Mozilla is ready to get back in the browser ring on mobile with Firefox 120
The final push to start using Firefox over Chrome on Android might finally be thanks to the enormous selection of add-ons (Firefox’s version of extensions) coming out next month. Chrome doesn’t offer native support for extensions in its mobile app. Also, better security.
I just officially downloaded it and will likely soon jump ship from DuckDuckGo.
Really the biggest thing for me will be not blinding my eyes due to a lack of dark mode outside of search results. (Thanks to using the dark reader add-on in Firefox)
Personally I quit using ddg. Duckduckgo uses Microsoft’s Bing API I jumped atleast two years ago from ddg. They seem to be buddy buddy with Microsoft, they have a history for it. Oh and remember when ddg use to talk about filter bubbles, well now they support filter bubbles.
I think this is because they have so much more users now then they did back then so now they are forgeting small parts of their original purpose. While keeping the one big one, privacy. We’l see how long ddg protects that without getting caught doing more shady stuff with Microsoft. Yes I said more, they were caught before allowing ads on Microsoft website in the ddg android browser once before.
I understand your concern, this is actually why I dropped Ecosia (because they got closer to Microsoft)
It’s worth mentioning that DDG has since distanced themselves from Microsoft after the blow back, so while Ecosia got closer, DDG (AFAIK from the documentation I read) no longer has any partnerships in place. I don’t get paid either way, so it doesn’t matter to me but just FYI
They do have a good overall ui, but the trust in them is less then it was before. Even if they did stop doing partnerships with Microsoft they also stopped keeping their users out of the filter bubble, meaning they filter search resualts out, while before they use to claim they didn’t do that.
They do have a good overall ui, but the trust in them is less then it was before. Even if they did stop doing partnerships with Microsoft they also stopped keeping their users out of the filter bubble, meaning they filter search resualts out, while before they use to claim they didn’t do that.
I wonder if there’s a way to federate a search engine. I wonder what that would even look like. Federating indices/results but allowing users to search from whatever instance they want? Maybe?
Maybe that’s an okay use case for federation or maybe not, but clearly we need to move away from centralised search engines because they always get corrupted by greed.
This exists already, it’s called Searxng. The instances don’t federate with each other necessarily but rather with actual search engines. But each instance of searxng is hosted by a different person. and so you might notice different resaults on one server vs the next. https://searx.space/
Oh, gotcha. Yeah, honestly mixing my browser & search engine has a bad smell to it, whether it’s google, Microsoft or DDG providing them. I don’t want to give anyone that level of end-to-end control.
For me it often covers important elements of the site that way. Especially these annoying “use our app” overlays, and then the “continue using website” button is hidden behind the address bar with jo way to scroll it into view. So no way to use the website :(
If there was one thing Windows Phone and Windows 8 IE did well for mobile devices, it was the bottom orientated address bar.
I’m surprised that it took Android and iOS so long to adapt it; Firefox if i recall correctly adapted to it first in 2014 with an experimental Windows 8 mode that sadly was discontinued.
I do see a difference between Firefox on a Pixel 4a and Safari on an iPhone 13. The iPhone loads a webpage in less than a second whereas Firefox needs 2-4 seconds for the same webpage. I still use Firefox though as it is better in every other aspect.
Im currently using a stock S9+ snapdragon (why its still stock -_-). I do have most google stuff disabled and pretty much all my apps aside from android and webview (which fulgris relies on) are from fdroid or ffupdater. It could be the standard A10 shenaigans, but it’s not something i’ve been hitting on webview and chrome based browsers
No lol. If an s9+ is considered under powered for Firefox, Then Firefox has to be one of the worst web engines I’ve ever used, including Internet Explorer.
keep in mind as I said, webview and chromium browsers are fine. I’ve even used desktop browsers on this phone without an issue thanks to termux. There is absolutely zero chance my phone is underpowered.
I use Firefox on Android exclusively. Having ublock for youtube on my phone is great… But since updating to Android 13 watching full-screen video in FF has been an issue. Usually it requires that I restart the app to work.
I have issues with it. Some pages and apps don’t work well on Firefox. Rendering is off : alignments, some apps don’t even work.
I will be switching away.
Does anyone else have the problem that scrolling on a page becomes kinda laggy when there are more than usual elements on a webpage? For example, some website for streaming series. As soon as I scroll down where a lot of small buttons with episode numbers on them are rendered, Firefox on Android becomes noticeably laggy for me.
Other than that I really like it but that little problem annoys the hell out of me.
Yes it does lag much more than chrome, even on S23U. Even with noscript enabled, actually. I am trying to get used to it for the last few weeks cause goddam noscript makes internet a better place.
I tried it. It appears to be an optimization issue. Firefox struggles a bit for some reason but not Chrome. Probably can be reported on the fenix repo for Firefox.
Chromium based browsers on Android always have been more snappy than FF. That said I have primarily used FF for around a year and it is alright. Whenever something does not behave well, I use Vivaldi.
