We're certainly aware of how significant ad blocking extensions are. This release required a great quantity of features with only a six month timeline until now.
We already support a very limited set of the WebExtensions API to offer features like Reader Mode. Rest assured that more features will land in the coming months.
If you're a developer and you want to help us, our Github site is at this link. We mark easier issues with a Good First Issue label. We also need help with translations, documentation, and even getting issues filed.
The hard work you guys put in is always appreciated, FF in all its forms has become truly the best browser there is. That being said, how on earth was Reader Mode prioritized above adblocking?
As it stands, adblocking is "post MVP"[1][2]. QR code scanning, however, is somehow part of the MVP. This doesn't make sense to me: there are many apps that launch the default system browser when scanning a URL QR code. You can easily get by without that functionality in the browser.
The comments in this post should be sending you really loud signal: technical users (the type of people who install preview software) don't consider a browser without adblocking MVP. You are drastically underestimating the significance of adblocking extensions.
I understand where you're coming from, but I honestly find Firefox Preview's built-in tracking protection blocks enough ads on its own. I'd encourage you to give it a shot. (Though, to reassure you: proper adblocking is on the roadmap.)
On the other hand, QR code scanning is necessary for a good Firefox Sync setup experience, and that genuinely seems crucial to the MVP: we don't want your data stranded on one device unless that's explicitly what you want.
That's upsetting. Please do report bugs. We do fix them. Bookmark sync had been working in Nightly for weeks, so I'm really surprised. I imagine it's hitting some kind of exception on your bookmarks.
It looks like that should have been resolved a month ago with build 1.0.1921 (https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/2252)... are you sure your bookmarks are set to sync (check in about:preferences on desktop)? If so, try forcing a new sync Firefox Preview by hitting Settings -> Sync -> Sync Now.
Yes, the only thing I'm not syncing are passwords. Are those 3 folders under "Desktop Bookmarks" visible in clean install before syncing? https://imgur.com/q1W7GgZ Maybe it's synced somehow only partially? All those folders are empty. And also on my desktop browser I can't see bookmarks I created in FP. I tried hitting "Sync Now" multiple times since yesterday, it always looks like it's working, after a second there's "Last synced: 0 minutes ago"
I removed FP and installed it again, this time with pairing through QR code, it again looks like it's working perfectly, but I can't see bookmarks, only history. And there is no mobile session under devices in https://accounts.firefox.com/
I'm not sure if it's prioritization so much as just Reader mode being easier because it doesn't need that much from the extension API. Adblockers need to do more browser-level things like intercept HTTP requests, while Reader mode can be done with just DOM/CSS manipulation.
Also, reader mode is the only way non-mobile websites are readable on my phone. I left chrome on my phone for it (now I use Firefox Focus as my primary mobile browser for the vastly better privacy, but very much miss that it seems to have no reader mode). If this has reader mode I am absolutely going to use it as my backup for when Focus breaks a site over Chrome.
When it came out I considered reader mode a killer feature, and coincidentally it also tends to remove the ads. Or at least the ones not embedded in an article, which is good enough for me as long as they remain stationary.
When Chrome first came out I stopped using it cause it didnt have adblock. Then when it did it was still crippled and I realized Google is in the Ad business so I never used Chrome since. This is very correct adblocking is a necessity, if they even include a Mozilla Adblocking DNS server for the browser thats fine to me. As long as I dont see ads.
I wont give up on Firefox anytime soon. I would love to see some serious competitors though.
> We're certainly aware of how significant ad blocking extensions are. This release required a great quantity of features with only a six month timeline until now.
It is always soft of amusing to watch companies make all kinds of unforced errors with their products because the managers feel that they know much better than the users of the product what should be important to users. They fail all the time just to have someone else come in and say "Oh, those people, they were just holding the instructions wrong" and go repeating the same mistake.
So far in this ( software + hardware space ) there has been exactly one company that nailed it. The company is called Apple and the product is called iPhone. Since that point on Apple has not introduced anything that was not a direct play on "Our users want X, we are going to give them X, maybe with a bit of a twist"
The users are telling you that the USP of Firefox is ad blocking. If your PM says it is something else, you should replace the PM. That should be your singular focus. Everything else is secondary.
I agree with you 100% both about ad blocking being essential and product managers being tone deaf to user's priorities, however, I don't see Apple as any paragon in this regard.
> Apple has not introduced anything that was not a direct play on "Our users want X, we are going to give them X, maybe with a bit of a twist"
Unless you want plug-ins in a mobile browser or a headphone jack or ... well, too many things to list really. Apple mobile/tablet software experiences are some of the worst offenders of "We'll tell you how you should want it and if you don't agree, you're just wrong and we're right."
> We're certainly aware of how significant ad blocking extensions are. This release required a great quantity of features with only a six month timeline until now.
A usable night mode e.g. invert the topbar icons and change the white screen you see before the page loads combined with an existing dark theme would be an easy feature to implement and would put it miles ahead of other mobile browsers too. I presently have to use Swift for Samsung to overlay a proper black theme (with white icons etc), but still get bright white when loading pages.
I'm sending this from it right now using the dark theme it comes with, dark bar (at the bottom), it has exactly what you're asking for! I'm really happy about this; dark with bar at bottom is what I've always wanted.
Im an idiot.... just tested it. Beautiful. Its nearly perfect now. Still blasts you with white in some situations but maybe thats due to the coding of the webpage as it loads. Im seriously impressed.
Fullscreen mode would be good. And bookmarks seem like something of a car-crash. They're in there somewhere but it looks like Collections are easier to get to so obviously they're going to get used instead. I don't care what they're called - i just need a way of getting to frequently used urls. And it would be good if I could rename bookmarks/urls/items in collections because currently i'm stuck with whatever the site owner put there which means I end up with 4 links all called "train timetable" instead of "luton-london","london-luton","luton-tring","tring-luton". I would suggest firefox developers use both collections and bookmarks and see how many clicks they have to use, if they have to stretch their thumbs etc, and ask if there's a better way.
And..where to report this sort of thing? There seem to be about 7 different rival official locations.
What a ridiculous claim. Of course there is finished software. If you need a subscration calculator what do you do when it can do substraction? Add addition?
That's how we end up with this disgusting bloated software world we live in. Why do I need a calculator app with food delivery service?
We already support a very limited set of the WebExtensions API to offer features like Reader Mode. Rest assured that more features will land in the coming months.
If you're a developer and you want to help us, our Github site is at this link. We mark easier issues with a Good First Issue label. We also need help with translations, documentation, and even getting issues filed.
https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix