Firefox for Mobile now supports NoScript, PrivacyBadger, HTTPS Everywhere | Hacker News Reader

Firefox for Mobile now supports NoScript, PrivacyBadger, HTTPS Everywhere

blog.mozilla.org

437 pointskibwen179 comments

So many people complain about Firefox (current) being "slow", "clunky", have "bad performance" etc. I feel like I'm the only one who is completely fine with performance of this app? I've switched to FF on android fully 3 years ago, first on a phone with SD821, now with SD855. I realize that these are flagship SoCs, but I see people with high-end phones complain about it too. As a control - I also use old and modern iPads with stock Safari. I honestly don't get what the complaints are exactly, it opens as fast as any similar app, all UI controls are responsive (there are some animations, but they are intentional), scrolling is always smooth.

No I feel the same I'm using Firefox mobile since years in middle class Android phones and have absolutely no complains about performance.

Same for Firefox on Linux btw.

Perfomance has always been good for me but there are a few bugs that made me question if I should keep using it.

On mobile, for example, I sometimes get blank pages when trying to visit a website and it will stop working until I restart the phone (internet is good because any other browser works). It is very rare to happen but it does.

I share your opinion.

BUT, I am also using uBlock Origin with Javascript blocked by default. This makes a huge difference.

Otherwise the current Firefox mobile is considerably slower for me than Chrome, especially on uncached sites. Haven't tried Preview yet.

same here, also chrome sandbox is specially useful for me, due work

Yup. I use Firefox as standard browser on my phone, and even on an antiquated Samsung tablet (galaxy tab 3, Android 4.2, dual core and 1GB of RAM) with some extensions, and it's perfectly functional and usable.

If you think Firefox for Android is fast, have you tried Firefox Preview? It's like twice or three times faster.

Sadly, Firefox Preview is not currently free software, which is a showstopper for many. In particular it cannot be obtained through F-Droid:

https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/162

There is an unofficial repo, if you simply care more about using F-Droid/de-Googling than it being free software, specifically.

https://gitlab.com/rfc2822/fdroid-firefox

Thanks. I haven't downloaded it to check, but from the GitHub issue I mentioned above that repo just contains a copy of the official Mozilla .apk, which contains com.google.android.gms and com.google.firebase. So it's not so good for "de-Googling".

I'm a lot less interested in the mechanics of using F-Droid than I am in the no-malware guarantee that F-Droid effectively provides.

Yes, I've installed it half a year ago and tested for some time (couldn't switch due to lack of adblock). It is very cool, OneUI-like interface, dark theme, a lot of small improvements. But speed? It is fast, about the same as current trunk FF, maybe there are less or shorter animations but overall it feels exactly the same, maybe it is faster by few percents but I can't see it as a user without using benchmarks. Normal FF is fast on my phone.

PS: I just checked - uBlock is available in Preview, woohoo, I can try it more now :) . Strange that it is the only addon available in my app, no NoScript, Badger and HtttpsE there (latest version).

I've been using it on SailfishOS through Android emulation and even there it's fine. This is on thoroughly mid-range phones.

I think it works fine as well, especially as adblocking (which already works for some time now for me?) removes a lot of load - I think in raw perceived speed, Chrome might still lead on adfree-sites.

More recently it also stopped crashing with a lot of tabs "bookmarked" (and does not loose them on a crash).

For me it is worse than any Chrome based browser with an ad blocker such as brave (there probably are many in the play store). Slower, clunky, janky... Maybe if you don't compare it to another browser it seems like a good experience, but it really is not.

Also good luck tapping on a small link in Firefox mobile, tap targets are bigger in Chrome than in Firefox.

Tap targets are hell. On certain forums I like to open comments by using link in the comments number below the post and they register once in 2-4 tries usually. That I need to check in other browsers, I thought it was bad everywhere.

Holy cow - I am a regular user of Firefox on Android, and I just installed Firefox Preview - it's obviously a stark improvement. The lack of noscript and darkreader kept me from trying it before, but now I'm wishing I had tried it earlier.

In a lot of role-playing games, people sometimes end up using low-level gear that can’t keep up because there are perks on that gear that they don’t want to lose. Sometimes it’s necessary to set aside perks and see if it’s better with more advanced gear without the perks is worth it, but there’s an emotional attachment to them that alters the evaluation of value.

It’s interesting to see a relative to that sentiment show up about browser addons. Thank you for sharing!

But noscript is like some sickness and poison immunity perk while your whole campaign is set in a swamp. Trading it for some bag of holding does not feel like a good thing.

Weighing the perk "grants poison immunity" versus the perks "increased armor bonus, durability, and resistances" is indeed the crux of the problem. When is the general improvement in quality of life from replacing armor so great that it outweighs temporarily losing immunity?

> it's obviously a stark improvement

I really wish people would say what they mean when they make comments like this. It's extremely vague and some of the obvious meanings are either subjective or can be easily shot down:

* It has more / better features? No, it seems to have fewer features, at least if add-on support is a good indication.

* The GUI is better? Subjective at best, I find it worse.

