This, I have been a long time FF on Android user, mostly due to the ability to run add-ons (ublock etc). Latest update complete botched it. Couple of hnags/restarts every day, jittery UI, unintuitive button placement (e.g. new tab)...

I want to use Firefox (or any decent browser not based on chrome), for several reasons, but this way it gets harder and harder to justify to myself.

What alternatives do we have for non-chromium browsers that have a healthy plugin ecosystem?

>What alternatives do we have for non-chromium browsers that have a healthy plugin ecosystem?

The obvious answer is: none. It always was Chrome or Firefox, everything else was so niche that 'healthy plugin ecosystem' is out of reach. And this very likely won't change for the better, pretty much everyone I know ditched Firefox in favor of chrome by now. We all want to love firefox, but at this point, staying invested seems like a waste of energy.

You're not wrong, but I also feel it's important we do something (anything) other than give up and use Chrome. Rock & hard place.

The situation is weird. I want to give them some money but there is absolutely no way to support firefox development.

A long time ago firefox(program) started asking for donations. I've donated 5$(I was a poor student in Poland[1]). After the donation, I found out that money will not be used for FF development (why firefox page did not mention that?). Long story short it was my last donation to them.

[1] Now I'm not a student ;)

A lot of users struggle with this. Mozilla needs to diversify it's revenue stream, but the options available to them are only tangentially related to Firefox. Basically, (1) the VPN service they are spinning up and (2) Pocket. I opted to pay monthly fees for the full version of Pocket. But what I really want is to pay a monthly fee to support development of Firefox core + extensions.

It's way too early to tell, but it seems like in the long run of history, they could plausibly become most well-known for creating Rust, and mostly forgotten for everything else they've done. Based on adoption trends from huge organizations and projects, we might very well see Rust (or a "Rust++" type analog) powering a lot of key software in 20 or 30 years from now, and who knows, maybe even a lot longer than that. (Maybe a lot shorter, too, but I'm just thinking about hypotheticals.)

I know it's probably not practical to monetize an open source programming language, and they don't centrally manage it, but that seems to be their big differentiator and contribution to the software world as of 2020, as far as I can tell. They were pioneering back when they were driving a lot of the evolution of browsers and web APIs, and providing a way less awful alternative to IE, but by 2020 Google's basically upstaged them in all those areas, and I don't see that trend ever reversing at this point. But Rust might live on in a big or huge way, possibly even long past their solvency as an organization.

So I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say with this post, and I don't know how it could help them financially, but maybe leaning into Rust or other similar very ambitious attempts at fundamentally shifting the software ecosystem could let them remain if not successful, at least relevant and acclaimed. Maybe Servo could've been one of those, but it seems like vaporware at this point (besides the parts Firefox cannibalized, like Stylo).

Mozilla could create a fundraiser were you vote on features with your money. That could work relatively well, I think.

"Nobody pays for a browser", they say. Well, they might pay to see some features in!

Well, I just found out that Midori has an Android port [1]. It runs quite well! Though I'll probably go on using fennec for the foreseable future.

[1] https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/org.midorinext.android/

The latest Android Firefox update also disabled several of the addons I was using, as apparently they are now incompatible until the addon developers do some extra work to fix whatever backward incompatibility Mozilla introduced with the latest version.

I had the same issue - I think it was dark reader that stopped working.

New FF also feels significantly slower. Can't really put my finger on anything specific but it is no longer fluid.

Even Edge is now chromium based, I think it's a lost battle.

I've noticed the opposite. New FF flies for me on the websites I use, such as HN and Stack Overflow. What sites is it slow for you?

Note also that many of the redesigned plugins will be slower than their older, mature counterparts. Give the plugin authors some time to optimize their plugins, and try to cull the amount of plugins you currently use. I've using only Adblock Plus, Tree Style Tab, and Tridactyl.

It's faster to me once loaded. What sucks for me is that I switch between apps constantly. When I reopen firefox, it takes about 20 or 30 seconds for the app to load.

What phone do you have? This certainly isn't expected and we'd really like to get to the bottom of it. Any chance you could file an issue on github?

Sorry, I can't risk this account getting associated with my real name.

It's a Nokia 6.1. I've got a lot of apps running, so my guess is that memory exhaustion is causing the app to completely close when switching away. The whole app and previous page then needs to be reloaded when I reopen the app. I think it's the previous page reloading is causing the biggest part of the delay.

What's annoying is that even if I try to switch to another site, it still waits for the previous page to load. I'd like to easily cancel the reload so that I can go to a separate page quickly.

Looks like this may have already been fixed with an update. Thank you so much!! This app is a godsend.

