Firefox 120 will launch with 200 new Android extensions this December
  • SeethingSloth@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1031·
    1 year ago

    I’ve been hearing more and more about Firefox lately, which seemed to coincide with many users migrating from Chrome. Have there been any major recent changes to the latter which have caused this migration?

    Edit: Just installed Firefox and man has it come a long way since I last tried it on Android years ago. Even has ublock origin, page sync with desktop… I think I’ll switch for the next couple days and see how I like it on desktop nowadays.

    I remember switching from Firefox to Chromium back when it first came out. Nice to go full circle.

    • ThePhantomGM@lemmy.worldEnglish
      751·
      1 year ago

      YouTube anti-adblock, Web integrity, mainfest v3, just to name a few. Things just slowly add up and most won’t just stand there and take it

    • ripcord@kbin.social
      412·
      1 year ago

      If you’re on Android, using Firefox + ublock origin (or some other browser with AdBlock) is game-changing.

      Continuing to use, say, Chrome, makes almost zero sense.

    • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
      17·
      1 year ago

      Google threatening to take away the ad blockers was enough to make me go back to Firefox.

      Manifest V3, Web Environment Integrity, YouTube’s recent war on ad blockers.

      The main issue is that now people just test their shit against Chrome. Maybe Safari if they’re feeling generous. There’s a few bits in Firefox Android where things just work a little bit less smoothly than they do in Chrome, and needing extra presses to work in FF. Not sure why, maybe Chrome is making clickable targets that little bit bigger or something.

    • KptnAutismus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      1 year ago

      i used opera on mobile and opera GX on my PC. switched back because of security and privacy concerns. i did not miss any major features, firefox really has become the best browser.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        When I used to develop website opera used to drive me mad. It always had weird edge cases.

    • kartonrealista@lemmy.worldEnglish
      112·
      1 year ago

      People are becoming more conscious of stuff plenty of us have been aware for quite some time already. The idea that a browser made by a corporation who harvests your data for the purpose of advertising doesn’t give a shit about privacy and will try to block adblockers is not something some people weren’t expecting - but normies are getting this shoved in their face with YouTube giving them the anti-adblock notification.

      Firefox (and it’s clones) is basically the only other choice - all the other (major) browsers (that aren’t Safari) are based on Chromium, which is developed by Google.

      • ava@feddit.deEnglish
        12·
        1 year ago

        tbh Google isn’t blocking ad blockers with manifest v3.

    • Resonosity@lemmy.caEnglish
      8·
      1 year ago

      For me it was performance. Google Chrome consistently couldn’t handle the tab loads I would put on it after around 2022, despite my computer not really showing signs of degradation.

      Since switching to FF, I can run the same amount of tabs with almost not hiccups or stuttering - what I’d experience with Chrome. Hell, Chrome would crash randomly and I’d lose all my tabs and would have to reload them.

      Plus, sometimes to fix Chrome’s poor performance I’d shut the program down entirely, upon re-launch the browser wouldn’t even remember all of the tabs/windows I just closed (it used to). So, if I was doing research on something, Chrome would just not open certain windows back up after a hard reset, even if I CTRL + SHIFT + T and I check history. Madly infuriating.

      FF opens all windows and tabs upon hard reset, no questions asked. Plus, the compatibility between PC and mobile is awesome: I can load up a tab from my phone that’s on my PC super easily, which makes things useful for when I want to share web content with friends or family.

      I seem to have woken up from my slumber of tolerating Chrome, and chose a better service instead.

  • sarchar@programming.devEnglish
    792·
    1 year ago

    Got a “disable your adblocker” popup on that article. The third bullet point in the article is about reducing annoyances like ads. Ridiculous.

    • hitmyspot@aussie.zoneEnglish
      26·
      1 year ago

      The site owners have different values and notices than any one writer or journalist. The problem with ads is they became too intrusive. So ad blockers block all, including on respectful websites. It’s better for consumers to block all, but journalism does with no revenue and most don’t want to pay. We don’t yet have a middle ground.

