Firefox For Android

Firefox for Android is a web browser developed by Mozilla for Android smartphones and tablet computers. As with its desktop version, it uses the Gecko layout engine, and supports features such as synchronization with Firefox Sync, blocking web trackers, and add-ons.

The initial version of Firefox for Android was codenamed Fennec and branded Firefox for mobile; it initially supported Maemo and Android before supporting MeeGo and Firefox OS as well. Support for Maemo was later dropped. In 2020, a redesigned version of Firefox for Android (codenamed Fenix, and also branded as Firefox Daylight) was released, which introduced a new internal architecture and user interface inspired by Firefox Focus, new privacy features, and switching to curated WebExtensions for add-ons.

History

Firefox for mobile, codenamed "Fennec", was first released for Maemo in January 2010 with version 1.0 and for Android in March 2011 with version 4.0. Support for Maemo was discontinued after version 7, released in September 2011. The codename Fennec comes from the fennec fox, a small desert fox (just as the Fennec browser is a small version of the Firefox desktop browser). Firefox for Maemo Beta 5, released in 2009, was the first version to have the official Firefox branding, with the Firefox name and logo.

Fennec uses the Gecko engine; for example, version 1.0 used the same engine as Firefox 3.6, and the following release, 4.0, shared core code with Firefox 4.0. Its features include HTML5 support, Firefox Sync, add-ons support and tabbed browsing. The browser's version numbering was bumped from version 2.0 beta to version 4.0 to more closely match desktop releases of Firefox since the rendering engines used in both browsers are the same.

Plugin support was initially disabled by default, removing compatibility with popular web content types such as Adobe Flash. In September 2011, Flash support was implemented in pre-release builds for pre-Honeycomb versions of Android. Flash support for Android 2.x and 4.x was enabled for most smartphones in version 14.0; later it was removed in version 56.0.

On June 27, 2019, Mozilla unveiled ''Firefox Preview'' (codename "Fenix"), a redesigned version of Firefox for Android based on GeckoView an implementation of Gecko that is decoupled as a reusable library, intended to be used as an alternative to the default Android WebView component (based on Blink engine). GeckoView was first used by Firefox Focus, whose design influenced aspects of Fenix. It has a redesigned user interface with support for dark mode, a new "Collections" feature for saving sets of tabs, and includes Enhanced Tracking Protection (a configurable blocker for web trackers and third-party cookies) and a redesigned private browsing mode.

The Firefox for Android Beta channel was migrated to the Fenix branch in April 2020, and it was officially released to the stable channel in August 2020 as version 79, branded as ''Firefox Daylight''. The last Fennec-based version was version 68, which was released in July 2019, and received bug and security fixes until July 2020.

Add-ons

Firefox for Android allows installation of extensions. Firefox Daylight/"Fenix" uses the same WebExtensions architecture as the desktop version of Firefox, but not all APIs are supported.

To ensure add-ons are properly optimized for mobile use, Firefox for Android supports only a curated selection of popular extensions from the Mozilla Add-ons "Recommended Extensions" program. Only nine Dark Reader, Decentraleyes, HTTPS Everywhere, NoScript, Privacy Badger, Privacy Possum, Search by Image, uBlock Origin, and YouTube High were supported at launch, with plans for at least thirty to be supported by the end of 2020.

As of September 29, 2020, the ''Nightly'' branch contains an experimental function for installing extensions via the Mozilla Add-ons website, which is intended for testing compatibility.

Platforms

Firefox Daylight requires Android 5.0 "Lollipop" or later; earlier versions of Firefox also supported earlier versions of Android. Support for Android devices that run x86 processors was added in December 2013.

Previously or unofficially supported

Previously, Firefox for mobile supported other platforms besides Android.

Official support for the Nokia N900 Maemo device ceased with version 7.

Firefox mobile was available for MeeGo through the third-party OpenRepos repository. For operating systems not supported by Fennec, like Sailfish OS (based on Mer project), web browsers can use embedlite (IPCLiteAPI), a lightweight embedding API.

An alpha build of version 1.1 (1.1 Alpha 1) for Windows Mobile, released on February 19, 2010, is the last build for this operating system. Following the Windows Phone 7 announcement and Microsoft's decision not to release a native development kit, as with Android and other systems, development for Windows Mobile was put on hold. If Microsoft releases a native development kit in the future for its Windows Phone OS, then Mozilla will consider again developing Fennec for the platform.

