I wish they would fix Firefox Mobile. Their recent redesign has largely destroyed the usability in terms of UI while also removing key features like the ability to install arbitrary addons. This is by far the most poorly thought out change that I have ever seen an established piece of software make.
Firefox Nightly for Android now has a debug setting to allow installing any add-on from addons.mozilla.org, not just the (growing) list of add-ons blessed by Mozilla QA:
What's broken besides being able to install unapproved add-ons? The new redesign made it usable on my old phone, the old Firefox mobile was too slow for it and would frequently run out of memory. And the new UI with tabs on bottom made it usable on my new phone that has a big screen.
- The New Tab Page isn't an actual page that lives in a tab anymore. Instead, it's a sort of "launcher" that lives outside the tabs. This creates all sort of bizarre UX issues, like if you click on a top-site, click back, and click on another top-site, you now have two tabs open.
- The tab switcher has been replaced with a janky spring-loaded pop-tart that appears to have been lifted directly from the Google Maps search results screen without any understanding of why it works in that context.
- Several important areas of the UI are now dedicated to "Collections", a feature that's just like bookmark folders (which are still present), except for weird subtle differences like not syncing properly.
- You can no longer display your bookmarks on the New Tab Page.
- You can no longer use themes other than the included "light" or "dark".
- You can't navigate to data URIs anymore -- you get a generic something-bad-happened error instead.
- A thousand little UI papercuts. Why do half the animations do weird-looking double fades? Why is the New Tab Page scrollable even when there's no additional content to reveal by scrolling? Why are the contents of the hamburger menu slightly different when you're on the New Tab Page?
Firefox Nightly for Android now has a debug setting to allow installing any add-on from addons.mozilla.org, not just the (growing) list of add-ons blessed by Mozilla QA:
To add to what was said, the "X" button is hard to reach and doesn't seem to interrupt js anymore. I have trouble distinguishing private and non-private windows, saved logins got burried in the settings again, the tab list always scroll at the bottom where my old tabs are, etc.
Midori recently got a mobile port, it runs quite well and I do not think it's a chromium reskin.
-Searching with a particular search engine through the URL bar, used to take one touch gesture. Now you need to press "Search engine", scroll down to your selection (e.g. wikipedia isn't visible by default), press it, and then select among a weird collection of recommended search alternatives.
And, as op said, you don't even have the option to use keywords and be done with this nonsense.
Ooh, nearly forgot: you know how Firefox is supposed to be the ethical, privacy-respecting browser? They ship an on-by-default advertising data-collection SDK now!
I switched to brave after this latest round on the Mozilla merry-go round.
My theory is that the money from Google comes with strings attached to pester the power users that rely on Firefox with disruptions and anti-features. To avoid Firefox from actually getting market share, but keep it as a paper tiger for anti-trust purposes.
