ScratchAddons
Support for Android devices (using Firefox)
Why this would be helpful
Mozilla recently announced support for browser extensions on the Android version of Firefox. It is the first major browser to do so.
Scratch Addons officially supports Firefox, so bringing the extension to Android presumably wouldn't be too hard. However, the extension is not optimized for touchscreens, as brought up in #5160.
This is a pretty big deal, but the question is: will we support it? Since we really need to improve on touchscreen support, this could be good motivation, and if we do add support, this will be a game-changer for Scratch on mobile devices, particularly Android tablets.
My suggestion
Add support for Android devices using Firefox
Possible alternatives
- Not add support
- Create a new version of the extension meant for touchscreens (though that would be complicated and doesn't help with hybrid devices)
Additional context
#5160 #6512 More info: https://www.androidpolice.com/firefox-bringing-back-full-extension-support-android/
How to enable support in the Nightly developer build: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extension-support-in-firefox-for-android-nightly/
Note that Firefox makes up less than 5% of our user base at this time.
There aren't that many Firefox Android users either.
Screenshot
Android users across all platforms is about 4.5k, however.
But I suppose that could grow. We'll keep a lookout. There are also the touchscreen laptops.
Scratch itself doesn't support mobile devices particularly well.
They have OK support for tablets, but phones are way too small to do any reasonable editing.
Scratch itself doesn't support mobile devices particularly well.
They have OK support for tablets, but phones are way too small to do any reasonable editing.
True, I forgot about tablets
We're probably going to recommend mobile Firefox instead of Kiwi. We currently recommend Kiwi on Android as a way to use Scratch Addons on mobile.
Scratch itself doesn't support mobile devices particularly well.
They have OK support for tablets, but phones are way too small to do any reasonable editing.
Scratch works great on tablets, the only real issue is that a lot of people don't include mobile support in their projects.
Note that Firefox makes up less than 5% of our user base at this time.
True. And it could be similar on Android. But unlike on desktop, it has no competition in the extensions space.
There aren't that many Firefox Android users either.
Screenshot
Okay... ? How is that relevant, though? This is (currently) a nightly-exclusive developer feature, so there's no reason any Android Firefox users would have visited the website. What can we learn from that?
Android users across all platforms is about 4.5k, however.
So that's all Kiwi browser? If people will install a no-name browser just to get Scratch Addons, I'd assume even more people would use Firefox, which is well-known.
But I suppose that could grow.
... If we make it grow by supporting Firefox and encouraging people to use it.
We'll keep a lookout. There are also the touchscreen laptops.
#5160
Okay... ? How is that relevant, though? This is (currently) a nightly-exclusive developer feature, so there's no reason any Android Firefox users would have visited the website. What can we learn from that?
It's extremely relevant. People don't just know that we don't support Firefox android, they find out by trying to install it from the site. It's literally 0% of our overall Firefox traffic. This is definitely something we should do, but it is by no means a priority.
Also, they said we'd get a release date in early September. I see no release date anywhere, and it's the end of October. Also, they've been beta testing this for 3 years on Canary.
Okay... ? How is that relevant, though? This is (currently) a nightly-exclusive developer feature, so there's no reason any Android Firefox users would have visited the website. What can we learn from that?
It's extremely relevant. People don't just know that we don't support Firefox android, they find out by trying to install it from the site. It's literally 0% of our overall Firefox traffic. This is definitely something we should do, but it is by no means a priority.
But everyone knows that mobile devices don't support browser extensions. So there's no reason they would even try.
Also, they said we'd get a release date in early September. I see no release date anywhere, and it's the end of October. Also, they've been beta testing this for 3 years on Canary.
All I know is that it's a pretty explicit announcement 🤷
Okay... ? How is that relevant, though? This is (currently) a nightly-exclusive developer feature, so there's no reason any Android Firefox users would have visited the website. What can we learn from that?
It's extremely relevant. People don't just know that we don't support Firefox android, they find out by trying to install it from the site. It's literally 0% of our overall Firefox traffic. This is definitely something we should do, but it is by no means a priority.
But everyone knows that mobile devices don't support browser extensions. So there's no reason they would even try.
I'm pretty sure that's not an "everybody knows." We get people asking all the time.
Also, they said we'd get a release date in early September. I see no release date anywhere, and it's the end of October. Also, they've been beta testing this for 3 years on Canary.
All I know is that it's a pretty explicit announcement 🤷
That they've already ignored for a month.
New update: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/11/01/is-your-extension-ready-for-firefox-for-android/
First 200 Firefox for Android extension developers (to email us) get a free t-shirt!
Interesting 😆
Looks like December 14 is the date https://www.androidpolice.com/firefox-preview-of-open-extensions-on-android/
Can confirm this is live in stable 🎉
My phone wasn't letting me screen record for some reason, but here's my experience:
Since we don't support mobile, you have to enable desktop mode to install the extension. After that, it works fine but isn't optimized. The popup displays everything too small, and the main settings page overflows to the right. However, most addons appear to work fine— I can confirm dark mode and pause button work.
I can't explain it all without a long video, so I'd encourage you all to check it out.
I'd also like to test this on a tablet (or install the Android version on a Chromebook) to see if it works better on bigger screens, where one would be more likely to use Scratch.
Honestly, I don't think it would be too hard to add mobile support. It's pretty simple:
- Make all internal pages display properly (mainly CSS?).
- Test all addons and add a hidden "supports mobile tag" (probably not all that hard, just takes a while)
- On mobile versions, only display those addons.
- Tell Firefox we support mobile
- Work on making all new addons and the remaining existing addons support touchscreens (#5160) (not something that has to happen all at once)
We will also need to update the FAQ to recommend Firefox instead of Kiwi.
- Test all addons and add a hidden "supports mobile tag" (probably not all that hard, just takes a while)
- On mobile versions, only display those addons.
Maybe there could be an option in more settings to show all addons and display the tag when enabled?
We will also need to update the FAQ to recommend Firefox instead of Kiwi.
https://github.com/ScratchAddons/website-v2/pull/405 I added Firefox to my misc doc updates but left Kiwi as an alternative in the FAQ.
Hopefully I can focus on mobile support after we migrate the extension to Manifest V3.
If anyone is interested I suggest checking #5160 so that we can work on making most addons touchscreen-friendly. It will also benefit TurboWarp users on iPads and people using laptops with touchscreen.
I'm suggesting to enhance the install flow on ScratchAddons.com for Android devices here: https://github.com/ScratchAddons/website-v2/issues/446
Edge for Android just added support for extensions, too.
Edit: Right now, it seems to support just a small curated list of extensions, not any extension. But later hopefully all extensions from the Edge Add-ons store will work on mobile.