* Web pages load faster / JS execution is faster? This is also subjective unless objective measurements are used, but this is what people most often mean.

I've attempted to measure the objective speed of the browser myself. I've consistently found: Javascript performance is not significantly improved by the new browser. As measured by Speedometer [1], the new Firefox is less than 10% faster than the old one, and both are barely half as fast as Chrome on the same device. The performance of the GUI is also lacking: it takes so much more time to open menus and use GUI features that the difference is actually clearly visible to the eye. [2]

Basically, I think it's very easy to be deceived by placebo effects when what we're talking about is the apparent performance of a browser. The objective metrics I've been able to capture often show the new FFA to be as slow or slower than the previous version, and when it's faster, it's not by much, at least (in my opinion) not close enough to catching up to Chrome to justify a complete browser rewrite, with everything that has entailed.

[1] https://browserbench.org/Speedometer2.0/

[2] See: multiple open issues for animation jank. I found these with a quick search. https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/10065 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/7797 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/8863 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/9746

You could reliably say that the addition of NoScript(?) would drastically improve page load times, but of course, that only goes to show how slow most website JS is.

That's right, though of course NoScript etc ran on the previous FFA, so it's presumably not relevant to the comparison.

An extension that replaces every response with <html></html> will also drastically improve load times.

In human communication, speech is generally categorized into either conveyance of information or conveyance of emotion. My comment was the latter. I wasn't trying to write a dissertation on exactly how much faster or slower Firefox Preview is. I installed an app, perceived it as faster, and conveyed my emotional response, as indicated with my choice of language such as "holy cow" and "I wish I had tried it earlier."

Perception is all that matters with software anyway. Even if it isn't technically faster, it can still be better if it feels faster, which it does to me.

For sure - I'm glad you're enjoying the new Firefox. One issue, though, is that you didn't use the word "faster" in your comment, you just said it was "a stark improvement".

I guess what I'm concerned is illustrated by the following thought experiment. Suppose you took the old Firefox for Android code base, and re-released it as "Firefox Preview" with a prominent badge "now 20% faster!". Would you see glowing reports by users on forums talking about how much better it is? I think you would. The only way around that (as far as I can see) is to try to do objective measurements or screen recordings and find out if there's a real difference.

Again, not intending to put a damper on your personal experience with and enjoyment of the new browser. Just some thoughts about what's a fairly common comment on articles like this one.

Kinda funny that a bunch of accounts came through and downvoted everything I said, in this thread, whereas my comments were previously highly upvoted. I'll take the fact that no one has bothered giving any kind of counter-argument as strong confirming evidence that I'm right, but touching a nerve someone has. So thanks for that!

If I argued with everyone willing to argue with me, I would never stop typing. I explained how my comment wasn't a technical comment yet you still tried to talk technicalities with me, so I disengaged.

Btw if you take "nobody argued with me" as evidence that you're right, you're gonna end up with a warped worldview.

Its UI performance, specifically scrolling is hugely improved. Not quite on a par with Chrome/Brave still unfortunately. But it's greatly improved.

Do you have any objective evidence of this? Like, a screen recording comparing the two?

Seconded. It's great - old Firefox for Android was clunky and slow. The new one I am using as my primary browser with full sync enabled and with uBlock Origin and NoScript and apart from the occasional crash (they seem to fix it quick) it's great.

It is certainly great, but I'm confused.. I use Badger, uBlock and Sync for a long time already on my Android.

Firefox supported this with the normal Android app already. It is the new Firefox Preview that was limited in that regard.

I was using it with old Firefox for Android too, just that it was too slow and clunky compared to the new rewritten Firefox for Android, which being a complete rewrite in Kotlin, only recently started supporting extensions.

Mine has an annoying quirk. When I switch to Firefox and type something in the address bar it doesn't work. It still seems to be trying to load the page from last time I was in the browser and forgets my query entirely until it has finished whatever is on its todo list then I can use it. Hopefully this is fixed soon, it makes casual searches annoying.

Mine was lagging when typing anything into the address bar till recently it was painful. I assume they fixed it since I havent had it happen in a while. I assumed it was my phone crapping out on me.

This happens to me _all the time_ on my Android tablet :(

I had this problem as well. After I cleared out my old tabs (99+) it disappeared. Might have been correlated.

Unfortunately this has happened since I installed it, and I rarely open many tabs on my phone. It's mostly for quick lookups when I'm out or cooking which makes it a problem.

I still have issues with the back button. Sometimes I have to open the location bar before being able to press back (and then back again to go where I want), but otheriwse I am a huge fan

That bug has been around for a while. Issues:

https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/8180

https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/8282

I’m using it as my main mobile browser but the lack of amp redirector hurts quite a bit.

Kiwi Browser for Android has extension support plus built-in AMP removal.

Lack of NoScript support was the only thing holding me back. Mozilla really called my bluff here, I was super whiny about them not supporting NoScript, but here we are :) Time to eat crow and upgrade. Great work, Mozilla.

Tangential comment for those using iOS:

It sucks that this cannot be available on iOS because of Apple’s restrictions.

