To any Mozilla/Firefox developer reading this. I try to convert people to Firefox. The number one reason people switch, by far, is because mobile has add on support. So I say to push this front and center in marketing (I know this is a preview). People are reluctant to switch their desktop browser because chrome pretty much has the same features. But it they switch their mobile browsers they also switch their desktops to take advantage of the full feature suite.
And to anyone trying to convert your friends "mobile supports ublock" is usually all I have to say.
Edit:unblock == uBlock Origin (sorry, on my phone)
We're certainly aware of how significant ad blocking extensions are. This release required a great quantity of features with only a six month timeline until now.
We already support a very limited set of the WebExtensions API to offer features like Reader Mode. Rest assured that more features will land in the coming months.
If you're a developer and you want to help us, our Github site is at this link. We mark easier issues with a Good First Issue label. We also need help with translations, documentation, and even getting issues filed.
Strongly seconding. The one and only reason I bothered to switch from Chrome to Firefox on Android was because I could install uBlock Origin on it. It's also the reason I installed Firefox on my wife's smartphone, and why I keep recommending it to friends and family members.
(Of course, some time later I realized what "extensions enabled" truly means, and started using other extensions I have enabled on my desktop browser too :).)
I moved to firefox on mobile explicitly because the context menu has options I use. Google Chrome dropped almost all the options, and annoyed me to know end.
IMO Mozilla is the only option to keep the web free. Google won't even remotely have your interests even in mind for the changes they make.
Please listen Mozilla. Firefox is the only browser that works as intended for me, on mobile. Cookie AutoDelete + uBlock Origin and Dark Reader. What a blessing.
Using Firefox because it has a particular technological feature is a political choice. That political stance would lead users to turn to other browsers as fast as tech is added or removed.
I use Firefox for political reasons and for what it stands.
Which means that when Firefox gets worse I still use it and support what it stands for.
It's very Stallmanesque and let it be clear I am not saying the choice to favour superior tech over ethic concerns is wrong. It's just a different choice.
That's what I tell people when talking about Signal and messenger, Chrome and Firefox.
Also, I don't think Mozilla is a white knight and in my opinion they fucked up some good things over the years (tech or ethic). But the good still largely surpasses the bad.
I wish iOS version had addons to block ads. (I know Apple doesn't allow that)
I still use it because of the synchronization and because Firefox is awesome. :)
I also think they should fix zooming and un-zooming with the Mac trackpad for desktop Firefox. I had someone switch and they were so used to zooming in using the trackpad, they couldn't stay on Firefox. There is a 3rd party extension that fixes this, but should it not be built-in?
Thank you Mozilla team for making this great browser! I am a happy user since it was first released. Super happy with how fast the browser is now. I think Firefox always is ahead with great features and better UX. (Lazy tab loading, sticky tabs, containers, no video autoplay, to name a few)
Also plugin support on mobile is how I converted several chrome users :)
I hope "collections" will come to the desktop too. Are there plans?
I just switched to the current Android Firefox a few weeks ago and I must say I find it very hard to go back to Chrome. uBlock and Dark Reader make the phone browsing experience a remarkable amount more pleasant.
Chrome's general UI interaction is definitely more polished and snappier all around, but browsing mobile with good ad blocking, and not getting blasted in the face by stark white pages more than covers for Firefox's warts.
I'm aware that I'm reaching a Cartago-delenda-est situation here, but since I see some mozilla devs here I must ask: Is there any news about the deal breaker bugs that are still keeping thousands of people from moving to firefox on OSX?
I'm referring to the bugs that cause extreme CPU usage and as a consequence extreme heating and battery usage, mainly on macbooks with retina screens set to "more space" resolution.
I work in a whole building full of developers where every single mac user has stopped using firefox due to this issue, yet there seems to be a deep disconnection between how prevalent the issue is and the priority it seems to be assigned.
I hope I'm not coming off as an ass here, I'm just sad that I've had to move away from firefox and to see all my coworkers also moving to chrome.
I have been using Firefox on Android since 2013. It's been constantly improving. I am so glad that it exists so that I am not forced to use a browser (Chrome) that doesn't respect me or my privacy and has every incentive to fuck me over.
Same here. I do not know why the heck Mozilla is tiptoeing from just hiring Raymond and making uBlock an integral part of firefox.
