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Cool! So many useful extensions that I couldn’t use on android.
Mobile FF is already awesome with UBlock Origin and YT background playback extensions. I wish to install an auto redirect extension. (Twitter to Nitter) I know it is doable on beta w/ extensions etc. but I want to see them on normal Firefox.
You can install tamper monkey and use a userscript to redirect. That’s what I do.
That’s nice, maybe they can finally re-enable about:config in the damn thing too. They removed it from mobile Firefox years ago and the lack of it aggravates the hell out of me.
It’s available in nightly (and I think dev) builds
If you don’t want to use the potentially unstable Nightly, Dev or Beta, you can use Fennec (stable builds with dev features).
probably in normal Firefox too, it’s just hidden in all of them
Fennec still supports it, just as it supports add-ons from the official Mozilla store. Don’t see any reason why I should go back to the official app.
Fennec is awesome. I’m never going back to anything else.
Yup. Unless they break anything, which I can’t really imagine at this point.
Is there an easy way to migrate from the official app to Fennec? Keeping accounts, extensions and settings?
If you have enabled the sync feature in Firefox, it seamlessly works with Fennec; as does the integration between Fennec and Firefox Desktop. Simply log on with your Firefox account in Fennec, and you won’t even feel the difference.
How do I make use of this? I can’t see a way to install them on my Fennec from F Droid
You have to add a custom addons collection. That’s how.
I haven’t gotten around making them and using them, and it seems every guide online is vastly out of date
Doesn’t it already support them ?
edit: yes it already supports them, but it seems that now there will be more focus on mobile
edit2: also they forgot about kiwi, but then it’s not a major browser (and is it still maintained ?). still would’ve been cool if they corrected this
Yeah, kiwi is still supported and got an UI update a month ago. But it’s chromium based if remember correctly.
it also whitelists ad blockers from working on some, presumably “partnered”, websites.
What? You just install the uBlock Origin extension. Are you saying it overrides domain and element blocks from uBlock?
It’s open source so if you could point to the code that does it, that would be great: https://github.com/kiwibrowser/src
Didn’t know that. I also got some kind of shady vibes from Kiwi, but never run into any issues with it. Firefox was causing all kinds of problems with pages failing to load so I bailed, but would be glad to return if they fix the bugs and add full extension support.
Firefox does?
Kiwi does, not firefox
oh I didn’t know, pretty cool
at least both chromium and Firefox get a version with add ons
Nightly versions and Fennec.
Mull too
This article was weird for me also I have all my extension already installed like bitwarden for passwords and all kind of adblockers and scriptblockers
Everyone forgets Kiwi Browser :(
Have been using it for years.
Kiwi is a mobile only browser if I’m not mistaken. This article is about DESKTOP extensions working on mobile. Firefox already supported a limited set of (mobile) extensions for a while.
Edit. Sorry. I stand corrected. Might try kiwi even.
Well yes, Kiwi supports Chromium extensions, it’s the same concept
No, no, no! It was supporting all the desktop extensions. For years. Until the damn buggy rewrite for no good reason. And then we were suddenly left with like 5 of them.
For a year after that I was still running the last stable release. But unfortunately the web evolves too fast.
“no good reason”
spoken like someone who has never tried to use that browser. it definitely supported addons, but tried to implement 2015 features to run on 2002-tier hardware
It still does, experimentally, if you enable developer settings, rather unintuitively through a Firefox Add-Ons account. Developer settings are not available in the official release but the Nightly builds as well as some forks, like 🦊Fennec, include them. Of course the addon settings often look out of place on a small screen and things like uBlock’s Block Element picker do not work as intended.
fennec is just the code name for the rewrite, hence the fdroid built-from-source name
theres a limited number of available addons in fennec unless you go through hoops (used to be you could make a ‘collection’ dunno if thats still the dumbass-workaround-of-choice for the dumbass devs)
Well, the bizarre collection workaround is present in Beta and Nightly releases as well, and is intentionally well hidden. It also allows installing/uninstalling extensions quickly when testing on multiple devices, or sharing extension collections with testers. It is indeed needlessly convoluted for users but I would not describe the workaround as dumbass if it works well for the intended audience. You are correct, plenty of Firefox’s advantages can only be achieved by modifying the settings from defaults, often through developers’ hacky about:config keys. Mozilla thinks that mass adoption and their financial security is only possible if they make a noob-friendly browser with a few big buttons and Google search so tech-savvy people need to jump through hoops (profile importing etc.) to quickly set up the browser to their liking.
Its dumbass because if the addons work on mobile, let people use them. Instead they said “you can use these 5 addons, and you can use any addon you please if you jump through our hoops, like setting compact mode to enabled in about:config because we want to gather usage data that shows nobody misses compact mode”.
I’m *genuinely *shocked the folks at mozilla are even bothering to finish addon support.