But I’m happy with Firefox Focus, which is my daily driver browser on iOS (and what I’m using to write this too). It has a built in content blocker. It doesn’t upgrade HTTP requests to HTTPS, like Brave does.

For ad and tracker blocking at the DNS level, I use NextDNS with some blocker lists enabled for my account (I recommend you check it out). It has made things better on other apps too.

> It sucks that this cannot be available on iOS because of Apple’s restrictions.

Apple users have exactly what they want. It doesn't "suck": it's the very definition of walled garden. Your device is not yours, you are just allowed to play in there, under adult supervision. If you do not want walled gardens, just stop paying for them.

No, not all Apple users have what they want.

There is no "just stop" for people who need or want capabilities that only Apple devices have, but don't want the walled garden. It is not a free choice, not what those people want, and therefore sucks.

The brutal fact is there are only two mobile OSes where essential apps are available (such as banking), and Android being the other one, is not suitable for all users and has its own walled garden issues.

So they are hand-picking extensions now? Is this trend going to continue (i.e. they continue to add more but still with a manual process) or they're aiming to be on par with the old Firefox (supports most of extensions automatically)?

AFAICT the intent is to eventually support the full WebExtensions API, i.e. every extension that runs on Firefox 57 or later. From an older blog post discussing this:

"We’re happy to confirm that GeckoView is currently building support for extensions through the WebExtensions API. This feature will be available in Firefox Preview, and we are looking forward to offering a great experience for both mobile users and developers. Bringing GeckoView and Firefox Preview up to par with the APIs that were supported previously in Firefox for Android won’t happen overnight. For the remainder of 2019 and leading into 2020, we are focusing on building support for a selection of content from our Recommended Extensions program that work well on mobile and cover a variety of utilities and features."

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/10/23/fx-preview-geckov...

The answers here seem to suggest otherwise.

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/02/11/faq-for-extension...

My guess would be that they'll try to make it curated-only unless users complain too much. Or maybe allow other extensions behind serious warning screens.

If that ends up being the case, depending on their review process, it kinda sucks for any potential new extensions created after the ecosystem lockdown, that won't get a chance to attain enough popularity to be relevant - unless Mozilla agrees to do a review for any project that asks, which doesn't seem likely.

Would also be bad for all extensions Mozilla does not allow in their extension store.

All software stores can be pressured to remove content. Keeping the ability to load non-store extensions fixes that specific deplatfoming problem.

The basic assumption is that users are dumb when it comes to security, and if there is a way to install malware, they will be tricked into installing malware (even with no vulnerabilities in the host software itself). Especially since there is such a thing as warning screen fatigue, which makes people not pay attention and just click through due to the sheer amount of benign(ish) warning screens they regularly deal with (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue).

Making them explicitly type out "YES I AM AWARE THIS EXTENSION COULD EASILY CONTAIN MALICIOUS CODE AND I TRUST THE SOURCE: " + the domain name, in all caps before proceeding could be enough to catch most cases (unless too much legit software gets forced behind such warnings, where it would lead to that fatigue problem again).

Desktop Chrome doesn't let you have an outside extension without showing a warning on every single startup (even if it's an extension you are currently developing), but that could be because on a desktop OS, other applications could add such extension into Chrome without a user action. On mobile, where apps are isolated from one another, that problem doesn't exist, so maybe such strict restrictions shouldn't be necessary.

I don't think any of this is necessary.

I know we often say "the user is dumb, therefore software should patronize them", but that really only goes so far.

On hindsight it looks like a balancing act where single features are evaluated for their danger, etc.

Then, at some point, there's no software left that allows users to achieve their goals, because "you wouldn't want to do that", "stupid people could accidentally use it", "your use case is too fringe to justify catering to it anymore", etc.

We're pretty much at this point now regarding browsers on Android, where there's only Chrome and it's skins (that let you do nothing) and Firefox.

I can't believe the sensible thing to do would be to cut uncurated, non-store extensions from Firefox as well.

It would be a huge loss for the whole ecosystem just to make a few Firefox installs (from an already small install base) a tiny bit less compromisable.

>I know we often say "the user is dumb, therefore software should patronize them", but that really only goes so far.

It's not just a saying, it's supported by real-world situations that actually happened, and that you can be pretty sure will happen again. That's the context for the decisions that platform owners have to make.

E.g. not too long ago, Dark Reader users received this notice https://darkreader.org/blog/attention/ about malware clones of the real extension that apparently thousands of people had installed (from the stores). It is events like this that influence these decisions.

>Then, at some point, there's no software left that allows users to achieve their goals, because "you wouldn't want to do that", "stupid people could accidentally use it", "your use case is too fringe to justify catering to it anymore", etc.

That's basically the Apple mindset. It's a well known fact (e.g. his biography) that Steve Jobs didn't even want any third party apps (other than super limited web-"apps") on iOS initially, and had to be convinced otherwise.

But I didn't argue that they shouldn't do it because we don't know whether people will compromise themselves.

I argued they shouldn't do it despite knowing that people will have the ability to compromise themselves.

Well, their goals are clearly different. From the FAQ linked above, it is clear they want to have some control over "the experience", which is mentioned a lot.

