Prepare your Firefox desktop extension for the upcoming Android release
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/08/10/prepare-your-firefox-desktop-extension-for-the-upcoming-android-release/Open linkView original on lemmy.ml1095
Comments144https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/08/10/prepare-your-firefox-desktop-extension-for-the-upcoming-android-release/Open linkView original on lemmy.ml
Niceee, Firefox Android needs more attention. It's such an underrated browser. It's non chromium, search bar on bottom by default, uBlock Origin, https-only mode, cookie banner reduction (soon), the best reader mode of all browsers, and addon support.
For me it's the ability to install extensions. I can't browser without the dark reader extension. If I look at bright screens for long time, I get a headache and won't get sleep
Wish it were as easy to use as Samsung Internet browser dark mode. You can enable/disable with just 2 taps: settings > enable/disable.
I don't even have to do that. Dark Reader on Firefox is synced to my system settings. So my dark mode is set to a timer, which automatically turns it on, including Dark Reader.
Also Samsung Internet buttons & layout can be customised, you can have the search bar on top or bottom and most importantly? There is a "tap to go up" feature. It's one feature I sorely miss switching from IPhone :(
Cookie banner reduction already exists usint uBlock. You just need to enable some additional lists
uBlock settings > filter list > annoyance > AdGuard/uBO - Cookie Notices
Wow. I've used ublock for so many years and never ever knew that existed.
Oh yeah I went crazy and enabled all the annoyance filters, including every other filter lol. Browsers will never be able to keep up with the uBlock Origin extension. It's probably the single most privacy preserving software out there.
I also used this list as a custom adlist to bypass seemingly all paywalls
Saving this one, thanks!
I really did not like the search bar at the bottom. Thankfully, you can move it back up!
I found it unexpectedly appealing on the bottom, but good to know you can move it up! Extra point for Firefox.
Can I log in to my Google account though, in the actual browser? Firefox is fantastic,l and those features are amazing, but I keep all my browsing, bookmarks, and so on in one place, my Google account.
I need to be able to look something up on my pc or tablet etc which all run chrome, and be able to find that quickly on my phone by typing into the address bar, etc.
I don't usually care much about integrations but this one is too convenient to give up.
And I suppose, thinking about it, it would have to support multiple profiles too, because I have my personal Google account profile in Chrome, then my work Google profile, etc. Different sets of bookmarks and settings and so on for the different needs.
Firefox has its own syncing system via a Firefox account that'll sync your bookmarks, open tabs, history, logins, etc..
Firefox on desktop does support multiple profiles, but they are nowhere near as convenient as Chrome's which is just a few clicks.
No, you won't get Google profile sync built into Firefox. They have their own Firefox profile sync.
That's the reason why I use Firefox on Android.
That's the reason why I might start to use FF again (tbh at this point I don't see why to use anything else).
I am using Firefox as well and I don't think I'd go back to Chrome, but I wish it supported progressive web apps a bit better!
Is there even an adblocker for chrome on mobile?
Not for chrome, but there are forks that have adblocking capabilities.
Kiwi is a browser that lets you install extensions, so you can install an ad blocker
Or Brave, that includes it as a browser feature. But Brave has had many weird features and taken many weird decisions, so people recommend just moving to Firefox
@Camilo @kratoz29 I don't think Firefox is any worse at progressive enhancement than chrome, most developers don't even consider it so perhaps chrome is better at running poor code than Firefox, but that is not a good reason to use it, just encourages poor coders and coding
They said PWA. Chrome and Chrome like browsers can install pwa as native apps, aka webapks on your android. Firefox can only add a shortcut where sites can run full screen.
Well, on a second thought I guess they don't have much tabs control, so that is a bit of a bummer.
Fr. Chrome on android is much more stable in my experience. But Firefox still wins due to adblock + sweet sweet dark mode.
Glad I made the switch back to FireFox a year or two ago. As a Dev, I was entrenched in Chrome and it wasn't an easy move but with the path Google are currently treading around ad serving, blocking the ad blocks etc. I feel I made the right choice.....
I use Firefox on Android and it's great. Ad blocking is the big one but it's just a good browser. I deleted the Twitter and Reddit apps recently and Firefox lets me bookmark the sites on the launcher so it's like a separate "app" but not taking up 100s MB of space and I can block ads on these sites. I'm hoping that I'll be to use the Twitter desktop extension that prunes even more junk out of the experience - recommendations, what's trending and other clickbait garbage
Do you have anything installed to make them stop bugging you about using their awful apps?
