Oh how I wish PM was on Android.

[Isengrim]

Regardless of the browser, I think Fennecs are cute looking animals.
fennec-1.jpg

Off-topic:
They're cute until they open their mouths.

[Moonchild]

Off-topic:

Regardless of the browser, I think Fennecs are cute looking animals.
fennec-1.jpg

They're cute until they open their mouths.

I did say cute-looking

[dalek]

There is the Android version of Waterfox. I disabled Chrome and use this browser exclusively on my phone.

Thank you for this suggestion. I downloaded it and played with it for a bit
and liked it a lot. The fact that you can use Ublock Origin and ABP was
huge factor. I also like the layout and workings of the browser. Much
better than the very outdated Opera beta I have been using for years.

One of the coolest things I think for me is the ability to change the font
size of the web pages to the default size your using in Android. This makes
surfing and reading pages much easier as you don't have to pinch and expand
or double tap most pages.

So far, it's the best I have used and is much better than the older F.F. browser
of a few years ago. Pretty snappy too. The ability to use some popular add on's
from F.F. is a huge plus.

And of course, having the crap from F.F. removed or disabled is the biggest of them all.

Thank you Handyman1957 and hujan86

I will give Waterfox a try

[Moonchild]

I tried Waterfox on Android and unfortunately it was all sorts of broken in terms of the password manager and even trying to log in to a few sites (e.g. reddit login massively failed). I had to go back to Chrome.

[Thehandyman1957]

I have not run into this issue, but to be fair, I have only used it for Amazon and Ebay logins.
But that being said, it has not given me the issues you have had.

Still very happy with it.

[dalek]

Thanks for your replies.

Chrome
Google's own android apps are starting to really irritate me. They're constantly changing them and then forcing me to update. And each time the privacy settings seem to disappear into some new sub basement.

At the moment I'm using FF with uBO.
It runs pretty good on my tablet, but is much slower on my phone.

So I'm keeping my eye out for something better to come along.

[Thehandyman1957]

Well, this has been an interesting road to travel on. I really thought I had finally
found something that would fill the needs for my mobile browsing, and then this
crazy F.F. WaterFox issue came up and disabled my Ublock Origin and Ad Block Plus.

When this happened, I did not know about the whole FF episode and tried to uninstall
and re-install, only to find that I had lost the original version of WF I had used. And when installing
the new version, it completely started from scratch erasing all of my settings and preferences.
Not only that, but now you can't even get those add on's from the FF add on site as they have replaced
the download button with "get the newest version of FF" button. Even right clicking that and trying to download now leads to the FF download site. I even tried to load through the back door
only to get stopped by WF it's self. So after 2 hours of trying to get this to work, I finally had enough
and decided that using anything related to FF in anyway was now a dead end. Even if they fixed it for
now, at some point this whole FF and WF add on issue is going to come to a head and I don't want to be
there when it happens.

So I have spent the last few days digging around trying to find something that is current, but not FF.
I didn't want Chrome for obvious reasons and I simply didn't like most Chromium forks out there.
I gave up on Opera a while ago and this didn't leave me with a whole lot of choices.
But persistence payed off when I finally ran across this.

The Surfy Browser. http://outcoder.com/apps/surfy/
So after many different browser downloads and tests I tried this one and was pleasantly surprised.
Though I have never been a Windows 8-10 guy and didn't really like the tile idea, this was done
in a relatively decent way. One of the biggest issues for me "and why I loved Opera for so long before
it got so bloated" was the speed dial idea. The ability to open to a area that had all of my "own, not recently used" web sites. To be able to arrange them in the way I wanted to, without new stuff getting
piled on and knocking my stuff out of the way. To be able to customize the colors in a way that made it easy on the eye's and tab surfing the way it should be.

This browser was created by a married couple in Switzerland for the windows phone and they have finally ported it
to Android. It is completely free and without any ad's. Below are some of the cool things it has.

App Features
✔ Private. Protect browsing and individual bookmarks with a passcode or fingerprint
✔ Personal. Instantly change colors or set your favorite photo as a background
✔ Build your own toolbar and menus with Surfy's unique customization features
✔ Listen to pages with text-to-speech
✔ Immersive full screen browsing
✔ Swipeable tabs
✔ Incognito mode at start-up
✔ Ad blocker
✔ Pin pages and passcode lock them to the Launchpad
✔ Instant search results from the address bar
✔ Mobile optimization, which can reduce data usage down to as little as 20%
✔ Save Passwords and Logins
✔ Desktop mode
✔ Multiple search providers: Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo!, Baidu, Sogou, Yandex
✔ Searchable history
✔ Clear cookies and cache with history
✔ Set desktop or reading mode for individual tabs
✔ Share pages via Email SMS, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, & NFC
✔ Night dimmer
✔ Save images & open links via context menu
✔ Find on Page

It took some digging but I finally found that the rendering engine is
Android's built-in WebView based on Chromium.

