[HN Gopher] Firefox is the best mobile browser
___________________________________________________________________
Firefox is the best mobile browser
Author : kelvinjps10
Score : 233 points
Date : 2025-10-11 14:12 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kelvinjps.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (kelvinjps.com)
| 26thCreator wrote:
| Yeah, I have been a firefox user for more than 7 years now and It
| has everything I need and has a nice community of developer who
| make useful addons!
| ramon156 wrote:
| Ad block + a good browser experience, on top of that I've been
| using the "send to device" a lot more. Wonderful stuff!
|
| I sometimes have to help my mother out with her chrome and I
| can't fathom how she can navigate anything
| mrbonner wrote:
| This is not applicable on iOS. The Firefox app remains a wrapper
| built on Apple's WebKit engine rather than a fully native
| implementation. However, with the recent release of uBlock for
| iOS, Safari has become significantly more tolerable. I've tried
| many so-called "browsers" (acknowledging they're all essentially
| WebKit wrappers), but none match Safari's energy efficiency or
| the seamlessness of its sync features.
| CapitaineToinon wrote:
| TIL about UBlock on IOS. Is it good? I've just switched to IOS
| and have been trying the free version of 1Blocker but it wasn't
| removing stuff like pop ups.
| mrbonner wrote:
| It is as good as the desktop version from my experience.
| comprev wrote:
| NextDNS has proven effective for me on iOS. On mobile devices I
| have the app and my home router is configured to force all DNS
| requests to use NextDNS servers.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Ad blocking has been available an effective since 2015 with iOS
| 8.
| hu3 wrote:
| Certainly not uBlock Origin of Firefox or anything close to
| it because of API limitations on Safari.
|
| I can see the Lite one available. Which is gimped.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| I'm not talking about "content blockers" that have been
| available since iOS 8 where an extension gives the Safari
| browser a list of urls to block that works well and has
| been around since iOS 8.
|
| I mean real web extensions
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-
| sg/guide/iphone/iphab0432bf6/io...
| fny wrote:
| The only equivalent to this for iOS is Orion by Kagi. I'm not
| sure how, but they've managed to avoid drawing apples ire while
| providing access to both Chrome and Firefox's plugin ecosystems.
| Nursie wrote:
| From last I read, Kagi allows installing of all manner of
| plugins, but very few actually work.
| darreninthenet wrote:
| I use Orion for my daily mobile web browser and it works
| fine, the plugin support is generally very good in my
| experience and you can always post any bugs and they do get
| looked at. It's worth a shot anyway.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| The one issue is that on iOS Apple forces all browsers to use
| Safari behind the scenes. And you can't do extensions.
| Macha wrote:
| Yeah, the extension thing is the real killer on my iPad, I need
| to decide between adblock or syncing to my Windows, Android,
| Linux, etc. devices.
| N0RMAN wrote:
| I think that's not true for EU devices? Not sure if there are
| any browsers with an alternative engine are actually available
| though.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi...
| jeroenhd wrote:
| As long as you pass Apple's arbitrary rules, you can make
| your own browser for iOS. Ladybug uses Apple's test suite as
| an arbitrary measure of completeness.
|
| However, no browser engine has bothered so far because they'd
| need to upload a separate app to the app store specifically
| for EU users, and non-EU developers cannot debug the
| application on a real device so manpower is region-restricted
| unless you hack around the limitations.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > As long as you pass Apple's arbitrary rules, you can make
| your own browser for iOS. Ladybug uses Apple's test suite
| as an arbitrary measure of completeness.
|
| The browser is called Ladybird and it isn't Apple's test
| suite, web-platform-tests is a collective effort all the
| major players contribute to. Almost two thousand people
| have contributed to it:
|
| https://github.com/web-platform-
| tests/wpt/graphs/contributor...
| thayne wrote:
| Kind of. But Apple makes it so hard to develop an engine for
| EU devices, that no browser makers are currently willing to
| do it.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| You've been able to add real web extensions to Safari on iOS
| for at least three years. Third party Ad blocking has been
| available for over a decade.
| 369548684892826 wrote:
| Safari does support ad blocking extensions.
