Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Firefox For iOS Gets Tracking Protection, Firefox Focus For Android Gets Tabs

Posted by BeauHD on from the new-and-improved dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Mozilla today released Firefox 9.0 for iOS and updated Firefox Focus for Android. The iOS browser is getting tracking protection, improved sync, and iOS 11 compatibility. The Android privacy browser is getting tabs. You can download the former from Apple's App Store and the latter from Google Play. This is the first time Firefox has offered tracking protection on iOS, and Nick Nguyen, vice president of product at Mozilla, notes that it's finally possible "thanks to changes by Apple to enable the option for 3rd party browsers." This essentially means iPhone and iPad users with Firefox and iOS 11 will have automatic ad and content blocking in Private Browsing mode, and the option to turn it on in regular browsing. This is the same feature that's available in Firefox for Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as the same ad blocking technology used in Firefox Focus for Android and iOS.

28 comments

  1. I give it two months by DrStrangluv · · Score: 1

    I give it two months following the first widespread implementations before there's a open source library the accurately duplicates the mandatory closed-source portion. Maybe three if they did an especially good job on the algorithm.

    1. Re:I give it two months by DrStrangluv · · Score: 1

      Okay, somehow this comment is appearing on a different post than the one I was reading when it was submitted.

    2. Re: I give it two months by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haha meant to post on the DRM Firefox article?

    3. Re: I give it two months by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Using mobile?

    4. Re: I give it two months by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Too much tracking protection can have unwanted side effects.

  2. When are people going to accept by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that the Internet is basically a hostile entity?

    and it stalks them like a psychopath?

  3. Firefox for Android has tabs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Why do they have a second browser for Android? Textbook Mozilla fragmentation.

  4. You don't know Firefox... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Until you see the movie with Clint Eastwood. A classic Cold War masterpiece.

  5. Firefox for Android has 0.04% of the market! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    According to the latest browser usage stats, Firefox for Android has only 0.04% of the browser market! To put that in perspective, Chrome for Android has 29.5%. iOS Safari has about 10%. UC Browser for Android has 7.9%. Samsung Internet has about 3%. Opera Mini has 2.7%. Android Browser 4.4 has 0.81%. Even IE Mobile 11 has 0.29%!

    Firefox for iOS isn't listed among those stats, as far as I can tell. Maybe that could be because it has pretty much no market share at all? I can't see it being higher than Firefox for Android.

    Mozilla has totally dropped the ball on mobile web browsing. It's pretty sad when Firefox for Android has 0.04% of the market, but even an obscure browser like IE Mobile 11 manages to get 0.29% of it!

    Maybe the situation would be different if the resources wasted on Firefox OS were instead dedicated toward real improvements for both the desktop and mobile versions of the Firefox web browser. That said, desktop Firefox isn't doing too well either. It has only about 5% of the market, and its percentage is expected to drop soon thanks to the disruptive Firefox 57 release that's due out in November which will end support for non-WebExtensions extensions.

    1. Re:Firefox for Android has 0.04% of the market! by tepples · · Score: 1

      The providers of browser usage share statistics probably count every iOS browser as Safari, as all* browsers on iOS are skins around the Apple WebKit engine.

      * With the exception of Opera Mini, which is less a browser than an X session to a browser running on Opera's server.

    2. Re:Firefox for Android has 0.04% of the market! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I doubt that's the case.

      The Chrome for iOS User-Agent string is not the same as the Mobile Safari User-Agent string.

      That page even shows how the two differ. Chrome's contains a "CriOS" component.

      Organizations that specialize in collecting browser market share information are surely aware of that and take it into account when compiling their statistics.

      The more plausible answer is that Firefox for iOS has, from a statistical perspective, essentially no users. Firefox for Android is barely recognized. Firefox for iOS probably can't, for all intents and purposes, even be seen in a meaningful way.

    3. Re:Firefox for Android has 0.04% of the market! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Personally, I stopped using Firefox for Android in favor of Chrome, ultimately because they removed the ability to long-press on the address bar, and paste the clipboard.

      I could deal with shitty text reflowing, and the removal of the option to disable it back in 2012 (which DRASTICALLY effected my ability to read slashdot).
      I could deal with the removal of various menu options that let me interface with add-ons.
      I could deal with reddit.com load times being measured in the 30+ second range.

      But removing the ability for the user to paste a URL from the clipboard?

      ARE THEY FUCKING RETARDED?

    4. Re:Firefox for Android has 0.04% of the market! by Chryana · · Score: 1

      Does it even matter if Firefox has no users on iOS? I remember a /. discussion on this topic that happened some time ago... The gist of it was that the rendering engine used on iOS could not be changed, making all so called browsers on that platform little more than window dressing used to create brand awareness (except for Safari, of course). Has the situation changed?

    5. Re:Firefox for Android has 0.04% of the market! by Chryana · · Score: 2

      What these numbers seem to show is that most people tend to use the default browser that came with their phone. Those IE installs are probably running on Windows phones. I just don't see any browser in that list that seems like it's being installed because of its merits. The situation cannot be compared to the desktop, where Chrome is massively popular in a large extent because of the amazing visibility it gets on the Google homepage and that it can be installed easily even in corporate environments without administrative rights.

      TLDR: In my opinion, Firefox is failing on the cellphone market because of the market structure more than anything else.

    6. Re:Firefox for Android has 0.04% of the market! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Firefox is forced to use Safari engine so they are probably reported as safari

    7. Re:Firefox for Android has 0.04% of the market! by brianerst · · Score: 1

      Mozilla even realized this and so started the Firefox OS project.