Note that they already included something similar, which is SafeBrowsing(TM), that is maintained by google. Technically, it is exactly the same concept. But uBlock is actively request by 99% of their users, while safeBrowser(TM) fingerprinting is mostly disabled by half.
Anyone remember when Firefox extensions broke recently? I thought it was a rather horrible experience.
If the new Firefox Preview can natively block advertisements, whitelist sites, disable third party cookies, prevent and hide social trackers, block anti-ad-blockers, etc. etc. then I agree that extensions are kind of useless, and I understand Mozilla's point.
However, I see the lack of extension support detrimental to my freedoms as a user, since it means I no longer can control what the software hides for me, nor what it broadcasts about me to the abyss of waste that is the advertising industry; I will have to trust the browser, and the lack of extension support is a rather untrustworthy property to begin with.
I really feel like this should be the top comment; losing addon support in FF on Android is about the only change I can envision that would cause me to stop using it. It's great as it is, and there is no amount of tinkering they could do to it that might possibly make up for the loss of addons.
Same here. I was so happy to see this and I just went ahead and installed it in a heart-beat. Tried to find the addons page, couldn't find it, found your comment instead and uninstalled it in the next.
I hope they add support for addons otherwise there isn't much use for it at least to me.
uBO is the main reason I use Firefox on Android, as well.
With that said, what sites are you visiting? It could be that I simply don't visit sites with any ads, but I gave a few of my daily sites a spin in Firefox Preview and didn't notice any ads.
I would also appreciate if they worked on restoring the original addon capability they had up to 2016 (where you add keyboard shortcuts) before they go showboating.
If there is one thing I miss from current mobile Firefox, it's text reflow. Opera mobile did it perfectly.
I want to be able to zoom in or out and have text reflowed to the screen width. This makes the web magnitudes nicer to use on a small screen. No cut off lines, no 10 lines per screen. Just convenient freedom over the primary tool we interact on the web: Text.
Just yesterday I thought it is really annoying that mobile browsers put the address bar on top, even worse if it is moving in and out. That way it is impossible come close to a native look and feel. Now FF puts the address bar on bottom. Quite a suprise but I think it is a pretty smart change.
Exactly. I wanted to use Firefox on mobile but Brave is so much more convenient since it puts the bar at the bottom. Reaching my hand up becomes annoying since I might have to use two hands to not drop my phone.
Another thing that annoyed me about the previous mobile Firefox was the 'x' in the URL bar closed the bar instead of clearing it like Brave. I had to unlearn months of muscle memory since it was a habit of mine. Maybe it doesn't matter since it's just an issue after switching.
I love the address bar at the bottom. It feels so much better on a mobile device. As a whole, this version is much nicer to use than the previous versions.
My two main gripes are the default search engine and telemetry. Both of these options should be set by the user on first launch. I don't want to use Google and I don't want to send data to Mozilla.
I can't understand how UX designers come up with the idea that putting stuff on the top of the screen* is a good thing, and even keep reiterating through that. That's an honest question, anybody knows what's the motivation behind that?
* or, places that are hard to reach for most users
It's an unbelievably untapped aspect for differentiating browsers. However, instead of the address bar what would be the best experience would be to have navigation buttons on the bottom. Speed dials, back and forward, tab management should be front and center and at the bottom, since that's actually what you're using the most when browsing on mobile.
Don't bother sending feedback to the email address mentioned in the blog: it bounces.
We're writing to let you know
that the group you tried to
contact (firefox-preview-feedback)
may not exist, or you may not
have permission to post
messages to the group...
I'm a happy user of both Firefox Focus and Firefox mobile, I don't know what could they improve but I'll give it a look.
About Firefox focus, I love to have it as default browser when opening links, it gives me a lot of confidence to know that the session will be completely destroyed afterward. I'd miss it if it were to be discontinued.
One reason I like FF on Android better than Chrome:
The Chrome user agent has your device model, even in incognito mode.
If you have a relatively rare Android device in your market, I think you can be tracked fairly uniquely on that alone. I was creeped out when I discovered this.
Wow, this preview is incredibly good! I was not expecting such a good quality from a preview app (given how bad some of the other tries from Firefox have been on Android).
