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[FEATURE REQUEST] Firefox for Android (>68) support (Fenix)

Open matttbe opened this issue 4 years ago • 55 comments

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I cannot enjoy your nice add-on when using Firefox Beta on Android (versions >68). (BTW, thanks for developing and maintaining CAD!)

Describe the solution you'd like

According to Mozilla, they will focus enabling a selection of "Recommended Extensions". Because CAD is part of the "Recommended Extensions" list, is there anything users or devs can do to be in the selection? :-) https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-compatibility-firefox-preview

Describe alternatives you've considered

CAD is working well with Firefox stable (version 68).

Additional context

It is not clear to me if add-ons' devs can do something or if we can change some settings to still try an extension and see if it works or not: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/02/11/faq-for-extension-support-in-new-firefox-for-android/

matttbe avatar Jun 04 '20 08:06 matttbe

I'm not clear either, but if you can somehow install it then it may partially work? I'm not exactly sure what API's are exposed through the newer version of Firefox Beta, nor have they contacted us in regards to that yet.

kennethtran93 avatar Jun 04 '20 15:06 kennethtran93

Thank you for your reply!

but if you can somehow install it then it may partially work?

I tried to download the .xpi from Firefox Beta but it doesn't want to open it. I didn't find any way to force that (yet). But I would be happy to try if it is possible!

I'm not exactly sure what API's are exposed through the newer version of Firefox Beta, nor have they contacted us in regards to that yet.

OK, good to know they didn't contact you!

matttbe avatar Jun 05 '20 16:06 matttbe

Mozilla rolled out the "new" Firefox on a couple of devices like a week ago. CAD was automatically disabled. ☹️

Is there something you can or are supposed to do?

drwetter avatar Aug 08 '20 08:08 drwetter

Mozilla rolled out the "new" Firefox on a couple of devices like a week ago. CAD was automatically disabled. frowning_face

Is there something you can or are supposed to do?

There has been no contact from Mozilla/Firefox as far as I'm aware of in regards to that, so until that time comes there's nothing on our end that we can do, unless one wants to partake in redesigning the popup to be more mobile friendly.

Until then probably just stick with the old Firefox 68 for Android for now. That's what I'm doing.

kennethtran93 avatar Aug 08 '20 21:08 kennethtran93

Am 8. August 2020 23:30:14 MESZ schrieb .

Until then probably just stick with the old Firefox 68 for Android for now. That's what I'm doing.

The new version is from the UI perspective also a step backwards. /OT

But the FAQ which one will be pointed to once you upgraded says the old version won't receive any security updates.

Any chance to get some attention from Mozilla like using their bugttracker?

-- Sent from my mobile. Excuse my brevity&typos+the phone's autocorrection

drwetter avatar Aug 09 '20 08:08 drwetter

But the FAQ which one will be pointed to once you upgraded says the old version won't receive any security updates.

Depending on now it rolls out, Firefox on Android may be an exception. We'll just have to wait and see.

Any chance to get some attention from Mozilla like using their bugttracker?

It's not really a bug as they're only in beta still, and that they said that they're working on getting more extensions through the new version. At least we're already on the recommended extensions so that's a step up. Besides it is not just our extension that is awaiting to see if it will be supported, so I'm just going to be hands off and go with the flow for now.

kennethtran93 avatar Aug 10 '20 01:08 kennethtran93

It's not really a bug as they're only in beta still,

as said unfortunately it's not in beta! If you have automatic updates enabled you'll get it, whether you want it or not.

How do I get upgraded?

If you meet the following requirements, you’ll be upgraded automatically - no need to do a thing:

    Automatic app updates are enabled for Firefox for Android
    You’re on Android 5+
    You’re on Firefox for Android version 59+ 

If you’re on an older version of Firefox for Android (59 or below) you won't be upgraded. If you’re on an older version of Android, we recommend upgrading your OS or acquiring a device that supports a newer Android OS to get the new browser.

Are we talking about different things?

drwetter avatar Aug 10 '20 07:08 drwetter

It's not really a bug as they're only in beta still

It's no longer in beta since a few days.

chrisvdb avatar Aug 10 '20 12:08 chrisvdb

@drwetter Maybe because I have auto-updates from Play Store disabled, I haven't gotten that update yet. I have both the regular Firefox and Firefox Beta installed on my Android.

@chrisvdb Yes I see that they're gradually rolling out the update. Unfortunately there's not much we can do at this point (that I know of) as only Mozilla has the ability to enable additional webextension support.

Per https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/02/11/faq-for-extension-support-in-new-firefox-for-android/

What add-ons are supported on the new Firefox for Android?

[...] We are working on building support for other extensions in our Recommended Extensions program.

Will more add-ons be supported in the future?