      The people who ridicule Mozilla's lack of market share on mobile are the same people who complain about Mozilla's "lack of focus" for ever working on Firefox OS.

      Mobile is where all the growth is for browsers and Firefox is shut out without an OS it controls. Its market share will continue to drift down as desktops make up a smaller and smaller part of the pie. With no good way of matching the integration of mobile to desktop that Google, Apple and even Microsoft offer, how can it compete? When it finally shuts down for good, all the complainers will switch to "why isn't there a non-Google/Apple/Microsoft browser"

    8. Re:Firefox for Android has 0.04% of the market! by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      The providers of browser usage share statistics probably count every iOS browser as Safari, as all* browsers on iOS are skins around the Apple WebKit engine.

      Only if you're too lazy to actually change it - Web Views could change the User-Agent since iOS 3, and iOS 5 made it even easier. Knowing what is sent, you can differentiate between someone u sing the mobile Safari, an app using Web Views, and Chrome for iOS.

      Of course, if's up the maintainer of the website to notice the differences - if you only look for WebKit or KHTML and assume it's Safari, well, you're gonig to count it all as Safari then. But that's a problem with the website gathering the usage stats.

    9. Re:Firefox for Android has 0.04% of the market! by Chryana · · Score: 1

      Sorry to reply so late in the discussion. I agree that, in retrospect, the Firefox OS makes a lot more sense than what I've given them credit for until now. With that said, I still think that Mozilla is not free of blame. They used to get massive amounts of money from Google (300 million in at least one year, I heard). They've been known to give relatively large compensations to their executives... My opinion is that, being a charity, they did not have the skills required to make something out of the money they were showered in, and the opportunity to become a major player on the Internet was squandered.

  6. I don't see tabs by TWX · · Score: 1

    2.0 Build 12571412 does not make it obvious that it has tab support. Does anyone else see tabs?

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    1. Re: I don't see tabs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2.0 build #12571412 has tabs. Long click a link to use.

  7. Adblocking in Firefox for Android? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bullshit. Firefox in private browsing and no tracking still displays ads. I had to download some other adblocking browser to keep data usage down on my phone.

    Seriously, the fact that Chrome and Firefox don't allow for proper adblocking on a SMARTPHONE is stupid. I would expect iOS users with their disposable incomes to not care about data, but many of us do.

    1. Re: Adblocking in Firefox for Android? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ublock Origin and Ad-Block Plus are both available as add-ons for Firefox for Android. That to me is FFA's killer feature: add-ons. The mobile versions of Chrome and Safari don't have them because FU that's why. They don't even try to compete in that area, as they know most people will just use the browser that came with the phone. Makes one wonder if Chrome would even have add-ons on its desktop browser had it not had to compete with a then-already established Firefox, which did.

      I recommend Firefox for Android for anyone who doesn't want to accept whatever Google serves them. Would you use a desktop browser without ad-block and other add-ons available for it? No? Then why do you accept it on your mobile device.

      I'm not in the tank for Firefox. I don't even have it installed on my PC. To me its the only browser that makes sense to use on Android right now, though. Its not perfect, but it doesn't deliberately deprive you of add-ons (including ad-blockers) to make money off of you the way Chrome does. Chrome is taking you for granted on the Android platform.

      Techies really should be pushing Firefox for Android, at least until such a point as another viable regularly updated contender offers add-ons as well on that platform.

    2. Re: Adblocking in Firefox for Android? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I get around the "no adblock in Chrome mobile" problem by running Adguard which uses a VPN to block ads at the OS level. I used Firefox mobile for a long time because it was faster than Chrome, but recently Chrome caught up and is now significantly faster and more stable than Firefox. I don't have an agenda to push, I just use whatever works.

  8. I wish they provided a direct download? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wish they provided a direct download from their site.

  9. firefox focus... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    reminds me of how firefox got its start... and what mozilla's original goal was for phoenix: a lightweight basic browser with an amazing, virtually limitless extension system.

    that system was its 'killer app'.

    mozilla dumping its own addon api in favor of google chrome's would be like if microsoft swapped excel for 1-2-3, outlook for notes, or word for wordperfect in office.

  10. How? by kristofer.vesi · · Score: 1

    Wat, it didn't be have tabs? I use chrome beta (pretty good stability, pretty much same features as dev, but still more than normal edition. Canary is just too much unstable for me)

  11. Depends on the purpose for gathering UA data by tepples · · Score: 1

    Of course, if's up the maintainer of the website to notice the differences - if you only look for WebKit or KHTML and assume it's Safari, well, you're gonig to count it all as Safari then. But that's a problem with the website gathering the usage stats.

    You say "problem"; I say "appropriate detail".

    Say someone starts a website about the extent to which web developers can rely on features of the web platform, such as caniuse.com. The operator of this particular website wouldn't consider it "a problem" to conflate all iOS browsers into "Safari" because all browsers using Apple WebKit have the same set of unimplemented features. What's labeled "Safari for iOS" in the charts might be labeled "Safari for iOS and other browsers using the Apple WebKit engine" in the prose.

    A website about the advertising market, on the other hand, would need to collect more data about what skin around WebKit is in use, as these skins can interfere with advertising display. For example, Firefox's tracking protection feature blocks connections to hosts known to track a user's activity across sites, including most popular ad providers, and anti-adblock scripts routinely confuse it with an ad blocker instead of serving self-hosted replacement ads. (To see what I mean, try browsing TV Tropes in the Private Browsing mode of Firefox for desktop PCs.) Readers of this website would care more about the modifications that a skin makes to the user experience than readers of caniuse.com.