The final push to start using Firefox over Chrome on Android might finally be thanks to the enormous selection of add-ons (Firefox’s version of extensions) coming out next month. Chrome doesn’t offer native support for extensions in its mobile app. Also, better security.
I would use Firefox on Android but I’m waiting until the security is on par with Chromium such as having internal sandboxing and site isolation.
Also since Firefox doesn’t have a WebView implementation, it has to be used with the Chromium based one so it doesn’t make sense for me to use two browser engines.
I made a similar comment on this article in !technology - for anyone who is blindly downvoting thinking this is some Google psyop, this is the explanation from GrapheneOS (who fortunately provide their own de-googled chromium-based browser Vanadium):
Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they’re currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn’t have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one. Firefox / Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS hardening work for apps. Worst of all, Firefox does not have internal sandboxing on Android. This is despite the fact that Chromium semantic sandbox layer on Android is implemented via the OS isolatedProcess feature, which is a very easy to use boolean property for app service processes to provide strong isolation with only the ability to communicate with the app running them via the standard service API. Even in the desktop version, Firefox’s sandbox is still substantially weaker (especially on Linux) and lacks full support for isolating sites from each other rather than only containing content as a whole. The sandbox has been gradually improving on the desktop but it isn’t happening for their Android browser yet.
Because Firefox for Android was slow as molasses… People keep complaining about the kissing extensions but Firefox was hella slow on android and the new Browser was drastically better. The only way to compete with Chrome was a rewrite. They still enabled individual extensions, the most popular. I, for one, am glad they took this route. We’re much better off today.
IF FF ever implement support for tabs on tablets I might consider using it.
I only use phone and tablet and to use a glorified phone app on a tablet is not a great experience. Almost every other browser in existence supports tags for larger screens.
Until FF fixes this it doesn’t matter how many extensions they allow in the browser I’m out.
If treestyletabs worked on mobile that would work great. Just make the tabs bigger. Then again I think the UI is totally different on mobile so I feel the pain.
I have been using firefox on a phone since 2014 at least. I particularly like I can just go “send this tab to my PC” and it’ll just be there without bothering with bookmarks, note apps, emails to myself or such.
I once had a text file on a VPS I would ssh on my phone to and paste links into. Blah.
Completely agree. The tablet experience licks balls.
Tabs are needed, and god knows what it thinks its doing when you tell it to load the desktop version of a site. Apparently it thinks I clicked a button saying “embeggen all elements and waste screen space pls”…
Can I log in to my Google account in the browser and have it sync all of my stuff with my account though? Bookmarks, visited pages, etc etc.
That’s the thing that makes it hard to switch to something else on PC too, I need my Google account integration, and other browsers just don’t seem to support it :-(
I’d absolutely love up switch back to Firefox, it was my browser of choice before Chrome was released, but I do absolutely want to keep all my Google account integrations at this point.
As a person who had a Google account for over 15 years… With all the stories of Google locking accounts, I’d recommend exploring a backup. It’s been my thing all year.
There are stories of people who use their gmail for everything. Then they got their account locked and suddenly couldn’t pay bills, see their baby pictures, reset passwords on other sites. And Google doesn’t really have customer service so it was locked for weeks.
Page on Firefox with unlock: 6 sentence news article.
Same page on chrome: video in the corner, popup blocking 30% of the screen, flashing ads every second sentence, halfway through there’s another popup asking you to log in.
I use Firefox on Android exclusively. Having ublock for youtube on my phone is great… But since updating to Android 13 watching full-screen video in FF has been an issue. Usually it requires that I restart the app to work.
Does anyone else have the problem that scrolling on a page becomes kinda laggy when there are more than usual elements on a webpage? For example, some website for streaming series. As soon as I scroll down where a lot of small buttons with episode numbers on them are rendered, Firefox on Android becomes noticeably laggy for me.
Other than that I really like it but that little problem annoys the hell out of me.
I tried it. It appears to be an optimization issue. Firefox struggles a bit for some reason but not Chrome. Probably can be reported on the fenix repo for Firefox.
Yes it does lag much more than chrome, even on S23U. Even with noscript enabled, actually. I am trying to get used to it for the last few weeks cause goddam noscript makes internet a better place.
Chromium based browsers on Android always have been more snappy than FF. That said I have primarily used FF for around a year and it is alright. Whenever something does not behave well, I use Vivaldi.
I do see a difference between Firefox on a Pixel 4a and Safari on an iPhone 13. The iPhone loads a webpage in less than a second whereas Firefox needs 2-4 seconds for the same webpage. I still use Firefox though as it is better in every other aspect.
Im currently using a stock S9+ snapdragon (why its still stock -_-). I do have most google stuff disabled and pretty much all my apps aside from android and webview (which fulgris relies on) are from fdroid or ffupdater. It could be the standard A10 shenaigans, but it’s not something i’ve been hitting on webview and chrome based browsers
No lol. If an s9+ is considered under powered for Firefox, Then Firefox has to be one of the worst web engines I’ve ever used, including Internet Explorer.
keep in mind as I said, webview and chromium browsers are fine. I’ve even used desktop browsers on this phone without an issue thanks to termux. There is absolutely zero chance my phone is underpowered.
I have issues with it. Some pages and apps don’t work well on Firefox. Rendering is off : alignments, some apps don’t even work. I will be switching away.
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