If too many users install a crappy, buggy extension that slows everything down, they know they will get a reputation for being a buggy and slow browser, regardless of whether it's their fault or not. It also creates incentives for extension authors to follow best practices where possible.

For people who really care about choices for themselves, it's an open source project, it's not that hard to make an unrestricted fork under a different name that automatically tracks the upstream (as long as Android sideloading stays intact, plus it could also be published in Play Store as long as you don't use any of their trademarks). As far as I know there is nothing unique in the official branch that you would miss out on (when compared to e.g. missing out on Netflix or voiding warranty with custom ROMs - there are no such tradeoffs with simply using a fork of a browser).

It only creates a much higher barrier to adoption for unapproved extensions (because you now have to convince users to install another browser), so many developers simply won't bother, but that's not an issue if I understand your argument correctly.

> Well, their goals are clearly different. From the FAQ linked above, it is clear they want to have some control over "the experience", which is mentioned a lot.

Even without the linked FAQ it appears to be pretty straightforward that Mozilla values control given that they're about to change an open, decentral system to a tightly controlled curated app store.

It's just that this wasn't always the case. See, for example, point 5 of their manifesto where Mozilla states: "Individuals must have the ability to shape the Internet and their own experiences on the Internet." or in point 6 where they emphasize: "decentralized participation worldwide"

> If too many users install a crappy, buggy extension ... they will get a reputation for being a buggy and slow browser ...

I have two concerns with this argument: The first is practical:

Is that a big problem? Are there numbers about large amounts of sideloaded extensions causing the reputation of firefox for android to drop? AFAIK sideloading is neither very common nor particularly rich of scandals. And even your earlier example was concerned with malicious extensions in Mozillas own extension store.

The old "Firefox for Android" enjoys a 4,4 star Play Store rating, compared to Previews also excellent 4,2 Star rating.

The second one is ethical:

Mozilla does not try to be the most successful browser at any cost. They provide valuable capacities to the Android ecosystem and drastically increase software freedom on the platform. If their goal were popularity, they would be much more successful by adopting Chrome under the hood and spending all their money on marketing.

Even your later argument features the condition "as long as Android sideloading stays intact" which itself already shows how dependent on a few central features the platforms freedom already is.

> it's not that hard to make an unrestricted fork under a different name

I don't see how trusting users to recompile an unrestricted firefox fork goes well together with not trusting users to sideload a browser extension.

> As far as I know there is nothing unique in the official branch that you would miss out on.

Right now it's soft paywall blockers that are left out. (They just change referrers and cookies for specific sites.) But potentially it's all extensions, since Mozilla the corporation can be pressured into legal compliance.

In the future this might very well interfere with peoples ability to avoid censorship.

At the time at which centralizing a system is suggested it's almost never problematic, because problems only get apparent after centralization went into effect.

>Are there numbers about large amounts of sideloaded extensions causing the reputation of firefox for android to drop?

I'm not aware of any, but that could be because alternative browsers are not that popular on mobile in general.

The reputation of Android itself has definitely suffered due to sub-par apps (battery draining, slowdowns etc.) and downright malware (sometimes promoted via Google's own ad network).

>And even your earlier example was concerned with malicious extensions in Mozillas own extension store.

It seems they disabled sideloading on their desktop browser some time ago, so that was the only way it could've happened anyway.

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/10/31/firefox-to-discon... https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/03/10/support-for-exten...

I don't know whether they currently do any review for extensions in the store (even automated one), or just manually ban bad actors.

(There is an additional reason to disable sideloading on desktop that I mentioned in a previous comment - other destkop apps installing shit without user action/approval, which cannot happen on mobile due to app isolation).

>I don't see how trusting users to recompile an unrestricted firefox fork goes well together with not trusting users to sideload a browser extension.

- Their name wouldn't be on it. To publish in Play Store, a fork would have to scrub all Firefox branding from the app (see Iceweasel), and would then assume all responsibility.

- Let's be honest, in practice, such a fork would be mostly used by highly technical users who are more likely to know what they're doing. Non-technical users would be far less likely to install it than some random 3rd party extension they come across. The Firefox name is fairly well known outside of tech circles. The name of some random fork would not be.

>In the future this might very well interfere with peoples ability to avoid censorship.

I agree that there is a risk that their official binary distribution could gain exclusive abilities in the future which are not part of the open source version (at which point Firefox would technically no longer be open source, e.g. Chrome vs. Chromium). Care should be taken that that doesn't happen.

Anyway, at the moment I'm far less concerned about extensions that they specifically want to ban/censor, and far more about 3rd party developers potentially losing the ability to innovate, if the review process is only practically available to popular established players (who got popular while the ecosystem was still open) - because then how would a new project even get to that phase? That may or may not be an issue though, we'll see how it turns out.

Update (can't edit the comment on HN anymore):

So I misunderstood (only skimmed through) those 2 links about desktop Firefox sideloading, they use a different meaning of that term than what it commonly means on Android.

They only blocked 3rd party apps from installing extensions by themselves (which is good). User-installed extensions from outside of the Mozilla store are still allowed on desktop Firefox.