      • janAkali@lemmy.oneEnglish
        61·
        1 year ago

        Somebody should make a standard for non-intrusive, not spying, ethical ads (no clickbaits, no contrasting colors, related to the article, etc. etc.).

        Adblocks would have websites that strictly follow these guidelines in a whitelist by default (opt-out).

        That’s the middle ground. But, I doubt any big ad company like Google or Meta would push for it, if not against.

      • lorkano@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        That’s why adblock wanted to by default allow not annoying ads, but there was a big backlash and other adblockers became more popular like ublock

    • tony@lemmy.hoyle.me.ukEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      androidpolice have had lots of articles about ad blocking and picking the best one etc.

      Then they won’t let anyone view the site when they follow that advice…

  • TCGM@lemmy.worldEnglish
    481·
    1 year ago

    For anyone who is unaware, Firefox developer edition on mobile, otherwise known as Firefox nightly, never lost the ability to arbitrarily install extensions. You just need to make your own collection on the Firefox website, and link it in the settings on your phone.

  • MonkderZweite@feddit.chEnglish
    382·
    1 year ago

    An about:config toggle to enable unoptimized extensions on your own risk, would still have been nice.

    Even now, i see no chance for niche extensions who would work fine on mobile, to be enabled.

  • Zak@lemmy.worldEnglish
    28·
    1 year ago

    About fucking time. I’ve been irritated since the Fenix update broke extensions. I might switch back from Kiwi.

  • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
    271·
    1 year ago

    Already had uBlock Origin.

    Just need the ones that remove all the stupid cookie/permission popups.

      • K3zi4@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        1 year ago

        Oh my god, I’ve been using ublock for as long as I can remember and had no idea about this! Thank you, now I just have to figure out what I’m doing.

  • _MoveSwiftly@lemmy.worldEnglish
    25·
    1 year ago

    So hyped about this. It’s the main reason I kept on using Firefox and refused to go back to Chrome or any other browser. The experience is too good, to the point I deleted the YT app and just use YT on FF.

    • Thomrade@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      1 year ago

      YT on Firefox Mobile has the added benefit of letting you swap to desktop mode and play videos with the screen off, no YT Premium needed ;)

      Been doing this for years, but if too much of a hack for you, NewPipe also supports background video, and downloading video, or just the audio, which is great if you have a lot of long form audio-focused channels like music reviews, videoessay content, etc.

    • Ziixe@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      51·
      1 year ago

      This, that is the only feature I miss from mobile chromium browsers, but the addition of anyways dark mode with dark reader is outweighing it a little bit

    • aesopjah@lemm.eeEnglish
      21·
      1 year ago

      yes! I was shocked that was not a feature when I migrated over on mobile.

    • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      also at least on my Android tablet, the tabs are hidden behind a button (like on a phone) rather than being displayed in a bar (like on a desktop), even though at least in landscape mode there would be enough space for the latter. This too should be fixed or configurable.

  • Dem Bosain@midwest.socialEnglish
    101·
    1 year ago

    I’ve been using Fennec for some time. It’s a Firefox fork that lets you install any extension from the Firefox repository. It uses the “addon group” workaround though, hopefully this version of Firefox will work just like the desktop version.

  • badnelly123@lemmy.worldEnglish
    91·
    1 year ago

    Only thing I want them to add at this point is for the app to remember the bookmarks position I was in. I use a couple of my bookmark folders almost exclusively on mobile, and every time I want to use them I have to click on bookmarks > Desktop Bookmarks > Bookmarks toolbar > Folder.

    I just wish they would at least default to opening to a selected folder so I could just default to the toolbar. It’s literally the only thing I miss about Chrome/Brave.

    • teejay@lemmy.worldEnglish
      61·
      1 year ago

      This is extremely annoying, and it’s been a documented enhancement request from the community for years. What’s even more confusing is that it’s only a problem on Android – it works properly on all desktop environments and iOS. I have no idea why they won’t fix it for Android.