About damn time, they should never have disabled it in the first place.
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Technology
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Let's just appreciate the fact that basically no other browser has this.
With chrome/ium you can't even block ads.
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Now, if only iOS would allow true Safari alternatives. 🥲
They'll soon be forced to allow sideloading, in the EU at least. Should open the doors for proper alternative browsers.
I loathe the very fact they made people call it "sideloading". It's just installing on your own terms, like it used to be the norm.
Well, it's a carry over from its early days in how it used to work. You needed to install things via USB debugger. Generally that's all sideloading ever meant, transferring information from one device to another using a generally "local" method (SD card, USB, etc). Now sideloading, on Android at least (as it retains its original meaning elsewhere), just means not from the official repository.
I just activated Windows 10 on a laptop I bought from ebay, and I was reminded that Microsoft too wants people to view its official store as the default way to obtain software.
One of my goals for this weekend is to set up a dual boot for Linux Mint, which I've never done before. I'm fully aware of its limitations, but I'm getting so tired of all this crap.
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I use FF on android for a couple months now. Solid browser and sync to desktol and add blocker are nice.
BUT: their page reloading is far too aggressive. You can't buy anything online, since once 2FA is required and you need to open your bank app, confirm, and switch back, the page reloads and the 2FA didn't get through. Tickets and such are the only reason I have still chrome installed.
This annoyed me too. I use Firefox Nightly with accessibility.blockautorefresh set in about:config, and it helps.
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why it was restricted in the first place?
Because there were enough incompatibilities to make it a hassle. But when they were sorting out the Web Manifest v3, they designed it with desktop and mobile in mind, so new extensions won't have problems.
It makes less sense since extensions actually ran on Android, e.g. via Nightly and creating your own list of exceptions. Also if you downgrade and install in an old Fennec version, extension will continue to function if you then update to the latest.
I think the move was an attempt to create a walled garden and paid store. But for whatever reason, they have now decided against it. Thank goodness.
Maybe they couldn't guarantee that the mobile version could run well with all of them? That's what I've always assumed.
The mobile version did actually run all addons up to Firefox 68. Quite well, actually! There were some issues with addons that assumed a certain part of the UI existed that wasn't present on mobile, but those have become irrelevant since Firefox dropped the old XUL addons.
Then they rewrote the entire browser, with only a few functioning addons on a whitelist, and did basically nothing for addon support for four years. I think they added two or three addons to the standard whitelist over the years, but that's it. The rewrite also introduced some silly bugs (still can't paste an IPv6 URL into the address bar to visit it, no https://[2000:1234:4566::]/ for you unless you click on a link to it) but development seems to have mostly been focused on themes and design from what I can tell.
I know there was the whole XUL-to-webextension thing going on around that time, but I never found out why the rewrite restricted users so much. The rewrite also included the change to make about:config available only on unstable (beta/nightly) versions. You can install other addons on Firefox (you create a collection on addons.mozilla.org, open the secret settings in the beta, and point the browser at your own whitelist) and most of them work quite well, actually.
Because the addons themselves mostly worked, I always assumed they stopped caring about addons. People would riot if they removed uBlock Origin so there are a few addons in there, but I thought they killed the concept on mobile.
Which I think is kinda weird decision since they could've just hidden a setting that unlocks all addons in the options. But maybe they were so incompatible at the time that it wasn't worth the headache.
If you use Beta or Nightly, you can turn on dev tools and use a custom addon list from a collection in your user account. https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extension-support-in-firefox-for-android-nightly/
There is a hidden way to activate more extensions and most - if not the vast majority - extensions work fine.
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For those who don't know yet: Firefox Nightly for Android let you install any extension you desire.
You just need to create a custom collection on the web site and link your ID in nightly.
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Can we have tabs when using a tablet please?
And why not phones too if the user prefers it that way. Can we have our user preferences back please?
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great, now waiting for them to finally fix the supremely janky tab behavior.
Nice. What I need now is the ability to group tabs together
Have you tried sidebery? When I found tree layout for tabs to be a thing I haven't looked back.
Thank you! I am going to install it right now on my desktop PC. I was referring to the android version btw 😂
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My goodness that's awesome. I never understood why they locked it down in the first place about a year ago. What changed?
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Installed firefox yesterday. Nothing really changed or improved. Uninstalled firefox.
It's 3 clicks to install AdBlock on Firefox mobile and that alone instantly makes it superior to Chrome.
What is the main reason you (presumably) use Chrome over Firefox? People here might be able to help you solve the problem.
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Literally was just telling my partner how much better browsing is since switching to Firefox on android. The ability to install extensions period is a huge upgrade, but also there are several available that are fantastic and not features available on chrome. Not sure what you mean about needing extensions to match chrome features. In fact, none of the extensions I've installed are features present in chrome. Plus I can block ads and trackers, activate dark mode everywhere, and use YouTube for audio with my screen off. I am kicking myself for being lazy. On top of giving Google personal data for no reason, I've had a worse browsing experience for years.
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It's funny how some people are willing to use weird android mods that can't run half of the apps to protect their privacy while others can't even wait 0.01s longer for a page to load.
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Yesssss
It's about damn time
This is great.
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