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Mozilla Launches Firefox For IOS
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox for iOS worldwide. You can download the new browser for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch now directly from Apple's App Store (iOS 8.2 or later required). Until today, Firefox for iOS was available as a public preview, and only in New Zealand. Also at Ars Technica.
iOS 9's content filtering only works on Safari. I use Firefox on the desktop and was hoping this iOS version includes built-in blocking support, which it doesn't appear to have.
According to the Ars-ticle this is supposed to be "the first version of the Firefox browser that does not use the Gecko layout engine, instead using iOS's built-in WebKit-based layout engine". How soon before Mozilla ditches desktop Gecko as well?
Firefox again flirts with dangerous 10% user share level
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...Unless Mozilla can again retard Firefox's 12-month average rate of decline, the browser will fall under the 11% bar in December, and slip below 10% in April, joining Safari (with a 5% user share in October) and Opera (1.3%) in the single-digit club. If the trend continued even longer, Firefox on the desktop could drop under 9% as soon as August 2016.
Mozilla and Firefox face a tough future: The desktop browser continues to shed share -- often quickly, sometimes at a slower pace -- and the company's mobile projects, including Firefox on Android and Firefox OS, the lightweight operating system pitched to low-end smartphone makers, have not been able to make up the difference. ...
Why can't I find this in the app store on my iphone 6? Searched for both firefox and mozilla...
Running 8.4.x, searched, nada.
Hasn't FF become the laughingstock of the Browser world?
It used to be the King; but it seems like it has Vulnerabilities galore, and is a Resource Hog to boot.
As an iOS user, HONESTLY, what is compelling here over Mobile Safari?
You left out Google-knob-slobbering Chrome-wannabe.
Mozilla "thought" process: "Hey, Chrome picking up market share. If we were more like Chrome with our UI and rapid version increments, we'll pick up market share too!"
What kind of moron thinks becoming a shitty copy-cat of something kicking your ass is a good idea. Geez, even 12-year-olds make fun of the wanna-be's that make a public show of trying to be cool by wearing what the cool kids were wearing last decade.
chrome sucks
Talks to 178.162.219.0/24 over 443
Talks to app.adjust.com over 443
Adjust = "adjust is a business intelligence platform for mobile app marketers, combining attribution for advertising sources with advanced analytics and store statistics."
The bastion of libtard SJW only "free speech" allowed, hooray for the open web!!!
I personally love the continuous subtraction of useful features that I get with firefox. Losing the ability to go back/forward, the ability to view page source, the ability to quickly and logically get to what I need through a meaningful user interface -- those upgrades were great, but what really made me a fan for life is when they removed the ability to stop a page from loading. Nothing puts a smile on my face more than waiting it out for a rogue webpage, watching my computer slow to a crawl, powerless to do anything about it. Now that's a feature worth bragging about.
In conclusion, I hope to see more subtraction of useful features in the future. Perhaps one day we can reach the Holy Grail of web browsing, where you are no longer allowed to actually view web pages (big deal, right), but instead the browser will spit out a brief verbal summary of what you've "missed". Go Firefox!
What kind of moron thinks becoming a shitty copy-cat of something kicking your ass is a good idea.
I dunno. It seems like Windows has been doing that with OS X for years now.
Nothing.
All iOS web browsers use the WebKit API and don't actually render themselves. Others cheat by rendering on remote servers and showing you the result only, but it's not allowed to contain its own rendering engine.
This is how Chrome on iPad operates - it's not Chrome at all.
The only purpose I could see for wanting FF on iOS that has to use WebKit and doesn't support native content blockers would be syncing bookmarks. You can sync bookmarks from FF or Chrome for Windows by using Apple's iCloud extension for Chrome and FF.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-...
https://chrome.google.com/webs...
My bookmarks are synced between FF and Chrome for Windows, Safari for iOS and Chrome for iOS.
In a desperate effort to follow the "trendy" herd they've made the browser much harder to use. eg: Bookmark folders - good luck trying to create them in the latest versions on OS/X.
We don't want trendy - we just want a browser thats simple and easy to use. Its the web page contents I'm interested in , the not browser developers showboating efforts.
I still can't get a decent browser for my Kindle Fire. They insist I use that crappy Silk browser.
Nothing.
All iOS web browsers use the WebKit API and don't actually render themselves. Others cheat by rendering on remote servers and showing you the result only, but it's not allowed to contain its own rendering engine.
This is how Chrome on iPad operates - it's not Chrome at all.
Well, you're sort of right. But there have been exceptions to the Rule. In 2010, not only did Apple allow Opera to offer a NON-WebKit iOS Browser (Opera Mini, which later switched to WebKit), although it used Remote Rendering to circumvent the WebKit requirement, but more importantly, in 2014, Apple Released the WkWebView API for iOS 8, which brought the Apple's Nitro Javascript Engine to third-party Browser Development for iOS.
So, these days, third-party Browsers on iOS actually have a fighting chance to be on-par (or maybe even a little better), performance-wise, to Mobile Safari.
"Does it sync?" A: Well, kind of - if you use iCloud.
Actually I just used the built in Sync for firefox and it did sync my bookmarks. Otherwise I'm not really sure what the point of it is and I use Firefox as my primary browser. (Chrome is buggy, IE is Windows Only and Safari is Mac only) I'm pretty much exactly who would think about using it and I don't see much point.
Opera Mini does not use WebKit. Instead, it uses the equivalent of Remote Desktop to a rendering server. There are three ways that Mozilla could have used a rendering server instead of WebKit, but each has flaws.