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wipr-2/id1662217862
| EasyMark wrote:
| right, also brave and kagi and vivaldi all have blocking
| built in. Adguard and wipr work pretty well for stock safari.
| arunc wrote:
| I used Firefox focus on Android until last month. It drained the
| battery far quicker than Brave. Brave has been nice on the
| battery so far.
| bikelang wrote:
| Brave is hands down the best ad blocking experience on iOS as
| well.
| EasyMark wrote:
| kagi with ublock origin extension is just as good
| bikelang wrote:
| Orion was my daily driver on iOS/macOS for a fair bit ~8
| months ago. It wasn't the most stable and didn't block ads
| reliably in YouTube videos either. Planning to give it
| another shot next year. I certainly like the Kagi ethos
| better than Brave - the product functionality just wasn't
| there yet.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I have youtube premium so I guess I hadn't noticed. it
| seems perfectly stable and usable to me though so maybe
| you're more of a power user than me. I do most of my
| browser on a laptop to be honest
| glimshe wrote:
| I also use Brave on Android. The performance is better based on
| my use cases. I hardly see ads.
| tombert wrote:
| I think it doesn't background tabs at all. I noticed that the
| battery got considerably better if I actively always closed all
| my tabs.
| doodoowy wrote:
| Firefox focus is not real Firefox. I think it is just a
| chromium wrapper.
| EasyMark wrote:
| it uses the gecko engine, what are you talking about?
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| It's real Firefox, just not the complete Firefox browser
| (with extensions and all that) mentioned on this post.
| EasyMark wrote:
| you said it used blink/chromium engine, just correcting
| that is all.
| doodoowy wrote:
| Ah, I am way way out of date, sorry! It switched to Gecko
| back in 2018. Turns out I had tried it out a very long time
| ago.
|
| https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/whats-new-firefox-
| focus...
| 7839284023 wrote:
| I would hope that Firefox on mobile got finally better/usable.
|
| I still remember this blog post, which at the the time (late
| 2021), was 100% accurate:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230221123127/https://blog.nori...
| mmmpetrichor wrote:
| Firefox mobile was basically the only option I considered for a
| long time just because it lets you install Ublock origin . Not
| sure if other mobile browsers have that now too or not. I'm a
| firefox user on desktop anyway so I love having tab sharing
| between my phone and all my pcs. They also added a nice feature
| recently that optionally requires an additional login
| (fingerprint) to access private tabs. I have found no reason to
| switch.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| The adblock is it. Even if it would be a lot slower and worse
| than other browsers I would still use it.
|
| Who is voluntarily browsing the internet without adblock?
| comprev wrote:
| Probably 99.9% of daily users because they know no different.
| naldb wrote:
| I was curious and obviously there is no single exact source
| but it seems like ~30% of web users have an ad blocker of
| some kind. Remember that some quite popular browsers
| include a built-in ad blocker.
| 0xCMP wrote:
| Ads pay for everything and Google/Meta are making huge
| profits (minus AI spending)... so probably most people.
| agiacalone wrote:
| I teach CS at a state university, specifically computer
| security. At the beginning of this semester, I did a poll of
| my students and asked if they use any form of ad-blocking.
| Less than a third of my students did, and not many more even
| knew about browsers other than Chrome or Safari. This was out
| of a class of ~110.
|
| Granted, it's anecdotal, but if 66% of my upper-division CS
| students don't even know about Firefox and ad-blocking, than
| I seriously doubt many non-tech people do.
|
| Similarly, after that lecture, I had a student come to my
| office hours and ask for more info about ad-blockers. I had
| them open up msn.com and showed them the large banner ad on
| the page. It took a few seconds for them to even realize they
| were being advertised to! I then showed them my browser, nice
| and ad-free.
|
| I get the impression that people have gotten so used to ads
| flashing in their face that they gloss over them. But the
| damage is still done.
| la_fayette wrote:
| Although I didn't collect numbers, but I made a similar
| experience in my workplace. I assume many people are highly
| distracted by ads and work efficiency is even reduced. Even
| many software engineers seem to not be aware of ublock...
| Would be interesting to know how many students started
| using an ad blocker at the end of your lecture :)
| Exoristos wrote:
| That's not anecdotal; that's a small study.
| jowea wrote:
| It's called banner blindness. The brain ends up trained to
| do the adblocking itself.
