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.
IF FF ever implement support for tabs on tablets I might consider using it.
I only use phone and tablet and to use a glorified phone app on a tablet is not a great experience. Almost every other browser in existence supports tags for larger screens.
Until FF fixes this it doesn’t matter how many extensions they allow in the browser I’m out.
Completely agree. The tablet experience licks balls.
Tabs are needed, and god knows what it thinks its doing when you tell it to load the desktop version of a site. Apparently it thinks I clicked a button saying “embeggen all elements and waste screen space pls”…
Works fine on other browsers though. Not techy enough to say if your wrong or right, but the experience I have on a Tab s8 ultra is that ‘desktop’ versions are all zoomed in looking on FF.
If treestyletabs worked on mobile that would work great. Just make the tabs bigger. Then again I think the UI is totally different on mobile so I feel the pain.
I have been using firefox on a phone since 2014 at least. I particularly like I can just go “send this tab to my PC” and it’ll just be there without bothering with bookmarks, note apps, emails to myself or such.
I once had a text file on a VPS I would ssh on my phone to and paste links into. Blah.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I would use Firefox on Android but I’m waiting until the security is on par with Chromium such as having internal sandboxing and site isolation.
Also since Firefox doesn’t have a WebView implementation, it has to be used with the Chromium based one so it doesn’t make sense for me to use two browser engines.
I made a similar comment on this article in [email protected] - for anyone who is blindly downvoting thinking this is some Google psyop, this is the explanation from GrapheneOS (who fortunately provide their own de-googled chromium-based browser Vanadium):
Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they’re currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn’t have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one. Firefox / Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS hardening work for apps. Worst of all, Firefox does not have internal sandboxing on Android. This is despite the fact that Chromium semantic sandbox layer on Android is implemented via the OS isolatedProcess feature, which is a very easy to use boolean property for app service processes to provide strong isolation with only the ability to communicate with the app running them via the standard service API. Even in the desktop version, Firefox’s sandbox is still substantially weaker (especially on Linux) and lacks full support for isolating sites from each other rather than only containing content as a whole. The sandbox has been gradually improving on the desktop but it isn’t happening for their Android browser yet.
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IF FF ever implement support for tabs on tablets I might consider using it.
I only use phone and tablet and to use a glorified phone app on a tablet is not a great experience. Almost every other browser in existence supports tags for larger screens.
Until FF fixes this it doesn’t matter how many extensions they allow in the browser I’m out.
Completely agree. The tablet experience licks balls.
Tabs are needed, and god knows what it thinks its doing when you tell it to load the desktop version of a site. Apparently it thinks I clicked a button saying “embeggen all elements and waste screen space pls”…
Enjoy it on phone, mind.
I agree, on the phone it’s a great app.
My problem is that as I only use tablet and phone it doesn’t make sense to use two different browsers so until it’s changed Vivaldi it is.
loading the desktop version of a sits is not Firefox’s fault. It depends on the web devs.
Works fine on other browsers though. Not techy enough to say if your wrong or right, but the experience I have on a Tab s8 ultra is that ‘desktop’ versions are all zoomed in looking on FF.
If treestyletabs worked on mobile that would work great. Just make the tabs bigger. Then again I think the UI is totally different on mobile so I feel the pain.
I have been using firefox on a phone since 2014 at least. I particularly like I can just go “send this tab to my PC” and it’ll just be there without bothering with bookmarks, note apps, emails to myself or such.
I once had a text file on a VPS I would ssh on my phone to and paste links into. Blah.
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
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I am using a plug-in on my pc
Along with the adblocker, the darkreader add on is my favourite.
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.
Would be great if Firefox Translations are brought to Android.
Please spread the word!
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.
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.
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.
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?
When will management of site permissions like js and cookies and management of site data separatly will arrive?
Will switch that day!
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.
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
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 :)
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/
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
Nah
I just hope they can fix the app. Compared to Chrome it really isn’t as good.
Yep, same-zees. Big-time chrome user, switched on desktop and mobile to Firefox. As Google is being foolish twist these days.
I would use Firefox on Android but I’m waiting until the security is on par with Chromium such as having internal sandboxing and site isolation.
Also since Firefox doesn’t have a WebView implementation, it has to be used with the Chromium based one so it doesn’t make sense for me to use two browser engines.
I made a similar comment on this article in [email protected] - for anyone who is blindly downvoting thinking this is some Google psyop, this is the explanation from GrapheneOS (who fortunately provide their own de-googled chromium-based browser Vanadium):
https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing
Ublock, AdNauseum, Privacy Badger, oh my! All on Mobile phones!
Its possible for a long time, but hidden away.
With the things that are going on with Google right now, it’s the right move to just switch to Firefox
Only gripe I’m having with Firefox on Android is the battery usage, which is quite awful unfortunately when compared to other browsers
Been using FF on almy devices for over a year now. Best.Browser.Ever.