We want to ensure that the first add-ons supported in the new Firefox for Android provide an exceptional, secure mobile experience to our users. To this end, we are prioritizing Recommended Extensions that cover common mobile use cases and that are optimized for different screen sizes. For these reasons, it’s possible that not all the add-ons you have previously installed in Firefox for Android will be supported in the near future.

As we are already in the Recommended Extensions program, we are at least one step ahead then the other extensions. All that's left is when the Mozilla team will contact us in regards to getting the extension onto the new Firefox.

kennethtran93 avatar Aug 10 '20 21:08 kennethtran93

@kennethtran93 Thanks. However the URL is 4^W 6 months old. Under this circumstances don't know whether it's really a good idea to keep on waiting. My experience in life however is not to do that but trying to poke people. Admittedly I don't know exactly what to do to get more attention from Mozilla :-)

But maybe somebody who knows is listening and / or we need to find out.

I hope this is not a strategy from Mozilla. Some reviews read like there are more people complaining that their extension were disabled.

drwetter avatar Aug 10 '20 22:08 drwetter

They've been adding in a few more selective webextension since then (about ~2-3 months or so) .

The only thing that comes to mind is to head over to the GitHub repo housing the Mozilla Android files and maybe create an issue to allow CAD to at least be able to be installed/sideloaded in Beta/Nightly so that we could start testing it from then on.

Somewhere along the lines I may have read that the full implementation of webextension API isn't available in the new versions yet but I could be very well mistaken.

kennethtran93 avatar Aug 10 '20 22:08 kennethtran93

Forgot to say @kennethtran93 : Thanks for your extension! I liked it a lot and hopefully there will be a time I can use it again. ;-/

I raised my voice to an existing issue. Maybe it helps if more people will complain.

drwetter avatar Aug 11 '20 15:08 drwetter

added https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/13925 to enhance its visibility

fichtennadel avatar Aug 19 '20 14:08 fichtennadel

some slow movement visible on Mozilla's attitude towards add-ons in FF for Android:

https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/14034

https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/add-on-support-in-new-firefox-for-android/53488/16

But that will probably take some time until it makes its way into mainstream.

fichtennadel avatar Aug 21 '20 20:08 fichtennadel

I am planning to email Firefox to tell them to prioritize this extension! May I suggest extensions to become Recommended? Yes. If there’s extension you feel should be Recommended, please email amo-featured [at] mozilla [dot] org with a link to its AMO listing page. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recommended-extensions-program

AuthorMom avatar Aug 28 '20 18:08 AuthorMom

Considering we are already on the recommended list I'm not sure how that will fare, but mention the mobile version I guess.

kennethtran93 avatar Aug 28 '20 21:08 kennethtran93

Relevant: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extension-support-in-firefox-for-android-nightly/

chrisvdb avatar Sep 30 '20 22:09 chrisvdb

Heads up for those that are helping us test if it works in Fenix-DayLight:

From the post above:

Relevant: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extension-support-in-firefox-for-android-nightly/

WebExtensions API support

Most of the WebExtensions APIs supported on the previous Firefox for Android experience are supported in the current application. The notable exceptions are the downloads.download (implementation in progress) and the browserData APIs. You can see the current list of compatible APIs on MDN. Extensions that use unsupported APIs may be buggy or not work at all on Firefox for Android Nightly.

Long story short, CAD (on mobile) can only delete cookies and not other site data (cache, indexedDB, localStorage, Plugin Data, Service Workers) at this time. This means that if you're trying to remove google search history it will most likely not work as they may be using localstorage or indexedDB to store the results.

CAD should have the same functionality as if it was on the older Firefox Android. I should have taken care of this by checking if it was ran on mobile, but given the new Firefox I may need to patch up a few things.

Having said that please submit any issues you may have with the new Firefox Android and I will see what I can do (but these will take longer for me to debug).

kennethtran93 avatar Oct 01 '20 01:10 kennethtran93

Does anyone know which (stable) version of Fenix targets to re-enable support for CAD, at least with cookies?

chrisvdb avatar Oct 21 '20 09:10 chrisvdb

Only tangentially related to this issue, but the new Firefox for Android changelog states: Automatically purge cookies from sites you haven’t directly visited in 30 days. Sounds like they're including a light version of CAD now!

chrisvdb avatar Oct 28 '20 05:10 chrisvdb

Just wanted to say that, without this addon, I feel like "I'm surfing the web naked, unprotected"... I don't seem to find any place/option/menu on Fenix to get rid of cookies/other-data already there. 😞

rbrito avatar Jan 28 '21 18:01 rbrito

Just wanted to say that, without this addon, I feel like "I'm surfing the web naked, unprotected"... I don't seem to find any place/option/menu on Fenix to get rid of cookies/other-data already there.

Well, you can go to Settings -> Delete browsing data -> select cookies and/or other stuff.