Like don’t get me wrong, i love firefox and I support them in general, but holy shit is firefox gunning for its current userbase in an attempt to synthesize users that may or may not exist. And I think the way they manage these contentious choices is poor at best. Where the scale is from how-signal-removed-sms to the-windows-11-taskbar, they get 138.2.
At least with firefox beta, you can create your own collection of extensions and use those. That’s what I do and I can install any extension.
More here: https://www.androidpolice.com/install-add-on-extension-mozilla-firefox-android/
I have it on Firefox Nightly with the dev stuff. It’s pretty great tbh
Not all extensions appear to be compatible at the moment. I know if I add a couple of my favorite desktop extensions to my collection that it breaks.
Hmm… interesting. I’m able to use ublock and two extensions for fanfiction. That’s interesting that it just breaks for you.
Maybe you’re lucky with your extensions of choice.
I’m not saying all extensions I tried adding broke the collection - only a couple did; the other extensions worked as expected.
Yeah I suppose so. I have a BUNCH of extension on my desktop Firefox, but I don’t need much on my mobile version tbh. Especially since I have a few extensions that work for websites that already have apps (like I have sponsorblock and pockettube for YouTube but there’s no point in installing them on my mobile FF since I have the YouTube app so…).
I actively don’t use the YouTube app.
No adblocker, sponsorblock, or return the dislike button.
I also don’t use the app for a website if the mobile website is good enough. Less software on my phone, so a reduced amount of storage used on apps, fewer updates, hopefully reduced CPU and battery consumption, fewer security issues, reduced data collection, and my phone is just a little cleaner to use. Everyone has their own preference, this is just mine :)
They already support uBlock origin and that’s all I need.
Dark Reader too
Whoa 🤯. Never realized this somehow. That’s awesome. No ads on mobile.
On iOS or just Android?
Oh on Android for me.
Didn’t their pre-version 79 app already support extensions?
I don’t know about pre-79, but their current version supports a very, very limited selection of extensions, many of which are to specifically improve the mobile version of Firefox. Currently, only a total of 22 extensions are supported, many of which share the same purposes.
I mean, ad blocking is like 95% of the reason why I want extensions.
And the other 5% is blocking all those stupid consent popups.
They actually have at least four adblockers available in mobile Firefox on Android: uBlock Origin, AdGuard AdBlocker, Ghostery, and AdNauseum.
I’m not sure about the exact version but I distinctly remember there being a version that allowed more extensions, and then they killed that capability with a major revamp and we’ve been stuck for like 3 years with limited add-on support since.
yeah I’m actually disappointed when they stop doing that
Is still does, experimentally, if you enable developer settings, rather unintuitively through a Firefox Add-Ons account. Developer settings are not available in the official release but the Nightly builds as well as some forks, like 🦊Fennec, include them.
Yes. It did.
They’re finally starting to recover from that crappy firefox 79 update 😮💨
But didn’t it used to support desktop extensions on mobile before the redesign about 3 years ago? Also, hasn’t Kiwi had extensions for like 6 years?
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That was definitely the most infuriating thing they’d done with the mobile browser. The whole project started decades ago with a simple plan: make the most bare-bones browser, and let people customize it with any extensions they wanted. Then all of a sudden, it turned into having <10 approved extensions, and fuck your customization.
It’s gotten much better over time since then, but damn if there weren’t a few really bad years.
I think they went evil because letting google pay 80% of your bills isn’t really tenable… but some incredibly boneheaded decisions. Instead of offering their own suite of privacy focused products they tried to cram pocket down everyone’s throats.
I love Firefox but they have made some crushingly bad calls over the years.
It does make me suspect that when Google first funded them, the real handshake had little to do with using them as their default search engine, and instead had to do with cutting back on their focus on privacy to pursue literally anything else. But that’s just a conspiracy theory of mine.
Google funds Firefox so that it serves as a controlled opposition and to avoid antitrust action. However, most of the stupid decisions by Mozilla are self-inflicted by top management who are more focused on being an NGO than a tech company.
I like these types of conspiracy theories
you still can get them, they are just hidden
Lol what? I remember using Kiwi browser like 7 years ago and it had extension support…
I use kiwi browser now. It’s still there and getting updates.
So did Dolphin…
So did Firefox, oddly enough
Wow I haven’t seen this name for a long time
It supported desktop extensions before, then they got rid of that and now they’re going to do it again?
Kiwi broswer already does it, same with the Orion browser for iOS
That’s why the article itself adds the “major browser” qualification.
Just when Google thought it could kill adblocking…
Well as far as adblocking goes, mobile FireFox already supports uBlock Origin.
Holy Fuck. Call me Ramsay, Finally some delicious fucking tech. the separation gap between mobile and pc has been going on for far too long. anything to help merge the pair. yes. all the yes.