I think the ublock annoyances list should help with those.
Are you a developer? If not then the only thing you need to know is that Mozilla is essentially announcing enabling desktop extensions to be able to work on mobile
Oh cookies auto delete here I come
Sick! I just switched to Firefox nightly so I can use ublacklist on mobile.
I've used Firefox Nightly for ages, and admittedly, it sometimes lets a crashing bug through. But it was worth it for stuff like old.reddit redirect on tablet, lol. I just don't want the stupid "USE OUR APP" banners while searching.
That's awesome. I wish I knew about that years ago.
What's that?
It's an extension that allows you to blacklist certain websites from appearing in search results. So if you wanna prevent for instance facebook links from showing up in search results, uBlacklist can make that possible.
Oh good, now I can do an image search without completely useless Pinterest results
And it's available on Firefox mobile (soon) and it's freaking amazing on mobile.
Ah thanks.
So how have we gotten mobile extensions over the last year? Were those pre-selected by Mozilla, perhaps?
Oh, finally!
They were only disabled... five? years ago?
Firefox Mobile supported add-ons for many years, but due to having to change some things under the hood a few years ago, add-ons got restricted a bit (though you could still use them).
They're basically announcing they finally fixed the issue and they're coming back.
More than just a bit, they only approved a few at all as far as I could tell fron the years of using the browser but yea.
They don't spell this out, but my interpretation is that extension devs will be able to publish extensions for use on Android, without Mozilla explicitly approving each one of them.
Many desktop extensions work as-is on Android, so when this goes live, we'll likely see dozens, if not hundreds, of extensions becoming available in the following weeks.
Reads like they are finally returning to full addon support. I've been using Firefox for Android long enough to remember that, before the grand redesign, they supported all addons and let you access about:config.
Back then, I was using uMatrix on FfA, now I am forced to use NoScript, which is more fickle to use and less stable.
Finally. You've been able to use desktop addons this whole time, but you have to do a whole runaround:
Yeah, and it only worked on some add-ons, for some reason.
Fortunately IceRaven supports pretty much all extensions. Only few of them actually work however.
Hopefully it won't break too many forks.
Woah thatโs awesome. So ublock origin on android Firefox? Freaking nice!
uBlock on Firefox mobile has been out for a while now
From the beginning. Even when Firefox had to restrict the mobile add-ons a few years ago, uBlock was one of the few that remained.
uBlock, Dark Reader, Privacy Badger, ClearURLs, DecentralEyes. They have all been there the whole time
Even tapermonkey!
Or violentmonkey for a FOSS tampermonkey compatible alternative.
Huh, I thought it was FOSS... I'll check that out.
I can't get any tamper monkey scripts to actually work except for YouTube scripts.
Had to use the nightly build version, thoughI suck and I've been off platform too longIt's the thing I miss most after intentionally going to 'that other platform' for dev reasons, though Brave Browser is a decent stand-in for FF+uBlock on this side of the walled garden.
uBlock has been available on stable for a long time now.
Really!? Well, shit, I hate life more, then.
What is new, it seems, is the general availability of a lot more extensions. Right now it's just a handful of curated ones. You can't just go to addons and expect to install anything at the moment.
That said... RES on mobile? I'm intrigued to find out how well that works.
You can find out right now. I've been using it along with old.reddit redirect for years on mobile.
The truth is Firefox mobile has been able to run desktop add-ons this whole time. All that happened was they had to restrict availability of add-ons from the addon store to only the handful that they had verified work without issues. All the other add-ons could still work if they were maintained, but Mozilla couldn't guarantee they'd work yet, so they wouldn't let you install them directly like the other add-ons.
But if you used Firefox Nightly, there was a built in work around that would let you use any desktop addon on mobile. Some don't work, some do. Old.reddit redirect and RES both work.
It just seems like now they've decided that they've done enough work on this to open it back up.
Yeah, that's where nightly was when I still had it, with only a few, if important, extensions available.
But RES and old.reddit were no-go and made me sad. At least I had RIF (RIP IN PEACE).
Either way, glad to see it's getting wider support for all. I wish it worked that way in fruitymobileland, but at least there is a browser (Orion) that actually supports both FF and Chrome extensions that tries to make up for things.