| eth0up wrote:
| I recently figured I'd try browsing without a dedicated
| adblocker. Using NextDNS, configured with several adblockers,
| I thought it would be interesting to see how effective it
| would be alone.
|
| In approximately no time at all, I wanted to go full Amish.
| Maybe Office Space.
|
| Ublock should be protected as a religion. It is divinely
| inspired and a modern miracle. I know about false idols and
| the antichrist and all that, but I think even Jesus would
| approve. Gorhill is a Saint.
|
| Hail Saint gorhill!
| spacechild1 wrote:
| I have been using Firefox + ad blockers almost exclusively
| for almost 20 years now on all my devices. I also install
| Firefox + uBlock Origin for all my family members. I'm
| constantly suprised when I look at other people's browsers.
| How can they put up with all those ads, especially on
| YouTube? (I have uBlock disabled for a certain national
| newspaper and I'm pretty close to paying for a subscription
| instead :)
| sirfz wrote:
| I noticed google cloud console runs extremely slow (practically
| unusable) on Firefox Android while there're no issues with
| Chrome. No issues with any other site which I find strange.
| burnte wrote:
| Change your user agent string to Chrome and see if it speeds
| up. Youtube will, for example.
| db48x wrote:
| It's not strange, it's deliberate.
| internet2000 wrote:
| Safari has uBlock Origin now
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...
| nine_k wrote:
| iOS does not have real Firefox though; among other things, it
| can't run uBlock Origin.
| ojosilva wrote:
| Yeah, that's really sad and totally undermines my UX on iOS
| (my iPad particularly). On my Android phone and macOS FF is
| my go-to browser, a delightful, irreplaceable experience.
| Sometimes people are amazed by the experience when I show
| them, look, no ads. But then they go back to their phones
| and just use whatever crap they use.
|
| I was hoping that the EU directive [1] would give FF a
| chance of using their own engine, at least in the EU, but
| no word from that camp, so... I guess not.
|
| 1. https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-
| engi...
| PeakKS wrote:
| There is some activity in the mozilla bugzilla related to
| the gecko ios port, who knows when anything will be
| usable though.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| It has uBlock Origin Lite. That's the same thing Chrome on
| desktop has. It's not real uBlock Origin and far less
| powerful.
| snielson wrote:
| Ublock origin can be installed in Edge mobile.
| EasyMark wrote:
| ublock origin or ublock lite?
| pyxelr wrote:
| Both of them can be installed.
| EasyMark wrote:
| Brave offers basically the same level of ad blocking including
| on ios
| baal80spam wrote:
| Well, for me Brave is.
| mmastrac wrote:
| I've been using it for years and it is really great. I haven't
| had to open Chrome for a non-working website in quite a while.
| Adblock is really something -- you _really_ notice it if you have
| the misfortune of using a different browser.
| cubefox wrote:
| Other recommended Firefox extensions:
|
| - Dark Reader (force dark mode on websites that don't have it,
| like Hacker News)
|
| - Unhook (remove various addictive or annoying elements from
| YouTube.com)
| moelf wrote:
| missed one amazing add-on:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bypass_Paywalls_Clean
| kreativ_py wrote:
| the problem i have is i use google to manage all my passwords. i
| think i lose that if i switch to non chrome mobile
| ilogik wrote:
| I think you can import them easily
| zipping1549 wrote:
| You _should_ export them to a proper password manager.
| binarysneaker wrote:
| And what will you do if Google decides to disable your account?
|
| Bitwarden is free, has clients and browser extensions for every
| platform, and it's easy to export your passwords and import
| them. Plus it supports SSH keys.
| EasyMark wrote:
| they don't have an export function? I did that with lastpass ->
| bitwarden and it was a little bit of a hassle it wasn't too
| bad, just need to makes sure the exported cvs looked correct,
| no issues and didn't find anything wrong. I imagine it can go
| as smooth with chrome -> whatever
| LucasOe wrote:
| I wish the article would talk a bit more about security. Here's
| what the GrapheneOS project has to say about Firefox [1]:
|
| > 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.
|
| [1]: https://grapheneos.org/usage
| jeroenhd wrote:
| If you're someone who's taking GrapheneOS' thread model into
| account, a locked down native browser is definitely better.
|
| Chrome has a whole bunch of cool security tricks that
| definitely outshine many other browsers, but I find it all
| rather inconsequential when the using Chrome leads to such a
| terrible, privacy-hostile experience.
| hxorr wrote:
| Firefox android doesn't allow opening local file:// HTML files
| due to their poor sandboxing / security (I don't remember the
| specifics)
|
| I like the browsing experience a lot but there are a few rough
| edges for sure.
| bogwog wrote:
| Just serve them through any http server on termux! Works as
| you'd expect, but on FF you need to manually add the http://
| prefix in the URL bar if you navigate to an IP address like
| 127.0.0.1. Not sure why it doesn't figure that out by itself.
| lollobomb wrote:
| I use Graphene OS and I like it a lot, but 1) I have the
| feeling that, with Android's Decree coming, they are counting
| their days left to live. Unfortunately they built an amazing OS
| on very shaky foundations, it's not their fault, it's the
| mobile OS ecosystem that sucks. And 2) They (or, better, their
| benevolent dictator) tend to be very silly when it comes to
| threat modeling, as in "my way is the only one that makes
| sense". Personally, I prefer to use a browser like Firefox that
| allows me to block every annoying ads and to customize my
| experience as I want, rather than a super-secure fully isolated
| browser like Vanadium that a) does not replace Chrome anyway
| for many websites that require strong attestations (e.g. Wise's
| verification works on GOS with Chrome but not with Vanadium),
| and b) it's still based on Chromium, so still built on shaky
| Google foundations. With Mozilla's questionable choices over
| time, I keep my fingers crossed for Ladybird or Servo, or
| similar.
| xvv wrote:
| > they are counting their days left to live
|
| The Graphene team has seemingly partnered with an OEM, who is
| releasing binary security patches for them already (with
| source code available after embargo lifts). Hardware does not
| seem too far away at this point either.
| fsflover wrote:
| AFAIK they will still be using Android and Chrome.
| xvv wrote:
| Of course, but so will large OEMs like Samsung. Google is
| not going to nuke either project.
| Groxx wrote:
| by "decree" do you mean developer verification, or something
| else? because verification won't affect them (or any other
| fork) even slightly
| whatshisface wrote:
| If google is doing something as drastic as intervening in
| the installation of all apps, they're not likely to sell
| phones with unlocked bootloaders - the pixels that
| GrapheneOS currently depends on 100% - much longer.
| Sophira wrote:
| While I don't disagree that Google are going to be targetting
| GrapheneOS and other OSes, the decree you're referring to
| only applies to "certified Android devices" - devices which
| run a Google-vetted version of Android and that come with
| Google Play pre-installed. OSes like GrapheneOS are not
| _currently_ affected by this, as any device running it is not
| a "certified Android device" by definition.
|
| This is not a reason to sit idly back, of course. GrapheneOS
| _is_ in danger, as you say - it 's just not necessarily from
| this _particular_ decree.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Given the sheer amount of malware being served up by the ad
| networks, not running an ad blocker seems like a major risk
| factor.
|
| Government agencies have been recommending everyone use an ad
| blocker for years now.
| LucasOe wrote:
| There are Chromium-based apps that block ads by default, like
| Brave and Vanadium.
|
| _Edit:_ It should be mentioned however, that the blocklist
| for Vanadium is pretty small.
| roschdal wrote:
| Firefox is the best web browser
| tombert wrote:
| I don't run Android anymore, but when I did (about two years ago)
| I uninstalled Firefox because, as far as I could tell, it didn't
| properly background tabs when the app was closed. I didn't
| realize this initially, so I was unsure why my battery life was
| terrible and my phone as always hot. Being able to install
| extensions was neat, but not worth it for killing my battery.
|
| Suffice to say, I do not agree that it's the "best mobile
| browser" on Android.
| rf15 wrote:
| I'm sorry, but I don't think you understand what "the app was
| closed" means. A lot of people think that all processing goes
| to the visible foreground app, but that hasn't been true since
| the late DOS era. Please learn what's what in the system you're
| using. Clearly it was running in the background because you
| onlly had another app or the home acreen open.
