Firefox to become first mobile browser to support desktop extensions later this year

One more reason to stick with Firefox

Cool! So many useful extensions that I couldn't use on android.

Mobile FF is already awesome with UBlock Origin and YT background playback extensions. I wish to install an auto redirect extension. (Twitter to Nitter) I know it is doable on beta w/ extensions etc. but I want to see them on normal Firefox.

That's nice, maybe they can finally re-enable about:config in the damn thing too. They removed it from mobile Firefox years ago and the lack of it aggravates the hell out of me.

Doesn't it already support them ?

edit: yes it already supports them, but it seems that now there will be more focus on mobile

edit2: also they forgot about kiwi, but then it's not a major browser (and is it still maintained ?). still would've been cool if they corrected this

Everyone forgets Kiwi Browser :(

They already support uBlock origin and that's all I need.

No, no, no! It was supporting all the desktop extensions. For years. Until the damn buggy rewrite for no good reason. And then we were suddenly left with like 5 of them.

For a year after that I was still running the last stable release. But unfortunately the web evolves too fast.

But didn't it used to support desktop extensions on mobile before the redesign about 3 years ago? Also, hasn't Kiwi had extensions for like 6 years?

Didn't their pre-version 79 app already support extensions?

Lol what? I remember using Kiwi browser like 7 years ago and it had extension support...

They're finally starting to recover from that crappy firefox 79 update 😮‍💨

It supported desktop extensions before, then they got rid of that and now they're going to do it again?

Just when Google thought it could kill adblocking…

Kiwi broswer already does it, same with the Orion browser for iOS

Holy Fuck. Call me Ramsay, Finally some delicious fucking tech. the separation gap between mobile and pc has been going on for far too long. anything to help merge the pair. yes. all the yes.

First? What about Kiwi browser? Edit: I just remembered even old firefox supported most desktop addons...

It's long overdue. I've been running Nightly to get around the shockingly limited number of addons available on Firefox for Android. Hopefully Mozzila don't fumble the bag with this as its a great opportunity to steal users from Chrome.

And yet they've turned their back on *Android tablet users and refuse to support the tab bar.

https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/2344

Ridiculous. Only reason I switched to Vivaldi

Orion Browser by the team that makes the Kagi search engine makes this possible on ios already

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I would kill for this on iOS. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty happy with my Safari Extensions, but I’d rather have uBlock Origin, Stylish etc.

I think I read that it previously supported full blown extension and they removed it due to some under the hood changes.

Orion supports Firefox and chrome extensions

Thanks for cross-posting instead of re-posting!

Kudos to them for rolling out support more widely, but it's a bit misleading as Firefox nightly/Fennec has supported extensions for years (albeit via a cumbersome process), and Kiwi Browser is also a thing.

I can't understand how folks out there are just rawdogging the Internet out there without ublock or at least a DNS ad filter. Admittedly, Chrome runs a hair more smoothly, but the ability to use extensions like uBlock / DarkReader / Consent-O-Matic make the Firefox experience a tier above.

I just hope this makes it possible to install the Bypass Paywalls extension again so I don't have to hop over to Kiwi for that.

About time. I'm tempted to switch back to Mull from Bromite, but I'm worried about the security of Firefox compared to Chromium (that's why I switched in the first place), I've heard that particularly Mobile Firefox has awful sandboxing and bad security, I'm pretty sure it was the GrapheneOS team saying this? I'm no security expert though...

Kiwi Browser

I've been using the nightly build, using the desktop extensions for a while now. It's SO worth it. In particular, the YouTube "SponsorBlock" is super convenient.

What about Kiwi and Iceraven (Iceraven is a Firefox fork which has more extensions)

I wish they'd add a tablet UI. Doesn't seem to be prioritized whatsoever. Pre-Fenix they had it and have been patiently waiting for tabs to return on large screens ever since, but have lost hope.

As an iOS user and long time Firefox user (never switched to chrome in my life) I feel jealous. But one can only hope that we too in the APPLE walled garden won't be left behind. Though I understand that it would be a long shot. :(

I use Firefox and on my android tablet but I dont on my iphone since apple doesn't allow extensions on third party browsers. Its so annoying

Yet people will still use Chrome/Chromium based browsers

Maybe I'll stop using Brave. Sounds cool af

It has been for years, no? Or was it mobile-tagged extensions?

Oh my goodness that would be amazing. I’ll drop safari in an instant.

Been using Iceraven, although it only supports a handful of extensions such as dark reader and uBlock

Awesome, I won’t need to switch to the desktop version just because I’m missing a few extension.

i hope mozilla is already working on an iOS version for the EU market ;)

I remember wanting to try out Firefox on Android but not being able to use it with Tampermonkey which was a real bummer. Better late than never, I guess?

One question on my mind is why it took so long. Is Android a harder platform to make extensions available on or something?

This sounds huge! This may be a dumb question, but: do extensions on mobile require any special security tools that don't already exist?

Firefox on Android used to do this. I switched to Kiwi when they dropped it.

it does rn, it's just a little more effort to get them but it's not hard

This is awesome!

This guys are just amazing!

safari has been able to do this for years

Test

But not on ios....How do we get adblocking in ios?

Stop lying, Kiwi has been around for so long

Awesome!

I also hope that someday mobile firefox has tagging functionality like on desktop (and tags are synch-able, like bookmarks)

Any reason to switch from Fennec?

Iceraven already has extensions so it's not the first.

Kiwi already does

I've been using Kiwi browser for ages and it's had extension support the entire time since I quit using Firefox on mobile. I would still be using Firefox if it hadn't just kept randomly not loading pages anymore and requiring a restart, because it did at least support the one extension I can't live without; ublock origin, but the bugs were just too much. I might give Firefox mobile another shot when this new version hits stable release.

Does this mean that the storage API will finally be available on mobile? At the moment this is probably my biggest annoyance since I have to manually transfer allow lists for various extensions across desktop and mobile.

Oh, is there? That's pretty cool, mahbe Ill try it out then.

Not saying it’s a better implementation, but Safari already does this.

The more extensions you install in your browser, the more easier is to track your behavior on internet.

I'll be impressed when they actually allow for the installation of extensions from places other than their addon store like I can on the desktop version. Maybe in another 5 years, if Mozilla lasts that long.

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Actually not true. Kagi on iOS supports extensions. What a joke lol

That's nice,but it would have been great to get certificates into Firefox mobile. Those are exclusive to Chrome browsers and that sucks.

Now Brave needs to do the same and also create its own extension store