The new version does seem to be a play at creating a walled garden Firefox platform on Android.

I'm curious whether the ability to add arbitrary extensions is just ifdef'd out of the play store version, or whether this feature is just fundamentally unimplemented. I don't intend to switch to a different browser from current FF on Android that does not support the extensions I use.

I read "for mobile" and was hopefully this would be for iOS as well but really it's "Firefox for Android"

And now all the Apple fans can tell me why it's so great that only WebKit is allowed on iOS. I'd like to run those extensions an on iOS browser and others but to do that I'd have to actually be able to ship a different browser engine.

I went back to Safari on iOS. I really quite like iOS - it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it is mine. I also quite like Firefox, and have used it since Firefox 3 (except for a few years when I bought into the Google project and used Chrome when it was shiny and new). I used the iOS Firefox app solidly for a little while - more than I year I think - but really, while WebKit is the only engine allowed on iOS, it’s just a skin on Safari with integration into your Firefox Account (which is a fantastic bit of work, but I don’t use it). Sorting tabs and bookmarks in iOS Safari is much nicer in my experience, so I eventually went back.

I’ll keep using Firefox on desktop for as long as it exists, but I kind of just faced the music on Firefox for iOS.

I would be fine with Firefox for iOS not having access to extensions (after all, Mozilla can't help it Apple's app store policies won't allow that), but they could at least have some mercy on iOS users and just build in adblocking.. the web is borderline unusable without it.

This is the exact reason why I use Brave on IOS, it has built-in adblocking that works really well.

I'm frustrated by the amount of versions of the Firefox browser that there are in the play store: five. It's not immediately clear which one is the closest to trunk.

Beta? Nightly? Preview? Preview Nightly? (The other one is the stable branch)

It goes Stable -> Beta -> Nightly in terms of closeness to trunk. I believe Preview == Beta and Preview Nightly == Nightly now. The Preview apps are going away since the new interface is releasing soon

Now I am even more confused

IIRC, the two "preview" ones are the new Firefox, the other three are the long-existing Firefox. So once the new Firefox replaces the old, the two "preview" apps won't be necessary anymore.

You did not mention Firefox Focus!

It'll be simpler once the switch to the rewrite (currently called "Firefox Preview") is done. Then presumably we'll just have:

"Firefox" / "Firefox beta" / "Firefox nightly for developers"

"Firefox Focus"

The private windows in Firefox Preview behaves exactly like Firefox Focus. You can open links by default in a private window in settings.

I'm not sure if this means that Focus will be deprecated in favour of Preview, or will it remain a stripped down version of Preview.

Exactly like?

I'm under the impression Firefox Focus on Android uses the native (Chrome) renderer, not the the Gecko engine.

That was accurate until Focus v6. Since then, Focus switched to GeckoView, which is somehow different than Gecko, though I don't know how.

Beta & Nightly indicate different versions of the one app

Preview on the other hand is the name of a 100% different app (new codebase): it is intended to eventually replace the legacy Firefox app

Transitions/migrations can be confusing times

It's trendy now to have multiple listings for your browser. See other examples:

Opera (5): https://play.google.com/store/search?q=opera&c=apps&hl=en_US

Chrome (4): https://play.google.com/store/search?q=chrome&c=apps&hl=en_U...

I was one of the people criticizing Mozilla for forcing Mobile Firefox users to upgrade to the newly-rewritten codebase while it still lacked support for any extension other than uBlock Origin, so I was pleased to see that they're making progress on supporting other highly-requested extensions.

The normal mobile Firefox still supports all extensions, you are not forced to run a GeckoView one yet.

They just transitioned Firefox Beta over to GeckoView, so the next version of non-beta will be GeckoView too, AFAIK.

For someone who want firefox to success, I still am not happy with the performance of firefox preview.

Currently there is kiwi browser on Android not sure if they have for ios as well, which is chromium based and support extensions.

Recently the developer also make it open source. Shout out to the devs. https://github.com/kiwibrowser/android

But did you use the older Firefox for Android cause after that you will believe this KIA is a Lamborghini.

yes I use and I totally agree that the preview version is much faster compare to the old firefox.

I honestly didn't notice any difference in performance when Firefox Android Beta was switched to the new codebase a couple of weeks ago. Not saying it's not there, just that I couldn't tell.

I have trouble getting used to the new UX.

I keep hitting the address bar to open a site from my top sites in the current tab. That used to work, now it just opens the search interface. Instead you have to hit the -- much smaller -- tab overview button to open a top site in a new tab. Which means I end up having to manually close old tabs all the time now, something I don't remember doing. (To be fair, Chrome works the same way.)

I don't know how I'm supposed to use the new Collections feature. It's extremely prominent in the UI, I assume everybody else must be finding it super useful?!

They broke the offline reading list? You used to be able to bookmark a page in Reader Mode and have it available even when there is no connection (subway, airplanes). Instead of promoting this really neat (and given that Reader Mode is still a thing, cheap) feature, I think they just got rid of it. I had like a dozen of long articles in that list I still wanted to read (I think the bookmarks are still there). Hopefully they'll restore it before it transitions from Beta to Release, but who knows.

