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Firefox Android Build That Caused Issues Is Working As Intended (theregister.com) 88

Posted by BeauHD from the are-you-trying-to-lose-customers dept.
Today, Mozilla launched the updated Firefox Android app with a version that many thought was a beta because it was full of bugs and UI issues. According to The Register, this was a deliberate software release and is the new version of Firefox for Android, which is set to hit the UK today, August 25, and the U.S. on the 27th. From the report: A Reg reader yesterday alerted us to an August 20 version bump that was causing so many problems, our tipster thought it was a beta that had gone seriously awry. "To sum it up, on 20th of August, Firefox 79 was unexpectedly forced on a large batch of Firefox 68 Android users without any warning, way to opt out or roll back," our reader reported. "A lot got broken in the process: the user interface, tabs, navigation, add-ons." Meanwhile, the Google Play store page for the completely free and open-source Firefox has a rash of one-star reviews echoing similar complaints: after the upgrade, little seemed to work as expected. "This is the worst 'upgrade' I've ever experienced," said netizen Martin Lindenmayer. "My main gripe is that there is no back button (to return to your previous page) anymore."

What's happened is this: the last stable version of Firefox for Android was version 68, released in 2019. For over a year, Mozilla has been working on an overhaul of its browser in a project code-named Fenix. Moz has slowly rolled out the result of its work to netizens in preview and beta form -- and since the end of July, as a proper release: version 79. This new stable version is what appeared on people's devices. As well as changes to the user interface and many new features that have thrown some users, it is also missing support for all extensions. In fact, by last count, only nine add-ons are supported so far, though this is expected to increase over time. The browser has also adopted Mozilla's GeckoView engine. If you accidentally updated the app and would like to roll back the update, you won't be able to. "[O]nce you've upgraded to the new browser, you won't be able to return to the old browser," says Mozilla.

For more information about the upgrade process, you can check out the browser's FAQ page.
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Firefox Android Build That Caused Issues Is Working As Intended More

Firefox Android Build That Caused Issues Is Working As Intended

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  • Da fuq (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    My main gripe is that there is no back button (to return to your previous page) anymore.

    At this point, I think Google has made continued executive salaries at Mozilla dependent on making the worst possible browser. They view these complaints as evidence of a job well done.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      My main gripe is that there is no back button (to return to your previous page) anymore.

      At this point, I think Google has made continued executive salaries at Mozilla dependent on making the worst possible browser. They view these complaints as evidence of a job well done.

      There is a back button, I just used it in the nightly build.

      In addition, the OS native back button in Android? It functions as a back button in Firefox as well.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vux984 ( 928602 )

      I'm still on 68, but the only back button i ever use is the android 'back' navigation button, not the browser "back button".

      Did they remove the "three dots -> back arrow" ? I can't recall the last time I used that. Who uses that back arrow? Is it something to do with the model phone where the built in android back button isn't present??

      (I DO occasionally use the 'three dots -> forward button' though. To go forward after having gone back.)

      • Re:Da fuq (Score:5, Informative)

        by azcoyote ( 1101073 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @09:01PM (#60440859)
        I tend to like having a back button because of the relative unpredictability of the Android OS back button. The OS button can back you out of the app altogether; a regular back button is clearer in its function. That's one typical annoyance about Android; in my experience, sometimes the back button is interpreted as "previous app" rather than "previous screen of this app" or "prior/higher screen or menu on this app." Thus, for example, in Samsung Messages pressing the OS Back from a message thread always exits the app rather than going to the inbox, even if you were just there.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          On Android the back button is ALWAYS "back to the previous view". So if you follow a link in an app and it opens in the browser then the back button will take you back to the app. If you follow a link in the browser the back button will take you back to the page the link was on.

          I don't know how Samsung managed to break that but I suggest moving to a different messaging app that doesn't deliberately break the UI. Certainly Google's various messaging apps behave as expected.

