[zzzcpan]

I find it rather discouraging to hear they are not removing the blocking API for now. It's basically an empty statement, not reassurance. They still may or may not remove the API, they don't want to promise anything or show any commitment to users' needs and priorities.

[wtallis]

It's basically the same as what happened two months ago with Firefox for Android being EOL'd pending a major re-write that may or may not support extensions. Mozilla is not willing to publicly commit to keeping their key features alive, and they keep hinting at the possibility that they will be leaving users behind in an attempt to be more like Chrome.

[lol768]

And the other point of view, directly from Mozilla:

> 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.

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20298143

This reads like FUD to me. The dev team know how important extensions are to their users. Can you provide a source that implies Fennec will be EOL before Fenix has extension and/or ad-blocking support?

[mjw1007]

In that discussion (and indeed in the message you quote), the mozilla developers had every incentive to say, if it were true, « we have decided not to replace fennec with fenix on Android until fenix supports ad-blockers ».

They very visibly didn't take the opportunity to do so.

From what I can make out on github, they're planning to replace fennec with fenix around the time the next ESR comes out (which I think is early 2020), and there isn't currently a project in progress to add the necessary web-extension support to fenix.

[lol768]

Thanks for this.

>From what I can make out on github, they're planning to replace fennec with fenix around the time the next ESR comes out (which I think is early 2020), and there isn't currently a project in progress to add the necessary web-extension support to fenix.

Would you mind linking the GitHub issues that have lead you to draw this conclusion, so I can take a look?

[mjw1007]

https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/06/27/reinventi... says they were planning in June to have a "feature-rich, polished" fennec release "this fall".

https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/879 "[Meta] Fennec -> Fenix Transition" appears to say the transition will happen in Q4 2019.

The Android releases of fennec used to be updated for each Firefox release, but moved to ESR with the most recent ESR release. I think that means that since then nobody has been keeping the Android port working as changes come in (but ESRs are supported for a year or more, so maybe I'm wrong to think that the date of the next ESR release is relevant).

https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/574 is about web-extension support; the recent updates say:

« Product is looking into feasibility » « Tentatively adding needs:gv label until we know what additional GV work will be needed to support general purpose extensions. »

The issue is labelled 'Feature:FennecTransition' and 'feature request'. It isn't labelled 'should', and some other 'Feature:FennecTransition' issues are.

It isn't clear to me whether they're planning to release a new version of "Firefox" on Google Play that uses the fenix codebase, or release fenix as a separate app and declare that the fennec one is obsolete.

https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/879 and https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/934 have some interesting hints, but I can't tell what they've decided.

[Mathnerd314]

GV is short for GeckoView, relevant-looking bug is here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1468844

Apparently they are using "Raptor" for testing (https://wiki.mozilla.org/TestEngineering/Performance/Raptor) which includes a webextension, and they fix that area of the webextension API when it breaks. But in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1562844 they mention that many components of Fennec are not implemented in GV so the corresponding API is broken.

I'm guessing the work is mostly about enabling the addons manager, so it might fit in Q4 or it might not. But it is worrisome that it isn't marked as blocking the transition.

They've already released fenix as a separate app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fe...

I would rather they call it "Firefox Lite" (in a nod to Facebook Lite etc.) and used some in-app notifications than to try to mass migrate with a version update as it seems they are plotting to do.

[Vinnl]

Perhaps interesting: this post that implies that implementing full extension support might not be that much work: https://sammacbeth.eu/blog/2019/09/04/geckoview-extensions.h...

[Jonnax]

A rewrite that is faster than Chrome for Android.

[hajile]

It may be faster than Chrome on Android, but it's certainly not faster than Firefox on Android with adblockers. Not loading/parsing multi-megabytes of Javascript and images is huge. Loads of ads these days incorporate entire JS framework toolchains resulting in a binary bigger than the page they're being injected into. Eliminating a few ads and the rest of your browser could be a lot less efficient and still perform well. That's all before discussing how adblockers also reduce who is tracking you everywhere.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

In my experience and limited testing, even with warmed-up caches, Chrome (without Adblocker) was faster than Firefox (with or without Adblocker), sadly.

I still use Firefox due to the security benefits of ad blocking, but I don't find the experience particularly enjoyable (although, thinking of it, it may have either significantly improved in the past ~half a year, or I just don't notice because of a more powerful CPU in my new phone).

[Jonnax]

It certainly is faster than Firefox for Android.

There are benefits to adblocking of course.

But there's no point lying.

[bscphil]

Eh. That may be the intent but they aren't there yet. I tested Firefox Preview on Speedometer 2.0 and got the same result I did with Firefox for Android 68. Chrome gets double the score (runs per minute) on my device.