| tombert wrote:
| I'm saying that when I would go back to the home screen, I
| still think it was using the same amount of power as if it
| were in the foreground. I think it was using the full amount
| of processing for each tab the entire time. This is not the
| behavior that anyone wants for any mobile app ever. I think
| the app is poorly made, or at least it was in 2023 when I
| last used it.
|
| I know that kernels are preemptive and have multiple
| processes running. Feel free to look at my post history if
| you don't believe me.
|
| Sorry I said the word "closed" when I meant "backgrounded" if
| that upsets you, but it was pretty obvious what I meant and I
| am pretty sure you knew that, so I think you're being
| needlessly pedantic.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| > This is not the behavior that anyone wants for any mobile
| app ever.
|
| [citation needed]
|
| > but it was pretty obvious what I meant
|
| It wasn't. It was possible to work the intended meaning
| out, but not without initial confusion, which is far from
| "pretty obvious".
| tombert wrote:
| > [citation needed]
|
| Come on man, do you genuinely think that anyone has ever
| wanted, on a phone, to have all their tabs running at
| full power in their pocket? I really don't think this
| "needs citation".
|
| > It wasn't. It was possible to work the intended meaning
| out, but not without initial confusion, which is far from
| "pretty obvious".
|
| It actually was pretty obvious, especially since I said
| it didn't "properly background tabs", implying that I
| think things should, you know, be _backgrounded_ , almost
| as if I know that things run in the background. Saying
| "closed" was a linguistic shorthand and while I am not
| going to conduct a broad survey I think most people on
| this particular forum actually knew what I meant
| immediately.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| It's not up to you to decide whether your communication
| happened to be obvious or not, and you are being told
| that you're wrong on this, which is enough of a proof
| that it wasn't.
|
| > do you genuinely think
|
| Yes, as guided by experiences with fighting various
| Android mechanisms to respect the will of the user and
| keep something running in the background, and using an OS
| that doesn't suspend background applications at all.
| tombert wrote:
| I think the person is being actively dishonest, as I
| think you might be too, because I think that anyone who
| frequents this forum knew what I meant.
|
| Also who says I can't determine if something is obvious?
| Hyperbolic example: If I say "my favorite color is green"
| and you say "well color doesn't mean anything and is
| seriously just a spectrum of light and how it reflects
| off surfaces and really you should learn how light works
| before making such sweeping statements", then I think
| it's reasonable to say "I obviously meant that I liked
| how this particular spectrum of light looked on my optic
| nerve and deciphered by my brain when it reflected on
| things", and I could say it's obvious to everyone, even
| people who made the comment, because everyone knew what I
| meant.
|
| I said something about tabs not being "backgrounded",
| implying backgrounding, implying things running in the
| background. Any reasonable person would conclude that I
| meant about things running in the background.
|
| And if I don't get to decide if things are "obvious" then
| you don't get to decide if you're being reasonable.
|
| > Yes, as guided by experiences with fighting various
| Android mechanisms to respect the will of the user and
| keep something running in the background, and using an OS
| that doesn't suspend background applications at all.
|
| Even if I believed this, I do not think it should be the
| default behavior for something that will spend most of
| its life in someone's pocket (by design).
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Any reasonable person would have assumed that if you
| wanted to talk about backgrounding, you wouldn't have
| used a word with a very different meaning to refer to it.
| As I said, the fact that it was _possible_ to infer the
| intended meaning does not mean it 's obvious; the
| interring process being required proves the opposite.
|
| > And if I don't get to decide if things are "obvious"
| then you don't get to decide if you're being reasonable.
|
| Of course. I might be not. But what I'm sure of is that
| I'm honest and I'm giving you a piece of information that
| may make you better at communicating in the future,
| entirely avoiding discussions like this one. Whether you
| use it to improve yourself or decide that I'm
| "unreasonable" is up to you and your ego.
|
| > I do not think it should be the default behavior for
| something that will spend most of its life in someone's
| pocket (by design)
|
| If I don't want an app to run, I close it. If I do want
| it to run in the background, I don't close it but put it
| in the background instead. If I don't want to use the
| phone at all, I suspend the whole device. This is the
| design that has worked perfectly well on my phones for
| almost two decades now and was always the default there.