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/1be51ad3-b406-41a2-89f9-e03c17d06070.jpeg
It's really sad after all these years people still don't know about the addon work around.
You could have been using desktop add-ons on mobile this whole time. It wasn't a secret, either, Mozilla told you how.
It's crazy that it's been 3 years and this isn't common knowledge among Firefox users.
I'm not on nightly and have been using ublock and a few other extensions. It's nothing new afaik.
you can use ublock origin on android firefox right now.. been using it for years.
I use it since maybe a year now on Android and it's amazing. The toggeling of the overlay and weird zap objects/overlays function takes some getting used too but otherwise its just like on the Desktop.
Yeah, the way Firefox manages addon interfaces on mobile makes it really unintuitive to use ublock's tools, but you can absolutely use them with some practice and patience. Personal filters makes so many websites usable.
Hopefully whatever this update is will make using the element zapper/filter easier.
Is there an extension for hiding the annoying attempts of reddit web app trying to get you to install their app, then login through Google? Still find myself there when it's from a Google search.
This might not be a proper solution but having old reddit redirect extebsion seems to almost all attempt by reddit to get me to use the app.
Yeah, just an addon to automatically redirect all Reddit links to the old.reddit.com version would already make Firefox addon support on Android super useful for me!
Since Reddit threads are still sometimes the only results when searching for questions to uncommon issues.
I use that addon currently on my firefox, its compatible with the android version, but to install it you must create a addon collection with that extension in it and add it to your brwser, detailed instruction are available online. Or you could try Iceraven which is a fork of android firefox, it has this extension in its collection.
The comment by user unverifiedApk down in this thread has instruction on using custom collection if you decide to go down path.
Thanks for the tip, I'll have a look!
Possibly some of the non-default lists in ublock origin? Worth having a look!
Stylus and creating a userstyle
Element hiding filter of uBlock/css rules for uBlock
Huh, I thought it was just doing url based blocking and not hooking into the UI side, will have to take a look. Kinda treat browser plug-ins as a set and forget it thing.
Same. But there are list which make excessive use of this feature. I hope gorhill manages to keep the codebase organized despite the featureset.
This is great news, I've just switched to Firefox & Firefox Focus on Android as a longtime user of Mobile Chrome and Desktop Firefox. It always felt weak on mobile, but things have changed. Still hating the purple though, and the placement of the new tab button but that's a small price to pay.
Nice, no more nightly and beta for me...
Fennec from F-Droid is a way to go. It lets you enable extensions and is based on stable release
So we finally get some major functionality back? I never cared about that redisgn but removing proper extension support was a really shitty part of it that I did care about!
Alright, so what extensions are you guys looking forward to? On mobile I don't think about it too much cause most of the websites I use on Desktop I use as apps on Android, so a couple of website specific extensions are useless for me
uBlock and DandelionSprout's filter lists are a must!
https://github.com/DandelionSprout/adfilt
uBlock was already available for Firefox for Android
Hey, let me enlighten you: uBlock Origin is even better than you think. Among others, ClearURLs is useless with uBlock Origin.
PS: Criei minha conta no lemmy.world mesmo, mas sou brasileiro. Legal ver outros por aqui!
Redirect amp to html, search by image, clear urls, localCDN, web archives, tampermonkey etc.๐ซก So many useful extensions.
Sponsor Block (+ the already existing uBlock origin) for an ad-free YouTube.
Currently using the fennec build Firefox with those add-ons and have since ditched the YouTube app. Works great so far as an ad-free/native alternative to apps like revanced or newpipe
Enhancer for Youtube is great too because it enables so much more UI fixes (and disables auto play :))
I use the Libretube app for that on my phone, it uses Piped to get the videos which tends to be a littpe more reliable than waiting for Newpipe updates and has Sponsorblock build in, for the next release we will even get Dearrow support build in! (Crowdsources titles and thumpnails to reduce clickbait)
If this comes through, I might no longer need Iceraven (andoid firefox with full addon support, like before they tore it out; I use it for Singlefile)
This is seriously cool. I've been waiting for this for a while.
Does this mean that I'll be able to get temporary containers on Firefox Android?
