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Comment by muxator | Hacker News Reader

Firefox on Andorid works flawlessly for me.

Plus, it's worth repeating that Firefox sync works without problem across desktop and mobile. The sync [0] and auth [1] servers are open source, and one could choose to use one or both on his premises.

IIRC, browser synchronization was a thing on Firefox well before it landed on chrome.

[0] https://mozilla-services.readthedocs.io/en/latest/howtos/run...

[1] https://mozilla-services.readthedocs.io/en/latest/howtos/run...

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For me, the biggest benefit of using Firefox on mobile is access to extensions. Full-featured uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger make mobile browsing a lot less annoying.

Ublock was enough to make slower Firefox on Android worth using because it makes sites so much faster. Once the quantum features start arriving on mobile its going to be impossible for chrome to match.

They are available in Nightly and Beta, I'm surprised they aren't in the main release yet.

My must-have list is https everywhere (from EFF) and uBlock origin.

I hope that the mobile browser will get at least the same level of attention as in the past.

These extensions work just fine on FF 57 for Android, so I'm not really sure of the point you are trying to make.

They're already on mobile in the stable release. I'm posting this comment from Firefox Quantum on Android right now.

A lot of the performance stuff such as Stylo hasn't landed on the Android version yet

Firefox Focus is a mobile browser flavor which requires no installation of any extension, and behaves a bit like windows in "Private" mode but with ad blocking by default.

I use Firefox Focus as my default browser for all news/app/etc links except for when I specifically need access to existing sessions and don't want to log everything in again.

Browser sync in FF also does not sell your data, and works on all major OS-es, including obscure linuxes. I also love the «send tab» functionality - need some info on my desktop tomorrow? Send tab, and it’ll be there when I log in!

Chrome's browser sync can take a password for client-side encryption, so Google isn't selling my data unless they've backdoored that.

They were probably never interestedin selling your passwords. Browser sync is way more than password sync.

The password is for encrypting the whole browser sync, bookmarks and history included.

You’re not required to set one (this is in addition to your google account credentials), but it’s available as an option.

> IIRC, browser synchronization was a thing on Firefox well before it landed on chrome.

Aye, it was. It was called Mozilla Weave, and it worked with the very early versions of Fennec (the original name of Firefox Mobile).

Also, your data is securely encrypted at Mozilla, and isn't being profiled (if you disable those features in Firefox).

In Firefox 58 (you can run it today on Android by installing Firefox Beta app) you can run PWA (Progressive Web App) which allows you to turn a website into basically an app. Not every website will work though.

I've switched entirely to Firefox, but I have had some issues where I input an address on Android and the Browser doesn't navigate.

Unfortunately I had the same issue on my Android phone - every time I re-opened the app I had to open a new tab in order to browse. I ended up installing and using Firefox Nightly instead (where the issue seems to be resolved).

Have you tried again since 57 was released? Or tried nightly? I've been using Firefox on mobile for a long time, and I remember experiencing similar issues from time to time, but I haven't had these in a while.

FWIW, closing tabs once in a while can also help. Mobiles typically don't have too much RAM.

Had a similar issue recently. Reinstalling the app seems to have fixed it.

I had a similiar issue with chrome

My primary issue with Firefox on Android is that in portrait mode, the URL bar has enough width for about five characters -- the rest being taken up by the back / forward buttons to the left, a magnifying glass icon, the QR code icon, a microphone icon, the refresh button, the tabs button, and the "three-dots" options menu. Typing a URL into a text-field that can display five characters at a time borders on ludicrous, and I have no idea how anyone thought that was reasonable to ship that as the default UI.

Other than that, I'm loving the mobile Firefox.

I'm not sure how your Firefox ended up like that. Mine has the QR button, mic button and X button when entering a URL, or the reader button, tab button and menu button when viewing a page. The back/forward and refresh buttons are inside the menu ('three dots').

Interesting -- it was a fresh install on a Nexus device that had never had Firefox on it before. I'll explore the UI options.

Firefox 57 has introduced the possibility of dragging the URL bar text to scroll it.

It's just a mitigation, but at least it's an ergonomic improvement.

>IIRC, browser synchronization was a thing on Firefox well before it landed on chrome.

Yes, but it was bad. Chrome allowed you to sync just by typing your Google account credentials. Firefox relied on sharing a text file between computers. If you lost the file and reset your profile (as was common in old Firefox), you effectively lost all of your synced content. Adding a new computer was difficult and slow. Firefox ultimately failed the "could you explain this to your parents" test, and many users simply gave up trying to get it to work.

I'm about to leave Firefox on Android behind after running it for years (and even running Nighlies/Betas), because they broke the "Share Link To Bottom" plugin and the browser is literally - no exaggeration - causing me to curse and swear every other time I open a link.

I try to stick to Firefox on my desktop and find workarounds for broken addons, but on a mobile it seems easier to switch away.

Massive memory leaks for me, Nexus 5x. Took me a while to realize it was FF basically bricking my phone. Since switching back to Chrome, I've had no issues.

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