| tombert wrote:
| This is getting circular. I think you're actively lying
| if you say you didn't immediately parse what I said. I
| think you knew what I meant immediately, and I think
| you're being needlessly pedantic, which is fine but I
| think you should just be upfront about that.
|
| I used a word arguably incorrectly ("closed") (though I
| would like to point out the iOS shortcuts uses that
| terminology as well), but the surrounding context about
| being backgrounded makes it very apparent.
|
| Keep in mind, the person who initially responded started
| giving me a lecture about single-tasking operating
| systems, as if I don't know that most operating systems
| are multitasking. Pretty much anyone who frequents this
| forum will know that operating systems are multitasking,
| and given that and the fact that I said "backgrounded",
| it should be immediately obvious what I meant. Neither I
| nor anyone else here needed to explain to me (or most
| other people) about multitasking operating systems. This
| is what I was initially responding to, because the person
| told me to "Please learn what's what in the system you're
| using", which is pretty douchey in general, and
| especially douchey since they're lying about not
| understanding what I meant.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| If I didn't have to ask myself the question "wait, so did
| they actually mean 'closed' or was that supposed to mean
| 'backgrounded'?" before I could parse the comment I
| wouldn't have bothered replying at all.
| BlackLotus89 wrote:
| Yeah and your experience is 2 years out of date. Especially in
| recent months the firefox for android experience got better
| exponentially. I am a tab hoarder (a few thousand open tabs)
| and 2 years ago firefox needed 15 seconds on a fresh start to
| load. It's instantanious now. Firefox for android tried to
| force "inactive" tabs down my throat (I'm sure it helps, but no
| I don't want it. You can easily disable it in the tabs settings
| btw). Tabs that didn't get used for 2 weeks get put in an
| "inactive" state. A few months ago switching to an open tab
| took a few seconds up to a minute. For a month or two it's now
| instantanious. There are way more optimizations done and I can
| often tell right away when something got better or worse.
| Suffice to say your "experience" is so much out of date it is
| not even funny. Comparing firefox 2 years ago today is a joke
| and firefox feels completely different (user interface and
| speed) and your comment only spreads FUD. Anybody reading this
| that hasn't tried firefox for android - give it a try!
| tombert wrote:
| It's not "just spreading FUD", I disclosed the timeline of
| when I used it and why I don't think it was a good app.
| Whether or not it's better now doesn't change the fact that
| two years ago they had an objectively terrible app that I had
| a terrible experience with that they still put their name on,
| and as such I am going to associate it with the experiences
| I've had. That's not weird; I can only really assess things
| based on the experiences I've had with them.
|
| I'm glad it has improved but I feel like you claiming this is
| implying dishonesty on my end, and I do not think that's
| fair.
| BlackLotus89 wrote:
| I was not claiming dishonesty and I'm sorry if it felt that
| way. My main problem is that a review of software that is
| getting updates as often as firefox that is based on 2 year
| old experience feels so wrong. I myself am no stranger to
| critizing firefox. They have done some thigns that made me
| nearly switch multiple times. But especially in recent
| times I feel that they are finally getting their act
| together (vertical tabs in firefox, performance
| optimizations, actually asking for feedback, ...) and I
| know that for me user reviews on hn are more valuable than
| random bloggers I find through $searchengine. Your comment
| is actually way more transparent than those blogs that have
| no date mapped to them or are just AI spam or whatever so
| again sorry for not giving credit where credit is due, I
| just find it unfair to write under a recent article
| experiences that are far from the present reality. (sorry
| for rambling and being kinda incoherent)
| tombert wrote:
| The fact that they released an app in such a horribly
| broken state in 2023 (with such horrible UX with behavior
| that literally no one wants their phone to have) still
| says a lot about their development process and does not
| speak well for what they think is "production ready".
| They attached their name on it, they didn't say it was
| "alpha" or "beta", and as the saying goes, you only get
| one chance at making a first impression.
|
| Again, this isn't weird, this is how everyone acts. If
| you got food poisoning at a restaurant the first time you
| went, you might not be inclined to go back to that
| restaurant even if someone tells you "I swear man, it's
| gotten better, they wash their hands now!"
|
| This isn't a rag-tag team of people working in their
| basement for fun. Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit
| company and as such it's not wrong to compare them to
| Google or Apple.
| jddj wrote:
| My mobile Firefox consistently has an infinity icon instead of
| a true count of the tabs (presumably because there are so many.
| Likely hundreds) and I notice no slowdown or battery issues
| whatsoever
| tombert wrote:
| A sibling comment says it has improved in the last couple
| years, which is entirely possible. I'm pretty sure I'm not
| wrong about it not properly backgrounding tabs in 2023.
