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Comment by _ea1k | Hacker News Reader

On Android, clicking a link in the browser generally takes you to the default application for that type of url. If there is no default set, then it will give you the choice of what to use to go there (possibly including the browser in the case of a link like this).

Firefox doesn't support that, and would instead take you to the play website, that really doesn't perform well on a lot of mobile devices. I'm guessing this factored into their decision to discourage its use.

I don't necessarily agree with this decision, but I think it is an exaggeration to imply that there is some evil intent here. It's not keeping you from doing anything that you could do before, and if you are really eager to get to the site just tap "Request Desktop Site" and it will still load.

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This isn't true. As I mention in a comment below, Firefox gives you two nicer ways to switch from the web to an app:

1. The droid in the URL bar once the page has loaded.

2. The "Open in an app" alternative in a link's long-press menu, which often tells you which app when the destination is clear.

The point here is that it's not a lack of feature but a lack of user experience. Android Intent Filters [0] should work like that: the user starts an action and the system executes the default behavior (or prompt a choice list). Think about the average user, both ways you described seem poorly user friendly.

Sure Google solution is crap, right now following a link to a Play Store app generates this [1], you really need to be a Firefox Power User in order to tap the droid in the URL bar (on this point Firefox should prompt a tip, at least the first time).

[0] http://developer.android.com/guide/components/intents-filter...

[1] http://i.imgur.com/X43Izy3.png

Google made the intent system annoying in Lollypop. Previously you could just touch (well, double touch) the icon of the app you wanted and it would open using that without setting any preference. Now if that app happens to be the top-most one you have to squint at the small light-green-on-white buttons as if a touchscreen were some sort of precision input device.

Honestly, the intent system really sucks for the use case that you mostly want to set a default app but occasionally want to do something different. Basically your choice is "be annoyed all the time" or "never have an option again until you install a new app or go in and delete all the default app's intent preferences".

Long-press/right-click for rarely used obscure options is pretty standard.

I definitely would not hold up Google's intent design UI in Android as some sort UI panacea.

> I definitely would not hold up Google's intent design UI in Android as some sort UI panacea.

Yeah, I completely agree with this. Both Google and the hardware vendors have tried many different ways to both select and change the default. They are all terrible, just in different ways.

I had a Samsung phone (T-989) that would open a popup after you selected a default app informing you of how to change the default later. It would do this every single time, so picking a default always took at least three taps. It was by far the worst implementation that I have seen.

The AOSP behavior in Kit Kat is still the best so far, IMO, but it still isn't friendly at all to non-technical users.

It's a hard problem. If it wasn't someone would have solved it already.

As a technical user of Firefox who didn't know about either of these, I think I can say that they are not intuitive. I don't consider them to be "nicer ways" than the default behavior.

that really doesn't perform well on a lot of mobile devices

Maybe not on their default browsers, but you're trying to show the site in Firefox, which worked fine, until they intentionally blocked it. In fact, that's one excellent reason to use Firefox for Android in the first place.

I switched user agents on Firefox on my mobile to see. It was not a good experience (it was actually quite slow, and I have a relatively fast device).

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