> the offline reading list

I've wanted a feature like this for years but I had no idea it already existed! Thank you for this info. And yes, please don't break it, Mozilla.

It is (used to be) somehow very well hidden and easy to reach, both at the same time.

Kiwi is the only one I'm aware of with a real dark/night mode for the entire browser. I was sold just on that.

Opera has the same functionality for dark mode.

I got super excited until I realized this was only for Android.

An actual firefox for iOS is disallowed from by the app-store rules.

I know. That’s why I was excited. I thought they found a workaround.

Even if they find a technical workaround, Apple will just reject the app though. Not sure there is a workaround for that.

I believe jailbreak or those other "developer" methods (certificates/enterprise?) are still available.

Yeah, both of them will see mozilla kicked out of App Store

I'm given to understand that it's not even a technical issue; you can build an iOS app that uses a real browser engine of your choice, it's always just been that Apple by policy won't let you publish it. (This is all second-hand, though, so take with a grain of salt.)

Does iOS allow creating new executable pages?

Nope. (Well, maybe iOS would allow it with the correct entitlements but apple won’t let you publish an app that can.)

You can run a browser in an interpreter but anything modern would be very unpleasant to use that way.

I expect there are 2 options: Either you can make a good (fast) browser without it (unlikely or everyone would do it), or it is possible to do because Safari has to work somehow.

> apple won’t let you publish an app that can

Agreed, but we're talking about whether you can technically make such an app, say to run in dev mode on your own personal device.

Safari might be special cased though.

Dev mode is still limited and doesn't grant root access to the device. In dev mode there's still an app certificate, and Apple still signs it, and still prohibits escaping the app sandbox. There are also JIT specific entitlements to allow an app to dynamically load or generate code. Without those, it's unclear how feasible a developer-signed version of Firefox on iOS is.

https://siguza.github.io/psychicpaper/ is a recent writeup that includes more details on (escaping) the limitations.

> it is possible to do because Safari has to work somehow.

Safari is a special case. It is allowed to use JIT and writable executable pages, but this is not allowed for third party apps.

It is definitely technically possible on iOS, but a significant challenge for third party developers unless using a jailbroken device.

You're correct, no need for grains of salt. Hence why some apps that are in jailbreak "stores" can do things apps from the store can't.

Yeah, I was pretty sure but I don't actually operate in that sphere at all so I'm working completely from random stuff I remember reading:) Thanks for confirming.

My jailbroken iPhone 3GS was the best mobile experience I've had. Used that thing for 5 years.

Same here. I was hoping that since these are "recommended" addons, perhaps they had negotiated with the developers to make them freely available and just included them in the build as features the user can enable if desired.

There is a Firefox Focus though: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-browser/... I use Firefox Focus almost every day, mainly for "focused" browsing, i.e. one page at a time, no tabs; without tabs and the urge to open links you really get to focus on the current page more. It has some content blockers capable of blocking ads and trackers too, although in my regular browsing I use 1Blockers for configurability (say, disable cookies on news sites).

+1 for firefox focus, it is the browsing app I use for iOS unless I want to come back to something later then I'll open it in safari, from focus

> There is a Firefox Focus though

It's still built on WebView.

Yes. But this article is about the browser called Firefox, not the rendering engine called Gecko. It is somehow common for HN commenters to conflate these two, or think that the rendering engine is the "soul" of the browser, a view I do not agree with.

Yes, same here.

iOS devices are just not suitable for browsing the internet as we know it I'm afraid.

I will get another device for internet browsing on the go just because this is so annoying. Not even on iPad where you kind of have the real desktop browser experience you can use add-ons.

I know it’s not the same, but other iOS browsers use safari’s content blocking API to achieve a similar effect (e.g. Brave, DuckDuckGo, Onion browsers). They can use the same rule set from HTTPS Everywhere, and can block JavaScript on a per-site (more limited than no-script, but close.)

If you’d rather just use Safari instead of a branded skin, you can install your own content blockers.

The app HTTPS4All uses the same rule set as HTTPS everywhere:

https://github.com/bouk/HTTPS4All

For script blocking, AdGuard for iOS supports custom rules. Try:

  *$script

And to whitelist:

  *$script,domain=~example.com,~example2.com

Kind of a hassle. Again, Firefox could just include this in their skin of Safari.

I'm lost now, there is firefox, firefox klar, firefox preview, firefox focus... what's going on there?

that is firefox preview.

Firefox Klar is just the German name for Firefox Focus. Also, if you would just open the link - something HN readers often seem to struggle with - the first sentence of the would tell you that this is about Firefox Preview

There are currently 3 Firefox browsers on Android

1. Firefox: end-of-life browser built on legacy Firefox engine

2. Firefox Preview: work in progress, soon to replace the old Firefox, rebuilt from scratch on new engine

3. Firefox Focus: a minimal/reduced/simplified browser first developed to pilot the new engine

Klar is just the German name for Focus.

Thank you for this factual and definitive comment. It's essentially required reading for this thread.