          • Riiiight, Android "always" does (insert any possible action here, duly noting that you are an idiot for stating 'always') Android is unpredictable in consistently unpredictable and bizarre ways. Like Mozilla, if something is a useful convention that users rely.on, just give it time and they'll "fix" it with a regressive update. I'm not speaking to this most recent release of FF because FF for android has been a lost cause since its inception and nobody gives a fuck, just speaking in general as a disgrunt

          • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

            by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @08:24AM (#60442123)
            Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • The problem is that a user can't tell the difference between a click that stays on the same page vs one that takes you to a new page. With the browser back button, at least if you think you clicked a link to a new page and are wrong, the back button will (at worst) take you to a page you previously visited. The OS back button might take you to a different app. With the browser back button, at least you stay in the browser when you realize your mistake.

      • Yes, the three dots back arrow was convenient to have because it doesn't do anything else, unlike the android back button.

        I'm currently running F-Droid Fennic, which is the old version of Firefox as served by F-Droid. Mainly because I used a number of addons, youtube playback has garbled audio at faster speeds on the new version, and tabs can't be reordered anymore. Ugh.

  • I guess the important question, if not Firefox (Score:3)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @08:50PM (#60440837)

    What browser should I be using on my phone? And don't try to tell me to use Chrome.

    As long as I can get uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger, and import my bookmarks I'd probably be ok.

    • Re:I guess the important question, if not Firefox (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @08:53PM (#60440847)

      What browser should I be using on my phone? And don't try to tell me to use Chrome.

      As long as I can get uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger, and import my bookmarks I'd probably be ok.

      The new version of Firefox is compatible with only a few add-ons so far.

      uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger are two out of the ten or so add-ons supported, so far. So, you're in luck.

    • Samsung Internet (on Samsung phones) works well for me, and has Adblock and dark mode--my two favorite features (sadly not uBlock Origin, I believe). I use Vivaldi on PC, but their Android app isn't as good yet. Still, Vivaldi is probably a decent alternative if you don't have a Samsung phone. I'm hoping that it'll get more customizable in the future--which is what I love about it on the PC, and why I ditched Firefox for Vivaldi in the first place.

    • Re:I guess the important question, if not Firefox (Score:4, Informative)

      by ScepticOne ( 576266 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @10:35PM (#60441051)

      I've gone with Fennic F-Droid. It's the old version of Firefox, installed from F-Droid [f-droid.org].

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 )

      Use Blockada for ad blocking to stop caring about what browser you're using...

      I like Yandex browser, it is a Chromium based browser but they have full compatibility with all Chrome extensions which Chrome on Android does not have.

    • Those, along with Cookie AutoDelete: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org] then yes, I'd be ok too.

    • I still use Firefox but I'm pissed off at it.

      UBlock still works and sync still fetches my bookmarks so that's something. But previously when I tapped the URL bar there were a list of FF for Android bookmarks displayed. That's gone and I need to make extra taps to show them *every time*. There is no option to being back the old.

      It is almost enough to make me switch but the Chrome sync uses Google and IIRC isn't end to end encrypted so Google can read my shit... so that shit won't fly.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Firefox is the best mobile browser in pretty much every way except one.

      It's got all the necessary add-ons: uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Cookie Autodelete and more.

      It's decent on memory and battery consumption.

      It's open source and respects your privacy.

      The only problem is that it doesn't render some sites very well, including this one. If they could just fix the rendering I'd switch over immediately on both mobile and desktop.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

        I'm not sure what kind of weird rendering issues you have. It's not like the rendering issues of IE.

        Only cases where I have seen different result between Firefox and other browsers aside from IE is when there have been designs that aren't W3C compliant, but then we are in undefined territory.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Try this website: https://www.satsignal.eu/ntp/R... [satsignal.eu]

          It is readable in Chrome on Android but in Firefox the page is too wide and you have to scroll to read every single line.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

            I did check that page in the W3C html validator [w3.org] and got 887 errors, and then the source states that this was edited in Microsoft FrontPage 4.0, which had the final release in 2003 - and generated a considerable amount of Internet Explorerisms.