Tristan Nitot, president of Mozilla Europe, has said that it's unlikely that a BlackBerry OS version will be released, citing BlackBerry's limited operating system as the reason. Mozilla has no plans to develop Firefox for the Symbian platform, or webOS. An unofficial port to WebOS was made, but is no longer maintained as of 2011.

An unofficial port is available for the Pandora handheld console.

Firefox 52.0.2 was the last version to run on ARM devices without NEON support, such as those with Tegra 2.

Reception

The main criticisms of the browser pre-version 14 were slow browsing speed, lack of plugin support and performance issues. To address these concerns, Mozilla redesigned the browser in version 14.0, adding Flash support, improving start-up speed, as well as other enhancements. This update dramatically improved Firefox for Android. , the average user rating of Firefox for Android on the Google Play Store is 4.4.

Compared to the stock Android browser and Chrome on Android, Firefox has a small market share; for the month of November 2015, Firefox for Android usage share of all mobile/tablet browsers was just 0.81%. Despite that, Firefox for Android enjoys a high Play Store rating, has over 100 million downloads, and continues to be developed. The latest version supports Android 4.0 and higher (as Android 2.3 support was dropped in version 48).

In its 2015 Android browser comparison, Spanish software news and reviews site Softonic.com awarded Firefox version 37.0.1 the ''Best of 2015'' nod, with reviewer Fabrizio Benedetti citing a good design, efficient memory consumption, the browser's open source nature, and independence.

In August 2020, Mozilla released a major update of Firefox for Android, version 79, which had been in development for more than 1 year with the codename "Firefox Daylight". It was described by Mozilla as being "dramatically redesigned to be faster, easy to use, customizable and private". However, it received intense criticism from users, who complained that it was more difficult to use, and slower, and various features were suddenly missing. Some online Tech Writers even recommended people to disable the update if possible.

Security advantages

A number of devices run older versions of Android. Some would not be upgraded to newer versions because of insufficient technical knowledge by users, or their lack of access to mobile data; some devices cannot be upgraded because of low system resources, or the manufacturer and telecoms operator have failed to provide an update.

As of early 2015, Google has stopped issuing its own patches for Android 4.3 and earlier to the WebView browser component and the WebKit rendering engine therein, which are used by the native/stock and often default AOSP browser in a large number of Android devicesthereby shifting the patching responsibility to device manufacturers. In time, the native browser or browser components become outdated, increasingly insecure, and unable to properly render modern websites.

As a workaround, a Google engineer suggested using the separately-installable and updateable Google Chrome or Firefox browsers. In case of Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.x), Google stopped supporting that branch of Android with updates to its Chrome browser after Chrome 43, and moved up to Android 4.1 as the oldest release supported by Google Chrome.

The open-source nature of Firefox has made it possible to maintain its development for operating system versions that are past their product support life cycle, and has resulted in Firefox having stronger security and better support for modern web standards. This in effect extends the useful lifetime of devices stuck on older major versions of Android.

Forks and code reuse

Adblock Browser

On 20 May 2015, Eyeo GmbH, the maintainers of Adblock Plus, released Adblock Browser 1.0 beta, which is based on Firefox for Android. The browser uses a similar blocking/permitting model as Adblock Plus, allowing by default ads deemed "acceptable" by Eyeo. A major drawback compared to Firefox for Android is Adblock Browser's lack of support for Firefox Sync.

Initial reviews have been mixed: On one hand, users would be happy to have less ads and resource consumption on their devices; on the other hand, web services, publications, content creators and bloggers rely on advertisements for their revenue and income.

Adblock Browser 1.0 was released on 7 September 2015. It's compatible with Android 2.3 or greater, and has about the same system requirements as Firefox for Android.

Fennec F-Droid

Fennec F-Droid's goal is to remove all proprietary binaries from Firefox; some proprietary binaries, however, still remained in the app. The Fennec F-Droid app is hosted in the open-source F-Droid app repository since 1 February 2015 beginning with version 35.0. Since September 2020, it is based on Fenix despite still being named "Fennec F-Droid".

IceCatMobile

GNU maintains a fork of the latest long-term (so-called "ESR") version of Firefox for Android, with all proprietary

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