Some parts of the container API is not available on Android unfortunately. No container extension will work until that is fixed.
https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers/issues/465
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1807456
I wonder if hidden tabs are. It's not that I want tab groups on mobile, but it'd be interesting to see attempts, specially with how absolute dogshit grouped tabs are on mobile chrome, specially if there's pop ups involved (an inversion from desktop chrome, which has the best grouped tabs)
That extension requires rather deep integration into the UI, which I don't think is possible for Android extensions. So, I doubt, it will become available...
Well that's nice. But how many developers will care to make Android extensions at this point? Also will the current unsupported extensions in custom collections stop working?
Ooo, exciting news!
504 gateway timeout. Exiting /s
It was already possible to use all extensions on Firefox for Android Nightly
But it was not an activity that an ordinary person was willing to spend time on doing.
That's also true
Great i have been using all my fav extensions for a while in the beta version. Great news nonetheless!
Finally! Been using ancient version due to the addon crap they pulled in the past
Kiwi Browser has been able to use a good majority of the Chrome extension repertoire already though
Wtb this news for iOS.
Unfortunately apple doesn't allow any alteranative browsers on iOS... Everything that behaves as a browser must wrap Safari...
Wait really? Lmao
It's just a skin for Safari essentially, the first few years of them allowing third party browsers they actually gave them a nerfed version of the browser engine too so third party browsers were slower than Safari
Remember when Microsoft was given an anti-trust lawsuit just for bundling IE with Windows?
Yeah... Those were were good times...
Thankfully it is like that. People who want to stay in a shitty ecosystem should feel the consequences. Maybe this will make them realize eventually
It won't because all the browsers still pretend to have a actual veraion! :/
If they gave people more choices, it would be less of a shity ecosystem though, wouldn't it? Wouldn't that be a good thing? It wouldn't fix any of the other issues, but less freedom is never something to be glad about.
I hate apple as much as the next guy, but that doesn't mean I have to hate their users or wish them ill. We should strive to stand above the petty us-vs-them mindset.
The ecosystem is iOS, a completely proprietary operating system that will always stay proprietary. Everyone switching to Android is good for us (and also for them). So Apple should continue to annoy its users
I'm aware why iOS is bad, thank you. I still don't wish restrictions on its users. That's just not a nice thing to do.
There's also the argument of lasting improvement: If people switch to other systems, I'd rather see them do it out of a positive motivation (i.e. "this is better") than a negative one (i.e. "the other one so bad I had to finally jump ship and find a different solution").
That motivation will bias your mindset, and a positive mindset will lead to a better user experience. If they just switch because it's not as bad as the other, that will taint their experience. They'll be inclined to think about what they miss, rather than what the other offers.
Example: Me, trying to wrap my head around the communities thing here after leaving reddit. I miss the relative simplicity of finding topical subreddits, which is harder here both because there's less traffic overall, and because I had a sizeable collection of subs there that I can't simply migrate here. Part of me wants to return to the familiar hell, even if I rationally understand why it's shit, and I feel that sours my experience with Lemmy so far.
Humans tend to prefer the familiar, so if they leave iOS for something better, I want that better thing to land as well as possible, to encourage getting familiar with the new environment and expand their horizons, and to make future leaps in other areas less scary and off-putting.
I get where you're coming from. To you a good user experience is more important than the fact that is free/libre rather than proprietary.
I however am convinced that understanding the fundamental principal, that proprietary will always eventually lead to user abuse and that free software is the opposite, is the most important thing that people need to understand. User experience comes second.
If people primarily switch to another platform because that one feels better / has visible benefits, then they will leave that better platform as soon as a new, better looking platform comes around. Totally dismissing if it's proprietary or not.
As long as people don't understand that the bad directly comes from proprietary, they will go into the mouse trap over and over again
On the contrary, I am quite ideologically sympathetic. I've always used Open / LibreOffice, I no longer use windows, never had a Mac or iPhone or anything, I argued with stakeholders for making our university project FOSS rather than proprietary, the list goes on. I've spent enough time arguing with people why they should care about FOSS.
I'm just also aware of my biases, and of the fact that most people are heavily biased by their UX. Most people don't want to spend a long time thinking to understand, they simply want to use. And in that respect,
bad==proprietarydoesn't universally hold up. Big companies can spend big bucks on user research, on figuring out what does and doesn't work for their target audience, on developing features that appeal to people. They also can spend big bucks on marketing and cultivating a brand image so that people start to identify with their products, deepening the attachment.There is also an unfortunate side effect of FOSS when it comes to setting technical standards: If everyone can make their own, plenty of people will do that. Sure, many things have since been standardised, but how often has a common standard evolved as a side effect of some big corporation(s) adopting or outright developing it?