There are more than these 3.

For example Firefox Lite: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.ro...

Thanks for this. I'd never heard of "Firefox Lite".

It appears to be an "Emerging Market Experiment" run by Mozilla Taiwan[0]

It also appears to be heavily based on or be a fork of Firefox Focus/Klar[1]

[0] https://github.com/mozilla-tw/FirefoxLite

[1] https://github.com/mozilla-tw/FirefoxLite/pull/2/files

I so wish we could have this on iOS...

My mobile web usage on iPhone is limited to HN strictly because of ads. I simply refuse to adopt patterns that cover my screen with them. When i do switch to Android, which i will, ad block will be the primary factor in my decision.

Have you tried installing Firefox focus and either using it as your mobile browser or setting it as the content blocker for Safari?

You can also try an ad blocking app like AdGuard.

Or set up something like PiHole at home (or VPS) and use a VPN to connect to your home network (or VPS).

iOS supports content blockers. Why not install AdGuard? I use default Safari on my iPhone and see zero ads.

Its incredible how microsoft got in loads of legal trouble for bundling IE with windows but Apple got away with banning alternative browsers.

There are viable alternatives to Apple devices while Windows absolutely dominated. However, I kinda wish that there were some antitrust laws around vertical integration.

Also, commercial browser vendors were much more of a thing back then, so there was someone to complain.

Windows was on 90+% of PCs from multiple manufacturers. iOS is on about 20% smartphones worldwide and all of them manufactured by Apple. I understand the percentage is higher in the USA, still not a monopoly IMHO.

Confused, I have been running NoScript in Firefox on Android for months now. What has changed?

This is referring to the rewritten Firefox for Android, codenamed “Fenix.”

Firefox preview.

Which features a more Rust-heavy rewrites included in GeckoView via their Project Quantum work on desktop.

https://www.infoq.com/news/2019/08/geckoview-firefox-preview...

https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/ep3tbx/eli5_what_h...

That stuff was also included in Fennec (the current Firefox for Android).

GeckoView is completely orthogonal to Project Quantum. (I work on the GeckoView team).

Does anyone know if this version of Firefox for Mobile can use self-hosted sync servers (even if using Firefox accounts)?

According to this GH issue[1] it is possible at least for the sync server part (not for the full account management), but I don't know if it made it into a stable release.

[1] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/3762

Will this new firfox support the full web extension API? That is, will it eventually run any web extension currently on addons.mozilla.org?

That appears to be the intent, yes. https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/10/23/fx-preview-geckov...

I got my hopes up a little too quickly.

Turns out "now" => "soon". The extensions in question, linked in the post, still display the same message of not being available for Android, and the article says the change will be within a few weeks:

"These add-ons will be available in Firefox Preview within the next 2 weeks."

Download the Firefox Preview Nightly builds (in the play store), you'll have access and the nightly builds are usually* relatively stable.

Note that this blog post was from April 14, I (the submitter) went looking for it after my copy of Firefox notified me of the change a few days ago. I am indeed using the nightly branch, but I find it to be quite stable.

Thanks, I didn't notice the date of the blog post and certainly didn't mean it as a personal affront because I appreciate the post. I'm going to switch to the nightly branch to try it out!

Firefox is my browser of choice on desktop and the new mobile version is brilliant but I badly need an extension that will reverse light background websites to be dark. This is the only thing blocking me adopting it as mobile browser of choice.

Have you tried dark reader?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/darkreader/

Is there an extension for desktop that does it? Install it on the mobile version. New (chrome) style extension just work, from what I know (there are a few APIs that don't, but those that use them are likely the extensions that don't make sense on mobile). An extension I made for work just worked without problem.

Edit: Sorry, I was referring to Firefox mobile, and this is regarding Firefox preview, which I don't have any actual experience with. I'm not sure how much applies.

Dark reader is available on the Firefox Nightly app on Android.

From this blog post:

"With Dark Reader, websites on mobile will be easy to read when the lights are dim. The extension automatically inverts bright colors on web pages to offer an eye-pleasing dark mode. There are a number of configuration options allowing you to customize your experience."

I'm just using "invert colors" from the Android toggles panel. No need for an extension (DarkReader is heavy), nothing to install and works everywhere.

I'm pretty confused as to what I'm running, then. I always had Firefox Beta installed, and a month or so ago it got updated to what I think is Preview -- different UI, URL bar on the bottom, only uBlock Origin supported. Just checked right now, and the last update was April 21, but in my Addons list, it's still showing Privacy Badger and HTTPS Everywhere in the Unsupported list.

Wait a bit for the roll-out to complete. I find it's usually a couple days between announcement and an update hitting my phone.

Ah, I see. Seems like that announcement was three weeks ago, though.

Will search shortcuts be fully operational before 1.0?

I fear they're going to force it as the release version while supporting just 1% of most used extensions, forgetting that it's a fat-tailed distribution. I use video background fix to play youtube with a minimized browser (no I don't want to use a separate app if I don't have to).

At that point I'm just going to switch to Brave.

