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.
As it stands, adblocking is "post MVP"[1][2]. QR code scanning, however, is somehow part of the MVP. This doesn't make sense to me: there are many apps that launch the default system browser when scanning a URL QR code. You can easily get by without that functionality in the browser.
The comments in this post should be sending you really loud signal: technical users (the type of people who install preview software) don't consider a browser without adblocking MVP. You are drastically underestimating the significance of adblocking extensions.
[1]: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/96 [2]: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/2622 [3]: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/113
On the other hand, QR code scanning is necessary for a good Firefox Sync setup experience, and that genuinely seems crucial to the MVP: we don't want your data stranded on one device unless that's explicitly what you want.
And I don't see FP under devices in https://accounts.firefox.com/settings/clients?service=sync&c....
When it came out I considered reader mode a killer feature, and coincidentally it also tends to remove the ads. Or at least the ones not embedded in an article, which is good enough for me as long as they remain stationary.
I wont give up on Firefox anytime soon. I would love to see some serious competitors though.
Most people who care about adblocking will choose whatever browser suppoerts adblocking over anything else honestly.
It is always soft of amusing to watch companies make all kinds of unforced errors with their products because the managers feel that they know much better than the users of the product what should be important to users. They fail all the time just to have someone else come in and say "Oh, those people, they were just holding the instructions wrong" and go repeating the same mistake.
So far in this ( software + hardware space ) there has been exactly one company that nailed it. The company is called Apple and the product is called iPhone. Since that point on Apple has not introduced anything that was not a direct play on "Our users want X, we are going to give them X, maybe with a bit of a twist"
The users are telling you that the USP of Firefox is ad blocking. If your PM says it is something else, you should replace the PM. That should be your singular focus. Everything else is secondary.
> Apple has not introduced anything that was not a direct play on "Our users want X, we are going to give them X, maybe with a bit of a twist"
Unless you want plug-ins in a mobile browser or a headphone jack or ... well, too many things to list really. Apple mobile/tablet software experiences are some of the worst offenders of "We'll tell you how you should want it and if you don't agree, you're just wrong and we're right."
A usable night mode e.g. invert the topbar icons and change the white screen you see before the page loads combined with an existing dark theme would be an easy feature to implement and would put it miles ahead of other mobile browsers too. I presently have to use Swift for Samsung to overlay a proper black theme (with white icons etc), but still get bright white when loading pages.
And..where to report this sort of thing? There seem to be about 7 different rival official locations.
That's how we end up with this disgusting bloated software world we live in. Why do I need a calculator app with food delivery service?
(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 :).)
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.
This way, you can switch your acquaintances to use Firefox, and they'll stay with it by inertia. I'd say that's a win-win.
I don't think I am making myself clear. Everyone has a cultural and political profile that dictates some choices and it doesn't matter if they acknowledge it or not.
> But to be most effective, you have to recognize that most other users won't care about it that strongly, so you have to use arguments that matter to them in a practical way.
Oh, but the privacy and anti-ad argument is a strong political argument that will outlive the tech of the day.
> and they'll stay with it by inertia.
And if Mozilla pulls a google and becomes evil, that inertia is now a problem you have to overcome on other grounds than the tech.
It's an easy and short term win-win until the next HN article "ff slower than chrome in test XYZ, jump ships everyone !".
Right, but that doesn't matter an inch if you can't use it to convince people to switch to a FLOSS browser.
> It's an easy and short term win-win until the next HN article "ff slower than chrome in test XYZ, jump ships everyone !".
And then it's time to make political arguments, when they're already using Firefox, are accustomed to it and have all its configurations and workflows in this tool. This way you use the powerful force of inertia in your favor, instead of fighting it.
Firefox matters not because it's "not chromium" but because it's firefox, a non-profit dedicated to an open web.
(Note: I've been running Gecko based browsers almost since the beginning. I guess in those days it was probably easier to use a browser that isn't perfectly supported, but I'd probably do it again if it came to it. But I can recommend Firefox to whoever I want, since it works on every site except Linked In. I couldn't do that if it only worked well on one in two or three or four sites.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS
> Unlike Firefox on Android, Firefox for iOS does not support browser add-ons. Additionally, it uses Apple's Webkit rendering engine, rather than Mozilla's Gecko.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=789906
Bug opened seven years ago. It looks like the only real updates in the last year are a non-dev advocating for it.
Good to hear it's getting some attention behind the scenes. I'm a little sad the driving factor is probably just mobile. Given that it already seems to work in the mobile Firefox Preview, apparently using gecko, it gives me a little hope we may one day see this on the desktop.
I hope "collections" will come to the desktop too. Are there plans?
If I choose Voice and Assist app as Firefox instead of Google then active edge, Ok Google does not work. May be I could just try setting browser app to firefox.
Let me give this combination a try for a few days. Browser is firefox and assist app is google which as you say still renders some links in android webview.
"Assist app" settings determines which app can respond to assistant invocations (ok google, long press home, squeezing the phone...) and grants special assistant privileges to app.
Default browser is another setting :)
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)