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Comment by mkl | Hacker News Reader

Not the ordinary Firefox for Android, though.

Specifically: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fe...

"Firefox Preview marks a release of the early version for an experimental Firefox browser for Android. Built on GeckoView, Firefox Preview is a pilot for early adopters, developers, and anyone who wants to help make a better, more private Firefox for Android."

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What’s the difference with the regular Firefox for Android?

It's a rewrite from the ground up, written in Kotlin. So far I've been really liking it, they've made some quite unique design decisions like the URL bar being on the bottom, stacking tabs in a list and a type of categorised bookmark called "collections".

If you like Firefox I'd give it a go. I've never been a fan of the normal Firefox mobile app, but recently switched back from Chrome so I think it's a nice alternative.

The URL bar being at the bottom is what sold it to me. It's the single thing I miss the most from Edge on Windows 10 Mobile.

And for those who think they'd dislike it: v3 now added an option to move it to the top again.

For me it was the past that annoyed me. Glad they added an option to put it back on to.

Honestly, I dislike it. I already have visual clutter in the top of my phone with the Android status bar; I don't need more clutter in the bottom.

I think it's just an ergonomics thing. With my fingers being constantly around the bottom third of the screen while browsing, it always felt awkward to reach all the way to the top just to tap the url bar, then go back down to the keyboard again.

Jelly browser on LineageOS does the same thing, and the setting to toggle top or bottom is described as "reach mode" for one-handed usage.

At first the bottom address bar sold FFPreview to me as well. However, the popup soft keyboard makes it bounce around(up&down), which in some instances is really annoying. I'm happy to have learned the address bar can be moved to the top.

I didn't realise how much I'd missed it from other browsers until I tried it. It's a breath of fresh air.

I admit to being very confused about collections. They just seemed very inconvenient and there's no way to get to normal bookmarks.

Turns out bookmarks are still there.

Add a bookmark via overflow (three dots) then star at the bottom.

Access your bookmarks via overflow (three dots) -> Your Library.

I'm not really clear why it has both bookmarks and collections.

Edit: how to add a bookmark changed from the bottom shelf to the overflow menu with today's update

I think they're just trying it out as a feature for now. It's a Preview browser so some things won't work 100% (for example a bug[1] is still present in 2.3.0, the latest stable version, requiring me to switch browser for file uploads.)

[1] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/6279

Isn’t the GeckoView part built with Rust?

Not any more than desktop Firefox. GeckoView is mostly a Java API for interfacing with Gecko, https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/file/tip/mobile/andro...

Extensions doesn't work. Initially they thought it was a great idea but after some backlash Mozilla decided to add some popular ones: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5630

The ability to install extensions, especially uBlock Origin, is the only reason I switched to Firefox on mobile so it is good that they have changed their minds. But what do you mean by "add some popular ones"?

IIRC some known working extensions (uBO) will be installed if you log into Firefox Sync and it's installed on the desktop. The Addon interface is still a WIP afaik.

Extensions were always going to be added. You have to have a usable browser before you can even use extensions.

That is not true. In February, they were merely "look[ing] at it".

https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/574#issuecomm...

IIRC extensions are on their roadmap

It's a complete rewrite and it's much much faster than the normal one.

That is a copy of Yaani https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.turkcell.y... or vice verse.

Firefox Preview is open source, https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix

Yani doesn't cite Firefox. I think Turkcell is violating the license.

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