            So that example isn't W3C compliant and therefore the rendering is most likely going to be quirky.

            When I revise to HTML 4.0 Transitional it's "only" 129 errors.

            Either you comply with standards or you comply with quirks that other design tools adds, and there have been

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Welcome to the internet, I'm afraid most of it is broken.

              I can provide you with other example. How about slashdot.org? 155 errors for that too. The mobile version is useless so I use the desktop version in Chrome on Android. I can view it mostly fine, but in Firefox it's unreadable.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

                I don't have any problems with Slashdot on Android.
                There's some functionality that's limited, but I have put that under the consideration that it's a design choice to limit some functionality on the mobile devices.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  It's completely unreadable in Firefox for Android. The line length is wider than the screen so you have to constantly scroll left to right to read it.

                  The mobile view of Slashdot is useless because it doesn't show threading properly, there is no indentation.

                  • > The line length is wider than the screen so you have to constantly scroll left to right to read it. You just said you use the desktop version tho. Even so I tried that and....everything is perfectly in view although quite small. Did you perhaps zoom in? >The mobile view of Slashdot is useless because it doesn't show threading properly, there is no indentation. Indentation shows fine for me too...

      • > The only problem is that it doesn't render some sites very well,

        For a program whose primary purpose is to render websites, that's a pretty serious problem.

  • Roll back? (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @09:05PM (#60440863)

    I've kept the installation tarballs since Netscape. I can always go back.

  • new definition of stable! (Score:3)

    by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @09:10PM (#60440871)

    This new stable version

    is that some new definition of stable that I am unaware of? I updated the app, apparently I can't go back now. doesn't matter too much to me as I usually only use it as a backup browser if chrome or edge are having issues on my phone.

  • Use Brave (Score:3)

    by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 ) on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @09:36PM (#60440903)
    Opt out of rewards and use Brave. Native undetected ad-block. Fast.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The Brave ad-blocking isn't nearly as good as uBlock Origin though, and while you can install uBlock as an add-on the UI is broken so it's not all that useful.

      In any case I wouldn't trust a company that includes a crypto currency scam in their browser. They have been up to all sorts of other nasty stuff too, like stealing donations and secretly inserting referral codes.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Except that a lot of sites manage to detect the ad block anyway.
  • My home tab lost almost all of my frequently visited pages - only my pinned pages remain. When I enter part of an URL wanting to select an address from history it wants to default to a Google search. I'm very close to changing browsers on my phone.

  • The version I tried had no about:config.

    I used to set a few options in about:config, like turning off WebRTC (I know I can do this with an add-on but WTF for one config option) .I also have my own sync server, to change that is in about:config, I saw no way to do this in the new version.

    Seems like they want to make a browser that is less power user friendly.

    • The version I tried had no about:config.

      I used to set a few options in about:config, like turning off WebRTC (I know I can do this with an add-on but WTF for one config option) .I also have my own sync server, to change that is in about:config, I saw no way to do this in the new version.

      Seems like they want to make a browser that is less power user friendly.

      Yep, a big old back-handed slap to the collective faces of the demographic that (in my very probably biased view) enabled their earlier successes... If nightlies/beta ever becomes similarly useless, I'll be dropping it as my preferred mobile browser - kind of sad, I've been using it as a mobile browser ever since I started using Android phones (coming off of a trackball blackberry, which replaced a side-wheel blackberry, which replaced a series of random samsung and nokia feature/stick phones) around 9 year

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        I'm clinging on to XUL with Waterfox but not all extensions still work. Classic Theme restorer still works though so I can still have a sane interface.

        • Have been using WaterFox more lately as a part of my browser zoo that I use as a lazy solution to profile management. It's quite decent. I really wanted to like PaleMoon more than I do, but I've just encountered too many performance issues with it, though I still use it semi-regularly. Though they did do a good bit to bring forward a lot of its functionality into the current FF debugger, I still drag out an old FF 48 ESR install with FireBug when I need to debug my own JavaScript... it's probably the loss I

  • It may be working as the designer intended, but it's not working well, which tells me that the designer isn't doing a good job or understanding what the users want from a web browser.