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| Maybe the plugin ecosystem can paper over some of the
| deficiencies, but Firefox is slowly taking away user agency and
| privacy in the name of simplification / whatever Chrome does.
|
| The recent windmill against which I am tilting: Firefox no longer
| shows you the complete URL. Either in the address bar or long
| pressing a link. This is incredibly hostile to those of us with
| technical proficiency which can inspect a URL to see if it is a
| bad domain or embedding tracking information we would like to
| strip.
|
| My other long standing annoyance is that on mobile, I can no
| longer protect cookies. Always keep the cookie to say my HN
| login, but allow me to bulk delete everything else. Instead, I am
| forced to manually go through the cookie page (like 10 at a time)
| and delete everything I do not want.
| brtv wrote:
| I've been using Firefox on desktop for decades and really want to
| like it on mobile, but I just can't get used to the behavior of
| new tabs . After just a bit of browsing, it opens 10+ new tabs
| and there's no way to configure this differently. It's such a
| shame.
| miroljub wrote:
| Firefox lost its momentum a while ago.
|
| I lost trust in Firefox after Brendan Eich scandal and the way
| they treated him.
| Larrikin wrote:
| You lost trust when a guy Mozilla reluctantly hired had his
| hate for gay marriage become public knowledge?
| lordofgibbons wrote:
| Firefox mobile was unusable slow for most sites I visited and had
| rendering issues - probably not FF's fault, but webdevs only
| testing on Chrome. Brave has been very fast with all the spyware
| and ad blocking features I was looking for in FF. I just had to
| disable all the crypto stuff first.
| wiseowise wrote:
| On Android, maybe it is.
|
| Nothing beats Safari UX on iOS, nothing.
|
| You can hate the engine and lack of extensions, but Safari is the
| only thing that I can use with both hands seamlessly without
| breaking my fingers.
| anonym29 wrote:
| >Nothing beats Safari UX on iOS, nothing.
|
| Nothing except for the ads you're forced to see that mobile
| firefox users don't even know exist, thanks to the full fat
| uBlock Origin.
| wiseowise wrote:
| I use Firefox Focus as a content blocker within Safari.
| mediumsmart wrote:
| Orion to the rescue
| xvv wrote:
| There are numerous extensions for Safari in the app store
| that block ads the way uBlock does. You can also pair it with
| plain old DNS ad blocking too.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| Not exactly in the same way, as Apple nerfed adblocking a
| few years ago. Works fine for most sites, but good luck
| blocking the more aggressive methods.
| FlamingMoe wrote:
| i prefer the Brave mobile app. I previously used firefox focus,
| but I basically just made brave into a focus app by turning on
| Private Browsing Only, but can also disable the functionality
| when needed.
| dogman123 wrote:
| I'm often surprised how little people talk about the iOS Orion
| browser on here and it's ability to let you use both Firefox and
| chrome extensions. I've been using it for a while now and it's
| been great. It's a little bit buggy sometimes, but nothing that
| would make me switch.
| terminalbraid wrote:
| It is in fact Waterfox for all the same reasons less unnecessary
| Mozilla trash
| EasyMark wrote:
| without that "mozilla trash" waterfox wouldn't exist
| hagbard_c wrote:
| The browser with the best content blocking options is the best
| browser and at this moment that means Firefox ends up on top. Now
| that Mozilla is slow-walking towards doing ad-related things
| themselves I'm no longer running the branded versions but choose
| F-Droid's Fennec instead. If ever a browser with better content
| blocking shows up I'll give it a good look and might switch if it
| turns out to be at least on the same level as Firefox/Fennec.
|
| That's telling for the state of the web but alas, that's where we
| are. You give them an inch (-high banner ad) and they'll take a
| mile (-wide page-covering all-encompassing data-slurping
| javascript monstrosity).