But sure, doing this manually periodically is quite tedious.

gsauthof avatar Jan 30 '21 13:01 gsauthof

Just wanted to say that, without this addon, I feel like "I'm surfing the web naked, unprotected"... I don't seem to find any place/option/menu on Fenix to get rid of cookies/other-data already there.

Well, you can go to Settings -> Delete browsing data -> select cookies and/or other stuff.

But sure, doing this manually periodically is quite tedious.

Actually, there's more to it than just being tedious. That is an "all or nothing" operation: you can't selectively keep cookies (and other data) from sites that you use/like and discard garbage that you have because you accessed a site that you only casually used (and, possibly, regretted) in the past.

rbrito avatar Jan 31 '21 14:01 rbrito

Actually, there's more to it than just being tedious. That is an "all or nothing" operation: you can't selectively keep cookies (and other data) from sites that you use/like and discard garbage that you have because you accessed a site that you only casually used (and, possibly, regretted) in the past.

Of course it's an all-or-nothing operation. I didn't claim the contrary. I just replied to your general statement that you didn't seem to find any place/option on Fenix to get rid of cookies/etc. So there is at least one place/option to get rid of cookies. Until Firefox-on-Android adds the missing features back (that are required by Cookie AutoDelete), sadly, this is the next best thing. Better than nothing, but of course, not as good as the real thing.

gsauthof avatar Feb 07 '21 10:02 gsauthof

Long story short, CAD (on mobile) can only delete cookies and not other site data (cache, indexedDB, localStorage, Plugin Data, Service Workers) at this time. This means that if you're trying to remove google search history it will most likely not work as they may be using localstorage or indexedDB to store the results.

CAD should have the same functionality as if it was on the older Firefox Android. I should have taken care of this by checking if it was ran on mobile, but given the new Firefox I may need to patch up a few things.

Having said that please submit any issues you may have with the new Firefox Android and I will see what I can do (but these will take longer for me to debug).

Any news on that front? It really sucks not having CAD take care of all this. I tried using ungoogled-chromium-android with (unsupported) extension support as a temporary workaround but it's a nightmare: installing extensions seem to only work with drag & drop from a local file (which i can't do on my Android device). So I am stuck with Firefox for the time being.

0x47 avatar Mar 13 '21 10:03 0x47

Firefox Nightly is still the android browser to use if you want to use the extension on the newest versions, unsure if the dynamic first party isolation is also affecting mobile versions.

kennethtran93 avatar Mar 14 '21 07:03 kennethtran93

Long story short, CAD (on mobile) can only delete cookies and not other site data (cache, indexedDB, localStorage, Plugin Data, Service Workers) at this time. This means that if you're trying to remove google search history it will most likely not work as they may be using localstorage or indexedDB to store the results.

By now (end of May 2021) the following functionality is listed as supported by Firefox For Android (I suppose that implies Fenix according to the version number):

  • removal of Cache: since v85
  • removal of LocalStorage: since v85
  • removal of Service Workers via the generic call 'remove' (asterisk specifies the following: "footnote Specifying dataTypes.history will also remove download history and service workers.") since v85
  • removal of Plugin Data: since v85

(source: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Browser_support_for_JavaScript_APIs)

So it seems a lot of these shortcomings have been resolved in Fenix v85. Can you confirm that this is true? Does CAD already support these calls that are stated to be working since v85, or have they been changed? I suppose they should be, because they follow the WebExtension API which hasn't changed recently.

doodhout avatar May 29 '21 07:05 doodhout

By now (end of May 2021) the following functionality is listed as supported by Firefox For Android

To me it seems that the main problem is that the extension is not a 'recommended' extension by the Mozilla team. Do you think that now with more of the needed API supported on Android, we can do something to make Mozilla 'recommend' this extension?

doronbehar avatar May 29 '21 07:05 doronbehar

Is there even a way to install "unrecommended" add-ons (like CAD) in Fenix? I cannot find an official way. The add-on page lists 16-something add-ons only and the search does not reveal any more than that.

hebu avatar May 29 '21 09:05 hebu

Is there currently a way to install add-ons that are not included in the very short list of recommended add-ons for Firefox for Andoird "Fenix"?

For the stable Google Play Store release? No. For the nightly Google Play Store release? Yes. Cf. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-use-collections-addonsmozillaorg#w_create-a-collection For the stable F-Droid release (bizarly still called Fennec instead of Fenix, cf. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/)? Yes. Same procedure as for Nightly on the Play Store.

I used to use the last option in this list. Unfortunately I use bookmark keywords extensively and they haven't added support for those into Fenix yet and apparently they never will because they want to phase out bookmark keywords, so I'm still using the latest F-Droid Fennec build that is from before the switch from Fennec to Fenix.

doodhout avatar May 29 '21 09:05 doodhout