I don't need to preach to you about all the ways this sucks. The unfortunate pragmatic truth is that proprietary software is a poisoned, but quite appealing apple. The most common answer I got about FOSS is "yeah, it sounds great, but I don't care, I just want something that works for me."
Even if their proprietary system of choice got so bad to use that they'd switch to an open one, that doesn't mean they'd embrace the ideology. It just means that specific system does what they need it to. If iOS becomes unbearable, they may switch to Android, or perhaps to Windows phones, but they're still gonna install and use apps that feel good to use, regardless of whether they're FOSS.
The fight against proprietary software isn't going to be won on ideological grounds. I feel like some developers and advocates of FOSS miss that fact. If you want to be solid competition, worry about being a viable alternative first. Once people start to use a system that allows them to customise more, they may get intrigued by that liberty and become susceptible to the ideology behind, but unless they enjoy using it already, they'll never engage with it deeply enough.
Good incentive to switch to an android device tbh!
So we're finally getting official support for most extensions on android?
Please please please don't' bring MV3 to Firefox for Android, Mozilla. ๐ค
They are, since there are definitely benefits and makes migration easier, but they are also allowing the support needed for adblockers to be just as strong as they are now. So it keeps the benefits while also keeping adblockers strong like right now.
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2021/05/27/manifest-v3-update/
The issue is that Chrome is trying to replace
webRequest.BlockingResponsewhich is essential for content blockers, which Mozilla is pointing out and keeping supported.MV3 existing isn't a problem. MV2 deprecation is.
Appreciate your guidance on "How to Prepare Your Firefox Desktop Extension for the Upcoming Android Release." For more insights and discussions in Japanese, explore ใใฃใใgpt ๆฅๆฌ่ช . Let's dive into informative conversations and stay updated on the latest developments!
Beautiful
Will this also affect IceRaven browser, a fork of Firefox mobile? Also, will it allows us to load extensions locally, like the Bypass Paywall Clean extension?
IceRaven is a close fork, so it will almost certainly apply to IceRaven, too (maybe with a short delay).
Loading extensions from files, I would not assume to work. Even their current developer workflow requires using an AMO collection.
Someone could reupload Bypass Paywall Clean to AMO. As I understand from quick research, the DMCA takedown request was not challenged by the dev. Or you can use another paywall removal extension.
You can add the Bypass Paywalls Clean filter lists to uBlock Origin and the user scripts to TamperMonkey to get, as I understand it, almost all the basic functionality of the extension.
Is there any link I should use to follow to be able to do this?
This is the filter link you need to add to ublock for bypass paywall clean https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-clean-filters/-/raw/main/bpc-paywall-filter.txt
And here is the repo if you want other options https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-clean-filters
Why are you downvoted? It's not correct?
I have been haunted by a bunch downvote bots recently that mass downvotes my post when I post on certain tech related communities on lemmy. I am not sure why this is happening. Since I am on kbin, I can't see the downvotes or get affected by it anyway unless I take the effort to view the post through Lemmy though.
Ohk.
You can already install it using a old version of Firefox beta or fennec and then update the choose browser to the last version.
Everything is here
Nice
Nice!!!!
@gaul I'm sick of FF. I don't understand why they crippled it for Android.
Im only using it because the other choice is Chrome.
Let People Do Things Without Being Forced To Do Other Things They Dont Want To Do.
So, after years of shitting on their users they decided to go back to before?
Not really since the blog post details that the infrastructure is much better and the way add-ons are handled is better too.
Addon support was great before it was butchered 3 years ago. The current move should have coincided with the GeckoView migration, not three years later.
Okay, whoop.
Let me fucking download my files to where I want to on mobile, goddamnit.
Android has locked down free access to storage in recent versions. Blame Google.
That's 100% Google's fault. Firefox has no control on over this, Android prevents apps from accessing the full file system now.
There's no need to access the full file system to download to wherever the user wants. In fact the user might not want to use the local file system, but instead a "cloud" storage provider app!
The Storage Access Framework is built precisely for this.