Mozilla has announced that a major change is coming to the Firefox Android app. Desktop browser extensions will finally be fully supported by the end of this year.
An exact date hasn’t been set yet, but Mozilla plans to announce one in September.
Firefox users have been able to install extensions that were part of the Recommended Extensions program since late 2020. The collection of just over 100 extensions made many of the most popular available on Android. In the three years since, Mozilla has been focused on shoring up “the infrastructure necessary to support an open extension ecosystem on Firefox for Android.”
The coming update will finally open up the full catalog to users. There’s still more behind-the-scenes work that needs to take place before that happens. Many developers will need to tweak their extensions, though Mozilla makes the process look relatively quick and painless.
Mozilla’s Scott Devaney explains that a major change recently made its way to Firefox Nightly on Android that will kickstart the transition. Multi-process support has been added, so Firefox extensions can now run outside the main Firefox process on Android.
This, he says, will prevent Android from shutting resource-intensive extensions down unexpectedly.
Mozilla is still hard at work creating new resources that will help developers deliver stable, optimized extensions. “We anticipate considerable user demand for more extensions on Firefox for Android,” Devaney notes.
Customization and extensibility have always been a core part of the Firefox browsing experience, so it stands to reason that Mozilla’s millions of users will be champing at the bit to install their favorite extensions once the update arrives.
via Hacker News
Until android firefox fixes tablet tab support, I can’t see myself giving it a chance…
There i a multi year old ticket, with many comments, about how firefox ruined tablet tabs after their last re-write.
It should really say “Firefox desktop extension support returning to Android browser”
Firefox for Android had full extension support up through version 68. Then they skipped a few versions. Then they released, I think, v79 that blocked nearly all extensions. They added a few here and there, so the current “official” total is around 20. But if you jump through enough hoops (or just switch to the Iceraven fork), most desktop extensions have worked all along.
I have no idea what Mozilla was smoking, but I’m glad they’re finally correcting that mistake (3 years later).
They were funding the next “important” cause while cutting on R&D, of course.
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-investigating-the-bizarre-finances-of-mozilla
Honestly I do still use Mozilla, but it’s probably just a sign that I’m getting older and I’m having a hard time changing my routines… Maybe if they hadn’t reimplemented extensions with the Nightly’s collection feature I might have already jumped to another browser (I want to use extensions on Android and I need to keep my navigation synchronised between desktop and mobile, so if I’m going to give up on Firefox Mobile I’m also going to switch on desktop).
thanks for the very biased article that seems to paint their political affiliations in bad light and just straight up fabricating what they actual stand for. The organizations they work with are fantastic and only a bigot would have any issues with the things mentioned in that article.
Whether those organisations and causes are “fantastic” is a matter of opinion, the fact is that Mozilla has been cutting on its software development for years. And the results should be evident, just look at the shrinking user base and features that take forever to get (re-)implemented.
Lol you know it is a “great” comment when they jump to name calling rather than post a source of their own.
I completely agree with Erik
Mozilla really needs to get a grid. I’m young and yet I find it extremely annoying to jump from one browser to another, there are a set of requirements they need to have in the first place, interoperability between devices is a must for me, and only then I proceed to setup the new one on all devices. Boring and tedious really.
That said I believe Firefox has the potential to regain it’s fame, if only Mozilla would actually make an effort to improve it and listen to the user base.
For instance, on their forums there is a request to get the PWA feature back, it’s one of the most up voted requests, and yet to this day no one from the team ever replied, no one listens to the users. And let’s not forget that PWAs are supported by all major bowsers. Like, what the hell are you doing Mozilla
Just as well this is happening now. Increasing marketshare of non-chromium browsers (including all downstream forks like fennec) is pretty much the only way left to resist the adoption of Web Environment Integrity.