This is not applicable on iOS. The Firefox app remains a wrapper built on Apple’s WebKit engine rather than a fully native implementation. However, with the recent release of uBlock for iOS, Safari has become significantly more tolerable. I’ve tried many so‑called “browsers” (acknowledging they’re all essentially WebKit wrappers), but none match Safari’s energy efficiency or the seamlessness of its sync features.
The only equivalent to this for iOS is Orion by Kagi. I'm not sure how, but they've managed to avoid drawing apples ire while providing access to both Chrome and Firefox's plugin ecosystems.
Firefox mobile was basically the only option I considered for a long time just because it lets you install Ublock origin . Not sure if other mobile browsers have that now too or not. I'm a firefox user on desktop anyway so I love having tab sharing between my phone and all my pcs. They also added a nice feature recently that optionally requires an additional login (fingerprint) to access private tabs. I have found no reason to switch.
I've been using it for years and it is really great. I haven't had to open Chrome for a non-working website in quite a while. Adblock is really something -- you _really_ notice it if you have the misfortune of using a different browser.
And what will you do if Google decides to disable your account?
Bitwarden is free, has clients and browser extensions for every platform, and it's easy to export your passwords and import them. Plus it supports SSH keys.
they don't have an export function? I did that with lastpass -> bitwarden and it was a little bit of a hassle it wasn't too bad, just need to makes sure the exported cvs looked correct, no issues and didn't find anything wrong. I imagine it can go as smooth with chrome -> whatever
I wish the article would talk a bit more about security. Here's what the GrapheneOS project has to say about Firefox [1]:
> 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.
I use Graphene OS and I like it a lot, but 1) I have the feeling that, with Android's Decree coming, they are counting their days left to live. Unfortunately they built an amazing OS on very shaky foundations, it's not their fault, it's the mobile OS ecosystem that sucks. And 2) They (or, better, their benevolent dictator) tend to be very silly when it comes to threat modeling, as in "my way is the only one that makes sense". Personally, I prefer to use a browser like Firefox that allows me to block every annoying ads and to customize my experience as I want, rather than a super-secure fully isolated browser like Vanadium that a) does not replace Chrome anyway for many websites that require strong attestations (e.g. Wise's verification works on GOS with Chrome but not with Vanadium), and b) it's still based on Chromium, so still built on shaky Google foundations. With Mozilla's questionable choices over time, I keep my fingers crossed for Ladybird or Servo, or similar.
True, but what are the alternatives? Bloated Brave? Bare Chromium without a proper adblock (I mean unlock of course)? Firefox is still the best browser there is, even with these flaws.
Imagine a browser where the user can actually read and edit the source code and compile it themselves, in seconds
How many users read the Firefox or Chrome/Chromium-based browser source code and compile it themselves
Not every use of the www requires a large, complex graphical web browser. It's useful to have browsers that are suited for non-commercial uses such as text retrieval
I don't run Android anymore, but when I did (about two years ago) I uninstalled Firefox because, as far as I could tell, it didn't properly background tabs when the app was closed. I didn't realize this initially, so I was unsure why my battery life was terrible and my phone as always hot. Being able to install extensions was neat, but not worth it for killing my battery.
Suffice to say, I do not agree that it's the "best mobile browser" on Android.
Yeah and your experience is 2 years out of date. Especially in recent months the firefox for android experience got better exponentially.
I am a tab hoarder (a few thousand open tabs) and 2 years ago firefox needed 15 seconds on a fresh start to load. It's instantanious now.
Firefox for android tried to force "inactive" tabs down my throat (I'm sure it helps, but no I don't want it. You can easily disable it in the tabs settings btw). Tabs that didn't get used for 2 weeks get put in an "inactive" state.
A few months ago switching to an open tab took a few seconds up to a minute. For a month or two it's now instantanious.
There are way more optimizations done and I can often tell right away when something got better or worse.
Suffice to say your "experience" is so much out of date it is not even funny. Comparing firefox 2 years ago today is a joke and firefox feels completely different (user interface and speed) and your comment only spreads FUD. Anybody reading this that hasn't tried firefox for android - give it a try!
