Firefox on Android

[pmprog]

Crap, I updated my Firefox on my phone, and their new UI/UX is awful. Took me ages to find my bookmarks.

If you stop all running tasks and then start Firefox, it won't show you any of the open tabs

Has anyone else used it? If so, do you like it?

 

[Askarus]

What I have read about it tells me not to upgrade.
Currently there are only 9 Add-ons working and they need to be whitelisted by Mozilla.

I liked FireFox for Android a lot, but I won't use the new Version.

It shall be a lot faster though

 

[levi]

Yeah, I heard people being upgraded had created something of a shitstorm. All I can say as a Linux with GNU user is that firefox 79 works for me when paired with either umatrix or noscript.

 

[pmprog]

I don't get what's going wrong in the world of UX... Not that I'm some sort of guru, but man, I felt like starting to put together a "Bad UX Showcase" video set comparing how the new designs require more time and clicks... though I certainly don't have time to actually do that; as particular other examples are creating new projects in VS2019 compared to all previous, and saving a document in Word/Excel 365

I know it's first world problems and all that... but still just don't understand why things are going backwards.

Unfortunately, you can't downgrade without uninstalling and finding an old APK somewhere. Maybe we'll get a new Palemoon/Basalisk for Mobile?

 

[Askarus]

What I don't get is why they don't let choose people what frontend they want to use.
For me it's one big reason why I use Linux. I can make my computer look and feel the way I like it.
Why do so many companies enforce an UI change every now and then and don't give people the option to keep what they are used to.
Or an option for a simple and a complex UI.
Why making things always "simpler" and "more easy" to use and force people to "improve" their live.
Improve the backend. But don't force people to use one particular frontend.
And don't take away options from the users.
Let them install whatever Add-On they like. It's their own choice and risk.

 

[pmprog]

What I don't get is why they don't let choose people what frontend they want to use.

Because it requires resource to maintain... That's why you have different people maintaining Gnome from KDE... and I guess Palemoon from Firefox.
It also doubles your workload when you want to add a toolbox item for example, as you have to put it in both, then make sure it all flows etc.

And in a way you do have that choice... You can either pick Firefox, or some Chromium based browser (which unfortunately, seems to be 99% of the rest).

I don't mind UIs being updated per se, but when you hide the key functions, or make more taps/clicks to do the same thing you did before, then you've lost (IMO).

In my work's software, we've debating "cleaning" up certain screens (removing excess fields), but when talking to the users, it means that they need more clicks to go find that information when they need it. So far, we've left it looking rather cluttered. However, my plan for the next major update is to make a more flexible screen that shows only relevant portions. Almost a compromise of clearing the screen, without increasing CTA (I'm coining the phrase Clicks-To-Action , although somebody will probably already tell me it has a name)

 

[levi]

If you prefer the old L&F of old firefox browers, you could try out seamonkey. I'm not sure how they did it given how cash strapped they sometime seem, but they seem to have got the LTS version of firefox with the old look and feel somehow.

 

[dgame]

I'm running Fennec F-Droid in the mean time. It is based on the last Firefox 68.11.0 before this 79 mess. I had to set up all my add-ons again. Thankfully the NoScript and uBlock in Firefox can export their settings which can be imported into Fennec.

 

[pmprog]

Ah, forgot about Fennec. Might consider switching. Cheers