You don't have to, but using YouTube through the NewPipe app is light years ahead in terms of experience. You can listen to videos and playlists, program which videos will play next, reorder videos that are going to play, no ads. When playing on the background only the audio track is downloaded which is easier on your battery and internet connection. The UI is smooth. The app itself is lightweight. It remembers your history and search history but this happens locally on your device. It also supports PeerTube and SoundCloud. You can watch videos in popup mode though I never do that. The fullscreen player has vlc-like controls to easily change the brightness and volume level. I could go on and on. All that with completely free software.

Experience on the mobile website is shit in comparison especially on slow devices. I use Firefox mobile with the same extension + ublock origin but, as someone who hates installing apps when websites should do, do yourself a favor and don't ditch Firefox for Brave, try NewPipe, it's worth it :-)

Same thing for the Slide app to go to Reddit by the way.

I think I have a PTSD and I get scared of Firefox announcements. I feel like it is a Russian Roulette of speed improvements or random removal of features.

This looks very positive but I don't understand it, I have the extensions installed on my mobile since ages. So I look at the text and it says that it is based on recommended extensions. Recommended on what criteria I always wondered ? Business or security friendly? Or user friendly? How come uBlock is not recommended? That means that "recommended extensions" is not only a label for user assistance but also part of Firefox strategic decision making, oh my.

Is it a ploy to finally embed them to the severely limited IPhone experience as preexisting features rather as extensions, a long con to bypass Apple restrictions through initial Android introduction?

As I said I don't see what will change for me, I have already installed them for years. And they will stay installed until they become unavailable due to one strategic decision or another.

This is for Firefox Preview (preview as in "for testing"), a rewrite of Firefox for Android. It will eventually be renamed to Firefox for Android.

Yes it is clear that it will replace Firefox for Android, and as I said my main hope is that it will do so without deprecating parts of current functionality (especially regarding extensions) as it happened with previous main updates.

Need Stylus to make ‘collapse comment’ buttons on HN adequately sized and quit sniping them.

Tried Search by Image extension and it is great!

My major complaint is the tab management and the New Tab page. To be honest it is the worst I've ever seen. I hope that Mozilla invest much more on UI/UX.

Your comment isn't worth much if you don't say what you don't like about it. It's not perfect but to me it's pretty good.

The HN title is misleading, this is specifically about Firefox Preview, not Firefox Mobile which has supported these extensions for a while now. It should be edited.

No uBlock Origin? It is much better compared to NoScript.

it already supported uBlock Origin.

uBO was previously and is currently available. These are newly added addons

Oh dear, they really shouldn't use a gif[1] to demonstrate performance. The low frame-rate makes it look like the UI is stuttering.

[1]: https://microsoft.github.io/microsoft-ui-xaml/img/performanc... (drawing a heart over a picture of a dog)

Any plans for any of these features without installing extension? Possibly by enabling menu option.

Anyone know where to get the APK without building yourself or using Google services?

https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/tasks/index/proje...

Use F-Droid. Firefox (and FF Klar) is available there.

https://search.f-droid.org/?q=firefox

(edit: confusion)

I don't see FF Preview in there. Nor would I expect to, as it is not currently Free Software:

https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/162

Sorry, my bad, I get confused between the various versions :)

Easily done! This comment should be pinned to the top or something:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23089413

Finally complete Dark mode with addon for mobile. Now I can forget Chromiums.

That's worked in the non-preview (old) version of Firefox on Android for ages. (Speaking as a happy user)

Mobile browser development should be the actual focus of Mozilla team.

I like Firefox' design philosophy where you're bragging about how many third-party extensions a new version of your app supports.

Another vendor would be bragging about how much of third-party functionality they have built in.

Does it have per-site process isolation yet?

It is much more polished compared to the regular Firefox for mobile. But it is still very slow (network, the UI is very smooth) compared to all other browsers. And I can't force myself to just a handful of extensions when other browsers support all of them. So more waiting I guess.

For iOS users wanting similar functionality: use Safari’s content blocker API.

The app HTTPS4All uses the same rule set as HTTPS everywhere:

https://github.com/bouk/HTTPS4All

For script blocking, AdGuard for iOS supports custom rules. Try:

  *$script

And to whitelist:

  *$script,domain=~example.com,~example2.com

Kind of a hassle. Mozilla could just include something like this in their iOS browser skin of Safari.

Afaik Safari's content blockers don't work in iOS's Firefox.

Has this changed?

Also browser extensions aren't allowed on iOS due to Apple's policy. AFAIK you can't build your own browser engine that does JIT, you can't do remote code execution.

Correct, Safari’s content blockers only apply to the Safari app. But Mozilla could use their own content blockers in the Firefox iOS app (which is just a skin of Safari).

And yes, Safari’s content blocking is very limited. You couldn’t inject any of no-script’s neutered scriptlets, for example.

In this sense, Android has an advantage over iOS because it isn’t so restrictive.

Hmm. Every Firefox browser I've downloaded from Mozilla and sideloaded onto my LineageOS devices has always supported uMatrix, HTTPSEverywhere and NoScript.

non-firefox preview browsers are on life support.

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