| isodev wrote:
| I wish we could get it on iOS too. Unfortunately, Apple is still
| difficult about alternative engines. Oh well.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Orion (from Kagi) is a strong contender. It's not (yet) fully
| open-source, but Kagi has bona fides when it comes to privacy.
| Orion blocks trackers and ads by default, has no telemetry, and
| is designed to avoid sending any user data to its servers. Lower
| memory footprint and battery consumption (reportedly; citation
| needed). And it can run FF extensions.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| FWIW, I have disabled Chrome on my Android phones a whole ago and
| Firefox is the default browser - of course with uBlock origin.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah unfortunately I found it was noticeably slower and laggier
| than Chrome.
|
| Does anyone make a Blink-based mobile browser that also blocks
| ads?
| EasyMark wrote:
| edge? brave? vivaldi? dolphin?
| IshKebab wrote:
| Which one of those has the least objectionable money-making
| conceit?
| christophilus wrote:
| Brave is my favorite, though I prefer Firefox on my laptops.
| Brave mobile: excellent ad-blocking, download videos for offline
| viewing. No tinkering needed to make it excellent. It's excellent
| out of the box.
| EbNar wrote:
| I migrated from FF to Brave some 4 years ago and never looked
| back.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Mobile Firefox constantly gets bugged and stops rendering pages
| until you restart it. It also has issues with scrolling on some
| pages where it won't let you scroll sometimes. Github is
| notoriously bad, you can't read code if you can't scroll through
| the file. As a developer not being able to use Github is a deal
| breaker. The browser itself is also missing features like webgpu.
| While extentions are nice, the browser engine itself being this
| broken for years makes it a painful choice.
| neilv wrote:
| This is one time it's important to get names right.
|
| The article says simply "Ublock", but the screens show "uBlock
| Origin".
|
| "uBlock" and "uBlock Origin" are two different projects.
|
| "uBlock Origin" is the good one.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin#uBlock
| eth0up wrote:
| I am eccentric. Perhaps consequently, I am unable to understand
| how a conversation on the subject of Firefox as a mobile browser
| can exclude the inexplicable removal of about:config.
|
| Yes, Nightly.
|
| But I fear an example of incrementalism here, where it is
| brightly illustrated how the aperture into which we have the
| dongle of creeping suckage repeatedly inserted, lubricated by the
| existence (deterrent) of Chrome, continues to widen.
|
| At the rate which options are disappearing (I think of
| gnome/gtk), when we excoriate the final and last one, a
| consummate advertisement platform will have been coded into our
| DNA, where we not just watch and listen to the perpetual groping
| of avarice, but feel it existentially.
| a022311 wrote:
| Firefox for Android is missing a bunch of privacy options
| available on desktop. Right now, I'm forced to always use private
| browsing mode (sorry, I've forgotten the reason but I do remember
| that I tried again recently without it and something broke) and I
| still have no option to allow persistent cookies for specific
| domains. Other than that it's a really solid mobile browser.
| childintime wrote:
| Firefox on Android could maybe be the best, and I use it
| exclusively, but it's certainly not without its flaws:
|
| - the confusing home screen comes up all the time after i leave
| the browser, while i just want to get back to the last tab
|
| - try closing all private tabs, it then goes on to show the now
| empty list of private tabs, wtf? The point of closing the tabs
| was to get back to the regular tabs.
|
| - for all i care a private tab can just be listed next to a
| normal tab, the grouping in private tabs serves no purpose,
| except for surfacing implementation details
|
| - filtering bookmarks on tags doesn't work in any version AFAIK
|
| - but it's the only way to listen to youtube, with ublock origin
| and Youtube audio_only
| jayknight wrote:
| I have it set to open in private mode by default, and there's
| no easy way to then open that site in a new regular tab. Like
| if I get to a reddit link that I want to comment on, I have to
| copy the URL, then open a new public tab and open that URL
| (five touches). Why is there no "Open in normal tab" option?
|
| Also, if I use "Add to home screen" to be able to get to a site
| quickly, there's no way to open that in a normal tab, making it
| useless for many things.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| The killer feature of Opera Mobile is that it displays desktop
| website with desktop-sized text, and when I zoom in, it adjusts
| the width of the text, so that text is legible no matter how much
| I zoom in. Do other browsers have something like that?
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