11mo ago

Best firefox build for android?

For a time it was Fennic for addon support but now that Firefox mobile has addons are there better alternatives? Those of you on android, what's your go to?

38 comments

Mull (from the DivestOS developers)
But nowadays I'm using a Chromium based browser on my phone because Firefox on Android doesn't support process isolation
- +1 for Mull.
  And yeah, on Android unfortunately you gotta choose between privacy (Firefox/Mull) or security (Chromium).
  
  Another for Mull and Cromite, here. I don't really use Mull unless I'm looking for absolute compatibility with things like web games.
  
  Mull is reasonably secure for most of the people. Only very high targets need that kind of security
  
  Why not both, with Brave? I know their are kinda hated for making changes without warning the user, but it seems to be the closest thing to a fairly private and secure browser... Plus they have a whole team behind it, not just some guy in his basement (nothing against guys in their basements btw, it's just harder to be on top of security issues when you're one).
- It would be great to hear the implication of that
  
  Here you can find a good explanation on that.
- Yeah, they need to fix that

I use Firefox cause it's easier to get people to switch to something that's already in every app store.
- Based convenience enjoyer

IMO, standard Firefox is pretty OK, so I'd rather use that than some weird derivative that has more chances of security issues, breakage, or development halt.
- Yup. So many of these "alternative" browsers have very questionable security practices. At the very minimum they don't have a staffed team to respond to zero-day exploits. But often they also make large changes without too much consideration for security or disable security features when they get in the way of features. I hate saying "use on of the big boys" but for most users their browser is likely their largest attack surface by an order of magnitude, it's job is literally to download an execute untrusted code and the API surface is huge. It takes real resources and careful development to develop and maintain a browser, and there are very few organizations that I would trust to do this.
  So unless you have a strong reason I would highly recommend sticking to one of the major browsers.
- same, haven't strayed from standard firefox since it does what i want just fine.

Firefox with noscript and ublock addons since years

Mull, but use the DivestOS repository. F-droid also builds it but too much delayed.

Stupid as it is my biggest complaint is that none of them seem to have amoled dark mode. Been using and enjoying fennec but I really want my perfect blacks back.
- People kinda stopped implementing full black once they realized that battery savings between dark gray and black is negligible
  
  It’s still a measurable difference & it looks nicer having the pixels fully off. No need to dismiss the parent’s preference. Personally, I find the dark gray arguments pretty weak.

Mull would be perfect except for the annoyingly slow refresh rate enabled by the fingerprint resistance. It needs to just report a low refresh rate while actually using a higher one.

You can take a look at FFUpdater on F-Droid. There you can see different browsers for android and information about the features they have.
I'm useing mull.
- I'll use mull again when I can scroll without the screen looking like a strobe light

I haven't used my tablet in months, but I will always recommend Mull.

Vanadium on grapheneos.
- Vanadium is not based on Firefox. Not to mention that it doesn't let you use add-ons, and OP clearly wants them.
- Vanadium and Mull.

Maybe try waterfox? It just arrived on Android. I don’t know if there is an f-droid version.

iceraven
it has a lot of the regular firefox plugins available for installation from the menu. And also some privacy enhancements.

Kind of offtopic but Firefox has been very unstable for me on desktop... I'm about done with it. (been using it since its initial release)
- Even with a clean install / profile?
  
  I clear it periodically but I hate to do it because the default settings suck.
- If you've been using the same OS and computer since Firefox's initial release.
  You need a new computer.
  
  well, of course not... probably had 6 or 7...

38 comments