Thank GOD Apple gives me the freedom to choose the browser I want to use and doesn't try to shove open source crap like Firefox down my throat like Linux does when you try to install it.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. You can replace Mozilla Firefox with Google's open-source Chromium browser on most GNU/Linux distributions. Chromium is Chrome minus the non-free parts (Adobe Flash Player for Pepper, video DRM, and a couple other minor pieces).
What does that even mean? It wasn't available on the internet? You had to go to New Zealand to get it, and the installer wouldn't run anywhere else?
When was Firefox or Mozilla or Netscape ever stable?
I use Firefox daily to this day and haven't experienced a meaningful stability problem on Windows or a Mac in probably 10 years. Not to say it doesn't have any issues but stability does not appear to be one of them. Maybe some versions on linux had problems but I haven't run into any myself. I honestly can't remember the last time I managed to crash Firefox. Certainly hasn't been within the last 5 years.
Delete app ... back to Safari
GP's point still stands
A browser for iOS must use Apple's WebKit. The only exception being if you use a remote server like Opera Mini does.
Mozilla cannot create a version of Firefox that uses Gecko
Opera cannot create a version of Opera that uses Presto (granted that engine is deprecated)
Google cannot create a version of Chrome that uses Blink
Microsoft cannot create a version of Edge that uses EdgeHTML (nor of Internet Explorer that uses Trident)
If your browser's performance advantage is through its rendering engine, you're SOL.
So I installed this iOS app, logged into sync, and nothing happens. It says "Last sync: just now" (without delay, which raises doubt) but there are no bookmarks, history, or anything else to prove it synced. Well shit.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Important to understand that due to Apple's restrictions, this is not a port of the Gecko engine to iOS. It simply embeds a Safari's UIWebView into Firefox's 'skin'. Same goes for Chrome on iOS. Furthermore, Apple uses unexposed JavaScript optimizations to make Safari faster and doesn't allow those same optimizations in a UIWebView embedded in third party apps. So, unfortunately, Safari will always be the fastest browser on iOS. Yay, Apple. http://www.extremetech.com/mob... http://www.engadget.com/2011/0...
Here is my home page.
For me, using iOS and waiting for Firefox on iOS was a conscious choice, and I will try to explain why I disagree with the majority here that the synching feature is unimportant because FF on iOS is using Gecko:
- On iOS > 8 Apple is encrypting the important files with the user password, so that they can not circumvent the encryption. So I can be shure that when entering a fife eyes state without a resetted device I will only be sent home when asked for my password for my switched of iPhone, not having the content compromised. That is a "best effort" against border bullies, not a solution against the NSA specifically targeting me. IOS throws away the key if the password was entered wrong ten times, leaving the phone unreadable. Workaround is to reboot directly after every attempt, good luck with a complex password. On Android, the encryption key is readable even after factory reset on many devices.
- Safari synch is NOT encrypted end-to-end, making it possible for secret services to mass collect the data of peoples browsing history and bookmarks. Firefox is encrypting the synch end-to-end. That is why I deactivated this feature on Safari and waited for Firefox on iOS. The slow rendering speed is annozing, but every security improvement on standard devices comes with disadvantages. It is a matter of how much convinience could be traded for what gain in security.
- On iOS, I could synch the address book, the calendar and tasks with any standard caldav or carddav service. Like posteo.de, which does not know it's customers and offers me the possibility to encrypt everything with my password. On Android, I will need to install third party software to do that.
Doing the best to protect my privacy including using vpn from time to time does not mean that I am dark to the secret services. But making it harder for them is important. That is why I chose iOS over Android despite the annoying golden cage and that is why I choose Firefox over Safari despite the fact that the rendering time is slower because it needs to use a crippled safari rendering engine. Oh, and I do not trust chrome synch, although it offers password protected synch.
Filtering ads is one thing, I use privacy badger on the desktop and a vpn that only knows my serial number to stop trackers, because this data is collected in large quantities by the secret services.
All of this is best effort to avoid mass collection and Apple has no clean record at all:
- Up until iOS 8, the most interesting data (messages, browsing history, address book) was only encrypted with the cpu-password, so the data was readable once the iPhone was connected to a computer containing the right tools.
- icloud security is a joke. The data is not encrypted with a user specific key, making bulk collection easy. Except for the backup, which can be encrypted, but I won't trust a cloud backup to store the most important passwords.
- icloud is mandatory for notes starting iOS 9, making it risky to use it. I will need to use a third party app and vpn to my personal cloud at home in order to synch. Before that, it could easily be synched with my more trustworthy IMAP-provider.
- Synching photos and safari can only be done with icloud, which is a mess.
Thank you, apple.
Apple over Android, because black phone as an alternative is expensive and the loss in convinience is too big for me. Firefox over Safari because I want to synch on multiple devices without mass collection. I do not think that the world is black and white.
But people have a choice to make it harder for "them". Block trackers so that using services like facebook responsibly is possible without being tracked on multiple sites. Try to synch more secure instead of giving the information freely to the mass collectors or losing any modern convinience. That is not easily possible with safari, but with firefox.
That is why I do not agree with people claiming that the slower rendering of FF on iOS using webkit is a deal breaker. That is why I do not find the choice between Android and iOS so easy, everything comes with a price.
As far as I'm concerned, high quality text reflow is the only essential feature in a mobile web browser. Unfortunately, that means Opera is currently my only choice. I remember a development version of Firefox had a shitty version of text reflow, but the feature was removed, presumably because if you're not gonna do it right, just don't do it.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.