Page on Firefox with unlock: 6 sentence news article.
Same page on chrome: video in the corner, popup blocking 30% of the screen, flashing ads every second sentence, halfway through there’s another popup asking you to log in.
Can I log in to my Google account in the browser and have it sync all of my stuff with my account though? Bookmarks, visited pages, etc etc.
That’s the thing that makes it hard to switch to something else on PC too, I need my Google account integration, and other browsers just don’t seem to support it :-(
I’d absolutely love up switch back to Firefox, it was my browser of choice before Chrome was released, but I do absolutely want to keep all my Google account integrations at this point.
As a person who had a Google account for over 15 years… With all the stories of Google locking accounts, I’d recommend exploring a backup. It’s been my thing all year.
There are stories of people who use their gmail for everything. Then they got their account locked and suddenly couldn’t pay bills, see their baby pictures, reset passwords on other sites. And Google doesn’t really have customer service so it was locked for weeks.
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Yep, same-zees. Big-time chrome user, switched on desktop and mobile to Firefox. As Google is being foolish twist these days.
Funny to see this. I just switched last week (to get ublock) and it’s o so much better. Only thing i miss is the translate function that chrome has
The main thing I miss is auto fill. Firefox’s auto fill for credit cards kinda sucks (often misses fields), and I don’t think it auto fills addresses.
I let bitwarden do that…
Isn’t that a password manager? It also does credit cards? Maybe I’ll check it out
Yes it is. And it does credit cards and addresses too. Theoretically you could design your own use cases, but you might miss categories for it.
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I am using a plug-in on my pc
Along with the adblocker, the darkreader add on is my favourite.
Would be great if Firefox Translations are brought to Android.
Please spread the word!
I just officially downloaded it and will likely soon jump ship from DuckDuckGo.
Really the biggest thing for me will be not blinding my eyes due to a lack of dark mode outside of search results. (Thanks to using the dark reader add-on in Firefox)
Seriously, darkreader is a lifesaver for someone like me who is light sensitive.
You’re jumping from duckduckgo? Where to & why? I ask as a fellow DDG user.
Personally I quit using ddg. Duckduckgo uses Microsoft’s Bing API I jumped atleast two years ago from ddg. They seem to be buddy buddy with Microsoft, they have a history for it. Oh and remember when ddg use to talk about filter bubbles, well now they support filter bubbles.
I think this is because they have so much more users now then they did back then so now they are forgeting small parts of their original purpose. While keeping the one big one, privacy. We’l see how long ddg protects that without getting caught doing more shady stuff with Microsoft. Yes I said more, they were caught before allowing ads on Microsoft website in the ddg android browser once before.
I understand your concern, this is actually why I dropped Ecosia (because they got closer to Microsoft)
It’s worth mentioning that DDG has since distanced themselves from Microsoft after the blow back, so while Ecosia got closer, DDG (AFAIK from the documentation I read) no longer has any partnerships in place. I don’t get paid either way, so it doesn’t matter to me but just FYI
https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/05/duckduckgo-microsoft-tracking-scripts/
https://spreadprivacy.com/more-privacy-and-transparency/
They do have a good overall ui, but the trust in them is less then it was before. Even if they did stop doing partnerships with Microsoft they also stopped keeping their users out of the filter bubble, meaning they filter search resualts out, while before they use to claim they didn’t do that.
They do have a good overall ui, but the trust in them is less then it was before. Even if they did stop doing partnerships with Microsoft they also stopped keeping their users out of the filter bubble, meaning they filter search resualts out, while before they use to claim they didn’t do that.
Yes, I remember hearing something about this.
I wonder if there’s a way to federate a search engine. I wonder what that would even look like. Federating indices/results but allowing users to search from whatever instance they want? Maybe?
Maybe that’s an okay use case for federation or maybe not, but clearly we need to move away from centralised search engines because they always get corrupted by greed.
This exists already, it’s called Searxng. The instances don’t federate with each other necessarily but rather with actual search engines. But each instance of searxng is hosted by a different person. and so you might notice different resaults on one server vs the next. https://searx.space/
I think they meant the DDG android browser.
yeah you’re right. The DDG Android browser has been my default up until now
Oh, gotcha. Yeah, honestly mixing my browser & search engine has a bad smell to it, whether it’s google, Microsoft or DDG providing them. I don’t want to give anyone that level of end-to-end control.
I’ve been using Firefox for a long while now. It’s great these days
I can’t. I’m already using Firefox.
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Also you can switch the address bar to the bottom where it’s closer to your thumb
For me it often covers important elements of the site that way. Especially these annoying “use our app” overlays, and then the “continue using website” button is hidden behind the address bar with jo way to scroll it into view. So no way to use the website :(
If there was one thing Windows Phone and Windows 8 IE did well for mobile devices, it was the bottom orientated address bar.
I’m surprised that it took Android and iOS so long to adapt it; Firefox if i recall correctly adapted to it first in 2014 with an experimental Windows 8 mode that sadly was discontinued.
https://www.neowin.net/news/mozilla-finally-releases-beta-of-its-touch-friendly-firefox-for-windows-8/
I don’t think I could ever get used to that.
I thought the same, but it only took me like 2 days to get used to it.
It was weird for like one day. Now I couldn’t ever go back. It’s SO convenient!
I just swapped off of it, Firefox has been buggy for me, no matter which fork I use, it’s been slow too. I recently just migrated to fulgris
These types of comments always interest me. What phone are you using?
I do see a difference between Firefox on a Pixel 4a and Safari on an iPhone 13. The iPhone loads a webpage in less than a second whereas Firefox needs 2-4 seconds for the same webpage. I still use Firefox though as it is better in every other aspect.
Im currently using a stock S9+ snapdragon (why its still stock -_-). I do have most google stuff disabled and pretty much all my apps aside from android and webview (which fulgris relies on) are from fdroid or ffupdater. It could be the standard A10 shenaigans, but it’s not something i’ve been hitting on webview and chrome based browsers
Have you considered your phone is underpowered?
No lol. If an s9+ is considered under powered for Firefox, Then Firefox has to be one of the worst web engines I’ve ever used, including Internet Explorer.
keep in mind as I said, webview and chromium browsers are fine. I’ve even used desktop browsers on this phone without an issue thanks to termux. There is absolutely zero chance my phone is underpowered.
Fair enough.
I use Firefox on Android exclusively. Having ublock for youtube on my phone is great… But since updating to Android 13 watching full-screen video in FF has been an issue. Usually it requires that I restart the app to work.
I have issues with it. Some pages and apps don’t work well on Firefox. Rendering is off : alignments, some apps don’t even work. I will be switching away.
The only thing I miss is immersive mode, aka hidden status bar on scroll. Otherwise it’s perfect.
Does anyone else have the problem that scrolling on a page becomes kinda laggy when there are more than usual elements on a webpage? For example, some website for streaming series. As soon as I scroll down where a lot of small buttons with episode numbers on them are rendered, Firefox on Android becomes noticeably laggy for me.
Other than that I really like it but that little problem annoys the hell out of me.
Yes it does lag much more than chrome, even on S23U. Even with noscript enabled, actually. I am trying to get used to it for the last few weeks cause goddam noscript makes internet a better place.
Which websites? Can you share some examples?
Try AniWatch for example and slowly scroll across the episode list.
Confirmed laggy for me running Fennec on Android 13 on my S21.
I’ve encountered this laggy scrolling on other websites as well since switching to FF ~4 months ago.
I tried it. It appears to be an optimization issue. Firefox struggles a bit for some reason but not Chrome. Probably can be reported on the fenix repo for Firefox.
Chromium based browsers on Android always have been more snappy than FF. That said I have primarily used FF for around a year and it is alright. Whenever something does not behave well, I use Vivaldi.
Been using focus as my default for years, and Firefox for main stuff for years. Works fine for me and ublock is a must for me so…
Ublock is absolutely a must.
Page on Firefox with unlock: 6 sentence news article.
Same page on chrome: video in the corner, popup blocking 30% of the screen, flashing ads every second sentence, halfway through there’s another popup asking you to log in.
Like wtf, people live like this?
Can I log in to my Google account in the browser and have it sync all of my stuff with my account though? Bookmarks, visited pages, etc etc.
That’s the thing that makes it hard to switch to something else on PC too, I need my Google account integration, and other browsers just don’t seem to support it :-(
I’d absolutely love up switch back to Firefox, it was my browser of choice before Chrome was released, but I do absolutely want to keep all my Google account integrations at this point.
Import once in FF for Desktop, sync everything privacy friendly with an Firefox account. Never felt a difference.
Don’t all modern browsers import data from your primary browser when you switch?
There is such a thing as a Firefox account, and your Firefox on your phone will know what your Firefox on pc was doing, etc if you’re logged in
I suppose you could do it manually if you want. https://takeout.google.com/
You can log in to a Mozilla account in both the desktop and mobile browsers and sync everything that way. No Google needed!
That doesn’t bring your info over from Chrome though
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I didn’t realise it could bring your history too. That’s handy to know, thanks :)
Why would you want to do that? Firefox has their own privacy conserving sync
To bring your bookmarks and everything else OP mentioned over from Chrome
Oh that… no Fenix is still a trimmed down piece of ***
It cant even import bookmarks from Json or HTML, which is very annoying for Torbrowser-Android, as it doesnt have sync and onion=bookmarks
As a person who had a Google account for over 15 years… With all the stories of Google locking accounts, I’d recommend exploring a backup. It’s been my thing all year.
There are stories of people who use their gmail for everything. Then they got their account locked and suddenly couldn’t pay bills, see their baby pictures, reset passwords on other sites. And Google doesn’t really have customer service so it was locked for weeks.
Samsung internet rocks and you can’t tell me otherwise.
Tracks u just as much as chrome
and sells it, look at their privacy policy