My mobile Firefox consistently has an infinity icon instead of a true count of the tabs (presumably because there are so many. Likely hundreds) and I notice no slowdown or battery issues whatsoever
I'm using Firefox mobile since it's release and haven't observed this issue. For years now I have so many not-closed tabs that FF just shows infinity sight instead of a number, so it's not that I'm limiting my browser use in any way. And I never force close any of my apps ever.
I did encounter memory leaks on my desktop Firefox and every single time it was a particular shitty site (for example the latest one is our corporate Jenkins). I suggest you check your sites, find and close the offender. Do you maybe use some fat portals like mail or chats in the browser? They may request OS to stay in memory to provide user a service of constant up to date communication.
Maybe the plugin ecosystem can paper over some of the deficiencies, but Firefox is slowly taking away user agency and privacy in the name of simplification / whatever Chrome does.
The recent windmill against which I am tilting: Firefox no longer shows you the complete URL. Either in the address bar or long pressing a link. This is incredibly hostile to those of us with technical proficiency which can inspect a URL to see if it is a bad domain or embedding tracking information we would like to strip.
My other long standing annoyance is that on mobile, I can no longer protect cookies. Always keep the cookie to say my HN login, but allow me to bulk delete everything else. Instead, I am forced to manually go through the cookie page (like 10 at a time) and delete everything I do not want.
I've been using Firefox on desktop for decades and really want to like it on mobile, but I just can't get used to the behavior of new tabs . After just a bit of browsing, it opens 10+ new tabs and there's no way to configure this differently. It's such a shame.
Firefox mobile was unusable slow for most sites I visited and had rendering issues - probably not FF's fault, but webdevs only testing on Chrome. Brave has been very fast with all the spyware and ad blocking features I was looking for in FF. I just had to disable all the crypto stuff first.
i prefer the Brave mobile app. I previously used firefox focus, but I basically just made brave into a focus app by turning on Private Browsing Only, but can also disable the functionality when needed.
I’m often surprised how little people talk about the iOS Orion browser on here and it’s ability to let you use both Firefox and chrome extensions. I’ve been using it for a while now and it’s been great. It’s a little bit buggy sometimes, but nothing that would make me switch.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 73.8 ms ] threadI sometimes have to help my mother out with her chrome and I can't fathom how she can navigate anything
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wipr-2/id1662217862
I still remember this blog post, which at the the time (late 2021), was 100% accurate: https://web.archive.org/web/20230221123127/https://blog.nori...
- Dark Reader (force dark mode on websites that don't have it, like Hacker News)
- Unhook (remove various addictive or annoying elements from YouTube.com)
Bitwarden is free, has clients and browser extensions for every platform, and it's easy to export your passwords and import them. Plus it supports SSH keys.
> 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.
[1]: https://grapheneos.org/usage
Government agencies have been recommending everyone use an ad blocker for years now.
Links built from source on Termux does not use Gecko
Attack surface is smaller than GrapheneOS browser based on Google Chromium
https://web.archive.org/web/20250503001331if_/http://links.t...
No Javascript, no ads, no pixel tracking, etc.
Imagine a browser where the user can actually read and edit the source code and compile it themselves, in seconds
How many users read the Firefox or Chrome/Chromium-based browser source code and compile it themselves
Not every use of the www requires a large, complex graphical web browser. It's useful to have browsers that are suited for non-commercial uses such as text retrieval
Suffice to say, I do not agree that it's the "best mobile browser" on Android.
I did encounter memory leaks on my desktop Firefox and every single time it was a particular shitty site (for example the latest one is our corporate Jenkins). I suggest you check your sites, find and close the offender. Do you maybe use some fat portals like mail or chats in the browser? They may request OS to stay in memory to provide user a service of constant up to date communication.
The recent windmill against which I am tilting: Firefox no longer shows you the complete URL. Either in the address bar or long pressing a link. This is incredibly hostile to those of us with technical proficiency which can inspect a URL to see if it is a bad domain or embedding tracking information we would like to strip.
My other long standing annoyance is that on mobile, I can no longer protect cookies. Always keep the cookie to say my HN login, but allow me to bulk delete everything else. Instead, I am forced to manually go through the cookie page (like 10 at a time) and delete everything I do not want.
I lost trust in Firefox after Brendan Eich scandal and the way they treated him.
Nothing beats Safari UX on iOS, nothing.
You can hate the engine and lack of extensions, but Safari is the only thing that I can use with both hands seamlessly without breaking my fingers.