It still works fine on iOS, but that's probably because underneath every browser is Safari. People complain about Apple's draconian choices, but the end result is mostly good for consumers. If people don't like it, there's Android and Tizen.

I'm confused, how is that a good outcome, being limited to re-skinning Safari?

If anything is being “reskinned” it is Webkit, the rendering engine, not Safari the browser. Webkit is by far superior choice on anything macOS/iOS related because of performance and energy use.

Try the very latest release (81). I wrote earlier[0] that FF79 was too slow to start, buggy on tab switches, and missing most recent sites on the new tab. That's all been fixed as of FF81 as far as I can see.

I also really like the new swipe-url-to-switch-tabs feature =D

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24280554

The last update seems to have added yet another unnecessary click to access a pinned site (whatever it's called).

It used to be "click on the url bar -> click big site preview", now it's "click on the tab counter -> click the plus icon -> click to dismiss some overlay -> click small site icon".

Thanks Mozilla, I hate it.

Yeah, it's not great. But you can get to "new tab" by longpressing the tab counter thingy. Yep, I noticed it by accident.

Ha, not bad, it puts the action where you finger is already on the screen and it removes on step (the url/search overlay).

Thanks !

Same think with sharing button, also added a significant delay to the sharing menu for good measure.

Then try it on a tablet, and go "What is this BS?" and start using Chrome, despite the fact that there is no NoScript, about:config, etc.

Oh wait, no, just NoScript, because about:config doesn't work in Firefox for Android anymore.

About:config works just fine on my Android phone with Firefox 81.1.1-beta5. What seems to be the problem?

about:config was not working on my Android phone, 80.1.3. Ran the latest update to 81.1.1, still not working. Guess it might be in the next release?

It is only enabled on Nightly and Beta.

Why is that? about:config is something I use all the time.

Because huge chunks of are broken in the new browser engine, and could leave your browser in an unrecoverable state.

(I work on GeckoView at Mozilla.)

about:config prefs are not "broken," but many of them work much differently in GeckoView than they work in desktop.

Setting some prefs to the wrong value could completely disconnect Gecko from the embedding app.

I guess we just have different definitions of what "broken" means, since disconnecting Gecko sounds fairly broken to me. :)

Just updated and you are correct, 81 feels much snappier!

Yes, the latest update is rather horrible. Regular things take way more taps than before, some useful capabilities are gone (like NOT asking to save passwords in incognito mode!). I hope they are listening to feedback. I stalwartly use it still, but miss the previous version very much.

I don't see this, how is it a mess exactly?

On the parent issue, Firefox on mobile is great because of the same reason Firefox on Desktop is great. Power over your browser. Which is important since browser exploits are using Javascript to compromise phones.

Of course regular people don't know this and will probably never care. But it's the reason Firefox probably won't die. Because the people who know tech know its strength and will want to use it.

It's shameful for a CEO to get a 400% pay increase, regardless of any other circumstances. But it matters less to me because I'm sure Firefox will always attract enthusiasts who care about their online security.

> Of course regular people don't know this and will probably never care.

except if firefox wills it, they could have an advertising campaign to show regular people that firefox can block ads (the irony!), and is a much better browser experience when paired with all the plugins!

But of course, this threatens the tenuous relationship with google, their major source of revenue. Google keeps firefox alive on a shoestring budget to stop the anti-trust happenings that microsoft went through with Internet Explorer.

So the status quo fits just fine for these parties, and the web browser competition gets worse over time.

Some important features such as about:config access has been neutered in the latest firefox mobile. The ability to fully customize the browser is an important feature for the enthusiast folks you mentioned, so by removing access to about:config they effectively alienate their most important and vocal users.

I have to agree with you, and it makes me sad every day. The entire UX is down the drain for me. Even something that always worked like a charm - URL address bar completion - is now broken. I used to type a 'g' and boom it would suggest Github Participating Notifications as first in line. No longer.. now I consistently see other sites, some of which I only visited once. Now part of browsing is dilligent URL address bar data-entry.

I can't even figure out which is the correct one to install. Google's Play store has at least 4 versions:

* Firefox Browser

* Firefox Focus

* Firefox for Android Beta

* Firefox Nightly

Can anybody tell me what I'm supposed to install?

First one is the main browser.

Second is Firefox where all the privacy settings are on and the browser keeps no history.

Other two are for people looking to test new features.

I have it updated and works flawless

This was not a useful comment. How is it a mess? What changed?

Something I just noticed (in addition to the complaints of other users which I also share):

Javascript bookmarklets no longer work.