    Firefox has always been a browser for the more technologically competent people that likes to tweak stuff. The new version has lost all that.

  • I am not sure if anybody here has actually tried it, I did. I did an opt-in for the alpha version and have used it for a while now and it works really well. It is a lot faster and some rendering problems I had with derstandard.at (an Austrian newspaper) are gone. A few things were changed, e.g. the url input bar is now on the bottom, took me a while to get used to it. But in the end, it didn't change a lot (for me). Of course, there are people, where any change is bad. I actually don't understand the comme

    • Re:I like it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gbjbaanb ( 229885 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @07:15AM (#60441955)

      It has literally 2 settings. One of which puts the address bar at the top.

      (the other is enable dark mode).

      If this was a beta, I'd be upset at it and complain, but its a full released version and while it may be faster and better, if the UI is broken then the whole thing is broken.

  • It certainly looks like a half-baked version (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OpenSourced ( 323149 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @09:10AM (#60442241) Journal

    When I started using that version, the first thing that called my attention was the toolbar, that they moved to the bottom. I get it. I even like it better at the bottom. But it's that smug disregard that gets me. Disregard for the user, who, if he's using the app at all, probably means that it's happy with it as it is, and who, in any case, probably doesn't like the UI to change at all, for the simple reason that he's used to things as they are, and know where to find them. But no, instead of giving an option they simply change it and the bewildered user be dammed. And then they give an option hidden in settings, for the user to find out if he's irked enough.

    The second was the "tabs" screen, that previously had two tabs by row with an image of the website, and now had one image-text combo by row. But the images were lost. If you opened a new tab the image was saved, but for the ten or twenty that you previously had, you got a blank. Somehow they didn't care enough in this release to take the previous image, and decided to simply create a new container and do no transfer. As said, a half-baked version, rushed for some reason.

    I still keep Firefox, my wife has uninstalled it and went to Chrome, for the two aforementioned irks plus a couple of web sites that used to render OK for her, and now render with unreadable small text. Too many hindrances for her.

    I'll never understand the itch that software houses have to make "big" releases of a working product, with "basic" and "fundamental" changes that affect the innards and also the UI, instead of many small releases with tiny changes. Perhaps is to feel that they are doing important things, perhaps to focus efforts with a good-sounding code name, who knows, in any case sure it's not due to having the best interest of their users in mind.

    • Totally on target here OpenSourced - they should have had an initial startup splash screen explaining the new options and letting the user choose (with a leave it the same button) - and that includes about:config and custom sync besides the url bar down at the bottom. How much work would that have been? Minimal. It would have prevented much of the disruption. Instead they have this big PR fiasco and have reduced their ~1% browser marketshare of mobile even further.

      Even before that they should have h

  • How to get about:config back.. (Score:3)

    by sasparillascott ( 1267058 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @09:35AM (#60442361)
    Found this over on the Firefox reddit, to get it back (I kid you not):

    >> If you go to Settings > About Firefox and tap the logo a bunch, it will enable a few hidden options back on the main Settings page. One of which should be custom Sync and Firefox Accound settimgs.

  • > If you accidentally updated the app and would like to roll back the update, you won't be able to. "[O]nce you've upgraded to the new browser, you won't be able to return to the old browser," says Mozilla.

    This is what makes it very difficult to sell updates to the user base. They've been stung too many times with "updates" that make significant changes in their workflow or are just plain buggy, and can not be backed out. The people who use these tools to get work done (and who isn't working from thei

  • Extensions were the whole reason why people installed Firefox. It should be the one thing absolutely guaranteed to stay working

    I think it was goo to completely overhaul the engine, to avoid becoming a Windows ME, but I would have ran the old engine in a container on the side, to support old extensions, if necessary, until a way was found to migrate them.

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