My only complaint on mobile is that the UI for customizing settings is annoying, eg for allowing JavaScript.

But that's the fault of Firefox.

I'm always astonished how bad/slow the mobile web experience is without Ublock with JS blocked by default.

The desktop experience of clicking the drop down is not fantastic: no tooltips and no real explanation of what clicking the empty boxes does.

yeah, it's the primary reason I still use the (undeveloped) uMatrix. ublock supposedly can do the same things, but umatrix has an amazing interface that's clear and straightforward while ublock is like one of those mobile first (but also only) websites

And you have to actually click submenus to expand them, you don't just hover. And of course other menus like bookmarks open submenus when you hover, so it's a gamble every time.

I agree, ublock origin was my single most important reason to finally switch from chrome mobile to firefox mobile.

There are some quirks though, minor annoyances that every so often get introduced in updates. For example, when closing the last private browsing tab it doesn't automatically show the regular tabs any more, but instead requires three more taps. But I'm happy to ignore those for the sole reason of having fully functional ad-blocking.

Same experience here! The only problem I have is that the Android search bar seems to ignore the default Browser setting, but avoiding it (opening FF rather than using the search bar widget) is a small price to pay for avoiding ads so effectively.

You can use the launcher too. If you set the launcher to open a new tab, it'll bring the keyboard up too. This means you're one tap from searching your query in the browser.

If you have a good keyboard, you can even use DDG !bang syntax. I find this very helpful for finding what I want fast.

Another option you have is to put the firefox search widget above you google search widget in your home screen. It's a bit ridiculous that the Google search bar can't be removed, but this is second best.

I did remove the Google search bar from all my phones. An old and defunct Samsung Galaxy S2, a Sony Xperia X Compact (Android 8) and a Samsung A40 (Android 11).

Which phone / OS do you use?

Btw, to search for something I open Firefox and type in the URL bar.

That's strange I don't have any Google widgets on my home screen. Perhaps it's the Xiaomi variant of the Android UI that allows this?

I like to use newpipe app on Android for YouTube.

> you can do fun things like disable the Wake Lock API

How? Is there a hidden about:config?

I second this, if anyone knows how to configure this or has a guide it would be much appreciated!

Install the "Video Background Play Fix" add-on.

I gave it a shot on Android, but the fact that it doesn't support userscripts (Greasemonkey), it makes old.reddit.com unreadable. For some reason Chrome increases the font size for that site, whereas on Firefox I have very tiny text and constantly have to zoom in. As I mostly read reddit/hacker news on my phone I had to drop Firefox on Android :(

For reddit specifically there is more than one free-as-in-freedom app available. I use Slide, and am happy with it, but these days Infinity seems to be recommended more (never tried it myself). Both are GPL or AGPL and available from the main F-Droid repository.

Depends. If you've also blocked ads with pi-hole or the Android hosts file Firefox and Chrome get closer. Ublock on Firefox is absolutely indespensible for sites that may be actively hostile like piracy or porn, but for casual browsing the UI of Chrome is a lot better.

For example, I prefer the address bar at the top. Firefox doesn't like that, so the new tab button stays on the bottom, meaning I have a six inch stretch between where my finger was to hit the tab manager and where it has to go to open a new tab. It's full of little things like that where the only explanation that comes to mind is that Mozilla decided they couldn't do it the best way because Chrome was already doing it that way.

Fennec Fox (Firefox for Android) can be configured with controls (navbar, menus) at the top. Bottom is merely the default.

Yes that's the way I have it. Because I have it at the top there's a massive stretch between the tab manager button and the new tab button that makes me have to shift my grip on the phone.

Is it? Last time I tried, here where a bunch of sites that just didn't work.

I haven't encountered any issues since I switched almost two years ago.