And you know what absolutely clinches it for me? That you moved the address bar to the bottom!! Just like Edge on Windows mobile - that's the best position for address bar IMO.
I also hope you do something about better battery management on the android app.
Not fond of the bottom address bar, I guess I'm not used to it because I always tap the top-right corner to switch tabs... I just need to get it in my muscle-memory, not a big deal. I still cross my fingers this will be configurable at some point.
My main gripe is that I feel like bookmarks are now a second-class citizen in Firefox Preview, they're not as accessible. I could see my mobile bookmarks right on the new tab screen in Firefox, now I have to press ⋮ > Your Library > Bookmarks and then click the bookmark I want.
4 clicks, while it took only one (or two) before with bookmarks as the default panel on my homepage on Firefox "classic".
I'm a huge fan of the navigation bar on the bottom. I've missed it since I had to give up Windows Phone. It's hard to believe that neither Apple or Google ever added the option. I can't think of a single reason it would be better on top, It's simply harder to reach and less usable.
Some feedback: If you are going to market your browser as privacy focused, it has to block ads by default. As far as I can this one does not block ads at all. Good initial experience but please block ads.
I've been using it and it has been actually pretty good. It already has Firefox Sync and ability to send tabs to different devices. Only thing I miss is the ability to open tabs in background. This was my favorite feature in the previous Firefox for Android.
I've been using Firefox Preview for a while and I like it, especially the bottom navigation bar, but one thing that I hope survives from the old app is the tab queue, which sends links opened from other apps to Firefox in the background without stealing focus from the original app. To me it's a game changer on the level of tabbed browsing and I don't know why all mobile browsers don't have it.
[+] [-] godelski|6 years ago|reply
And to anyone trying to convert your friends "mobile supports ublock" is usually all I have to say.
Edit:unblock == uBlock Origin (sorry, on my phone)
[+] [-] mncolinlee|6 years ago|reply
We already support a very limited set of the WebExtensions API to offer features like Reader Mode. Rest assured that more features will land in the coming months.
If you're a developer and you want to help us, our Github site is at this link. We mark easier issues with a Good First Issue label. We also need help with translations, documentation, and even getting issues filed.
https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|6 years ago|reply
(Of course, some time later I realized what "extensions enabled" truly means, and started using other extensions I have enabled on my desktop browser too :).)
[+] [-] Topgamer7|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] concatime|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unicornporn|6 years ago|reply
Please listen Mozilla. Firefox is the only browser that works as intended for me, on mobile. Cookie AutoDelete + uBlock Origin and Dark Reader. What a blessing.
[+] [-] johnchristopher|6 years ago|reply
Using Firefox because it has a particular technological feature is a political choice. That political stance would lead users to turn to other browsers as fast as tech is added or removed.
I use Firefox for political reasons and for what it stands.
Which means that when Firefox gets worse I still use it and support what it stands for.
It's very Stallmanesque and let it be clear I am not saying the choice to favour superior tech over ethic concerns is wrong. It's just a different choice.
That's what I tell people when talking about Signal and messenger, Chrome and Firefox.
Also, I don't think Mozilla is a white knight and in my opinion they fucked up some good things over the years (tech or ethic). But the good still largely surpasses the bad.
[+] [-] Jnr|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] victor9000|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theturtletalks|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codesuki|6 years ago|reply
I hope "collections" will come to the desktop too. Are there plans?
[+] [-] iamrohitbanga|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bombledmonk|6 years ago|reply
Chrome's general UI interaction is definitely more polished and snappier all around, but browsing mobile with good ad blocking, and not getting blasted in the face by stark white pages more than covers for Firefox's warts.
[+] [-] kace91|6 years ago|reply
I'm referring to the bugs that cause extreme CPU usage and as a consequence extreme heating and battery usage, mainly on macbooks with retina screens set to "more space" resolution.
I work in a whole building full of developers where every single mac user has stopped using firefox due to this issue, yet there seems to be a deep disconnection between how prevalent the issue is and the priority it seems to be assigned.
I hope I'm not coming off as an ass here, I'm just sad that I've had to move away from firefox and to see all my coworkers also moving to chrome.
[+] [-] abdulmuhaimin|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thisisitnownow|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsr_|6 years ago|reply
(uBlock Origin is a prerequisite for me.)
