using it alongside FF for Extensions, but it's nicer (+faster) than FF and has features like pull down to refresh a page, native web-app support etc.

WebExtension support in theory is coming in Q1 - https://github.com/orgs/mozilla-mobile/projects/44

Regardless, Firefox Preview already blocks ads and trackers perfectly fine the built-in tracking protection. I've not seen an ad in the months I've been using it.

Reddit, Facebook, Amazon, Youtube and Googles search ads aren't affected by the built-in tracking protection at all.

That alone are half the pages most non-tech people (like my parents) usually browse.

I remember seeing a list of domains which Firefox tracking protection explicitly whitelists (presumably to avoid breaking these sites’ functionality). Google and Facebook were in there. That told me all I needed to know about this supposed tracking “protection”.

Really? Are you sure you don't have some other hosts/vpn based ad blocker? I surely don't use Firefox Preview for much, but I definitely saw an ad on Preview when I was using it yesterday. I forgot why I wasn't using it -- aside from the fact that Firefox normal is in the quick access icons -- and since my phone had just restarted I thought I'd give it a go. But I quickly saw an ad and thought "oh right" and went back to normal Firefox.

> Regardless, Firefox Preview already blocks ads and trackers perfectly fine the built-in tracking protection.

I don't want a blacklist of ads and trackers. I want all third party scripts and frames blocked by default, which uBlock Origin does perfectly.

Can someone with Firefox for Android nightly confirm whether extensions are actually not available with this new release?

I agree that this would be a cataclysmic regression for Mozilla, if that is indeed what they plan on releasing.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-preview-upgrade... appears to say that, yes, that is what they plan on releasing.

I installed it: no add-ons, they are coming "late 2020" supposedly.

I think it's good to consolidate the branding but this is a half-finished preview replacing nightly, a step backwards.

I had bought into the Firefox ecosystem down to their password manager and would have paid for premium services. Remove the ability to adblock on mobile and I'm pulling out of the entire ecosystem. What a betrayal. They don't even have any skin in the ad game

They are working on WebExtension support [1] as well as built-in basic ad-blocking [2]. Anyone can follow the progress on their public issue tracker on GitHub.

1: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5315

2: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/96

As someone who was deeply disappointed when they broke all old extensions before fixing the new API (but had nowhere to go as Chrome had always had neutered extensions compared to Firefox) I hope they'll fix the extension interface first this time.

Try Basilisk, by the same people who made Pale Moon, but with less feature stripping.

"nightly for developers" it's so you can make your stuff work in upcoming versions. I think it's fair to start early. Stick to beta if you want to develop extensions before they are implemented.

I've tried Fenix a few times, and even without getting into extensions, it seemed like a regression in many ways.

How so? I loved the layout and the collections rather than book marks

I like the collections a lot, the layout not so much (moved url to top, but it only moves it for browser page, not the collections page.

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