Ask HN: Are there privacy respecting browsers for Android with accessibility?

[vk6flab]

On my Android phone I have been using "Firefox Focus" for years. It doesn't store cookies between launches and overall it appears to keep random cookie trackers at bay. For the most part it renders websites properly, with the biggest exception being any Google Sites (that is, the Google product "Sites"), where it has some serious issues with icons.

What it doesn't do is deal with font sizes in a sane manner. There are no accessibility options at all. If you want to see larger text you have two options, neither of which is conducive to easier use.

Option 1 is to "Pinch to Zoom" the page in question. This makes the text bigger, but it then also exceeds the screen width, which means that you need to scroll left and right, as well as down to read any form of text. Flipping to landscape mode only exacerbates the issue, since now you have longer lines that you need to scroll both horizontally and vertically.

Option 2 is to increase the Android OS system font size. This sometimes makes the font larger in the web browser, but only if the developer hasn't decided for you what the font size should be.

Over the weekend I've looked at a variety of other browsers and have yet to discover any that are doing anything different. Accessibility appears to be an afterthought in anything I've seen to date.

On a desktop in any browser I've tried I can Hit Ctrl-Plus and Ctrl-Minus and increase/decrease the font size and see the page reformat/redraw within the confines of the screen, but that is not available on my Android phone, unless I'm expected to connect an external keyboard and try that keystroke there - something to test.

It also appears that no Android browsers support a user style sheet, so there's no relief there either.

Am I doomed to wearing magnifying glasses on my head if I want to read on my phone, or are there realistic options that I'm unaware of?

[aaviator42]

Firefox (standard, non-focus) on Android has a reader view toggle button in the URL bar. Then you can go to the 3 dot menu > customize reader view, and increase the font size.

I do not know if this is a complete solution for you, but I hope it helps.

[vk6flab]

Thanks, I'll have a look, but I'm not sure how it goes with privacy tracking and all the other great features that I pretty much take for granted with "Focus".

[leed25d]

Brave?

[vk6flab]

I looked at Brave a little while ago. It was actively attempting to install things and force me to comply to their world view, with too many options and buttons to make the user experience in any way palatable. In the end, even opening multiple tabs and navigating between them became too hard and I removed it after it started to demand that I install a VPN, even though I browse from within my own secure network.