[+] [-] mncolinlee|6 years ago|reply
It's not the same thing, but the built-in tracking protection incidentally blocks a portion of ads.
[+] [-] mjw1007|6 years ago|reply
It isn't even clear that they're not going to replace Android Firefox with Fenix before getting extensions working.
As far I know this issue is the most recent source of information: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/574
It says «We are currently finalizing the transition plan».
[+] [-] gcbw2|6 years ago|reply
Note that they already included something similar, which is SafeBrowsing(TM), that is maintained by google. Technically, it is exactly the same concept. But uBlock is actively request by 99% of their users, while safeBrowser(TM) fingerprinting is mostly disabled by half.
[+] [-] jnurmine|6 years ago|reply
Anyone remember when Firefox extensions broke recently? I thought it was a rather horrible experience.
If the new Firefox Preview can natively block advertisements, whitelist sites, disable third party cookies, prevent and hide social trackers, block anti-ad-blockers, etc. etc. then I agree that extensions are kind of useless, and I understand Mozilla's point.
However, I see the lack of extension support detrimental to my freedoms as a user, since it means I no longer can control what the software hides for me, nor what it broadcasts about me to the abyss of waste that is the advertising industry; I will have to trust the browser, and the lack of extension support is a rather untrustworthy property to begin with.
[+] [-] jjulius|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JeremyNT|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superasn|6 years ago|reply
I hope they add support for addons otherwise there isn't much use for it at least to me.
[+] [-] AdmiralAsshat|6 years ago|reply
With that said, what sites are you visiting? It could be that I simply don't visit sites with any ads, but I gave a few of my daily sites a spin in Firefox Preview and didn't notice any ads.
[+] [-] Roritharr|6 years ago|reply
Winning their userbase back is the only way to win back the leverage they once had...
[+] [-] tyingq|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orcdork|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SilasX|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sciurus|6 years ago|reply
(Disclosure: I work for Mozilla)
[+] [-] gloflo|6 years ago|reply
I want to be able to zoom in or out and have text reflowed to the screen width. This makes the web magnitudes nicer to use on a small screen. No cut off lines, no 10 lines per screen. Just convenient freedom over the primary tool we interact on the web: Text.
[+] [-] vast|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nonbirithm|6 years ago|reply
Another thing that annoyed me about the previous mobile Firefox was the 'x' in the URL bar closed the bar instead of clearing it like Brave. I had to unlearn months of muscle memory since it was a habit of mine. Maybe it doesn't matter since it's just an issue after switching.
[+] [-] zcid|6 years ago|reply
My two main gripes are the default search engine and telemetry. Both of these options should be set by the user on first launch. I don't want to use Google and I don't want to send data to Mozilla.
[+] [-] samueloph|6 years ago|reply
* or, places that are hard to reach for most users
[+] [-] phreack|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jazoom|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saagarjha|6 years ago|reply
What "native look and feel" are you talking about?
[+] [-] anonymfus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikelward|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanbor|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] riquito|6 years ago|reply
About Firefox focus, I love to have it as default browser when opening links, it gives me a lot of confidence to know that the session will be completely destroyed afterward. I'd miss it if it were to be discontinued.
[+] [-] asveikau|6 years ago|reply
The Chrome user agent has your device model, even in incognito mode.
If you have a relatively rare Android device in your market, I think you can be tracked fairly uniquely on that alone. I was creeped out when I discovered this.
[+] [-] kumarharsh|6 years ago|reply
And you know what absolutely clinches it for me? That you moved the address bar to the bottom!! Just like Edge on Windows mobile - that's the best position for address bar IMO.
I also hope you do something about better battery management on the android app.
Have a bow!
[+] [-] nwah1|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m-p-3|6 years ago|reply
My main gripe is that I feel like bookmarks are now a second-class citizen in Firefox Preview, they're not as accessible. I could see my mobile bookmarks right on the new tab screen in Firefox, now I have to press ⋮ > Your Library > Bookmarks and then click the bookmark I want.
4 clicks, while it took only one (or two) before with bookmarks as the default panel on my homepage on Firefox "classic".
[+] [-] Droobfest|6 years ago|reply
This also goes for all other apps...
[+] [-] Touche|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] owaislone|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] magissima|6 years ago|reply