I have included a few screen shots of my set up, but the coolest part of this is that almost
everything is changeable, including colors, icons, what shows and what doesn't etc.
I have mine set up to open the tile view on start up but it is normally hidden
and accessible with a swipe from left to right.

And with a swipe to the left I have my normal home page that you can choose.

A drop down of things you can do from the tab which you can change the colors too.
You can also add or remove items from both this list or the bottom list.

The bottom swipe up.

A swipe up and it goes to full screen.

One thing I noticed it did not have was text wrap which is a bummer. Perhaps
that will get included on a future update. I have had some good communication
with the devs and they are very nice, and quick to respond to any questions.

Anyway, I hope I haven't violated any forum rules showing this but since we
don't have any type of Android presence anymore, and most of us have a need
for a good mobile browser I thought I would put this out there for folks to see.

[CharmCityCrab]

I tried Waterfox on Android and unfortunately it was all sorts of broken in terms of the password manager and even trying to log in to a few sites (e.g. reddit login massively failed). I had to go back to Chrome.

I'm not surprised that you had issues with Waterfox for Android. The reviews when it was up on the Google Play Store were not good.

I looked for WF for Android during the Great Firefox Extension Certificate Crisis of 2019, and couldn't even find it at that point. It didn't appear to have a Google Play page anymore and wasn't listed on the Waterfox home page with the downloads for other platforms. Anyone know what the deal is there? Did they discontinue it? That's a question for anyone who may know or care to speculate- not MC specifically, although he of course is free to answer if he happens to know.

Anyhow, I do have one question for MC specifically-

I was really surprised to read that you have chosen Chrome over Firefox on Android. I realize you have many disagreements with Mozilla and the way they design their browsers, but I figured you would use Firefox on Android over Chrome, especially given that Chrome for Android is actually probably Chrome's weakest platform as it doesn't make any add-ons for it available. I know you're not a big content blocker guy, but that you are a big extendibility and customization guy.

So, why Chrome for Android over Firefox for Android?

I'm just curious. Of course you should use whatever you want.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

It likely has to do with the fact that without something that supports Weave-based sync or some kind of real extensibility it doesn't matter which you choose except Android Chrome works the best render and feature wise.

Also, not everyone tries to use a cellular telephone as a primary system. Just a supplicant for quick lookups. So it matters way less.

But Moonchild can answer for himself.

[Moonchild]

So, why Chrome for Android over Firefox for Android?

Mobile is secondary to my normal use. It's already cumbersome to properly browse on mobile, so when I do use a browser there, I want one that works without hiccups. Using the native browser for the OS is the logical choice there.
Aside from that: I don't trust Mozilla anymore -- especially not with their always-on telemetry and server-controlled "system extensions" that gives them a lot more control over my browser than I want and a lot more behavioral detail than what Google gathers.

[CharmCityCrab]

Aside from that: I don't trust Mozilla anymore -- especially not with their always-on telemetry and server-controlled "system extensions" that gives them a lot more control over my browser than I want and a lot more behavioral detail than what Google gathers.

The words I highlighted in the quote above are really chilling, especially coming from MoonChild, who is familiar with the code and knows what he is talking about. To this point, I've always figured that despite all the well documented things Firefox does that are sub-optimal from a user control and user privacy perspective, that they aren't as bad as Chrome in those areas overall. This makes me question my assumption a bit.

As an aside, and on a brighter note, this led me down a bit of a DuckDuckGo rabbit hole that included "about:support", which is a very interesting page on both Firefox and Pale Moon. I don't mean that in an ominous way (Although I did a doubletake when I saw "Baidu Search Update" under Firefox Features [Which I gather are essentially add-ons Firefox pre-installs and then doesn't list on the normal add-ons page because, given that they ship on every copy of the browser, they are defacto browser features even if they are crafted by Mozilla the same way it crafts add-ons] on the Windows version of Firefox- it turns out not to be as bad as it sounds IMO), it's just interesting.

[gepus]

add-ons Firefox pre-installs and then doesn't list on the normal add-ons page because, given that they ship on every copy of the browser, they are defacto browser features

Features? Of course - telemetry so to speak.
It's up to you but you can delete those add-ons in the "features" folder (you'll have to do it after each update).

As for Firefox vs Chrome:
Despite of all the telemetry features Firefox gets shipped with, they can be disabled.
Privacy hostile features of Chrome can't be disabled, except maybe you are building from sources your own Chrome...

[hujan86]

Despite of all the telemetry features Firefox gets shipped with, they can be disabled.
Privacy hostile features of Chrome can't be disabled, except maybe you are building from sources your own Chrome...

Just search for Telemetry in About:config right?

I looked for WF for Android during the Great Firefox Extension Certificate Crisis of 2019, and couldn't even find it at that point. It didn't appear to have a Google Play page anymore and wasn't listed on the Waterfox home page with the downloads for other platforms. Anyone know what the deal is there? Did they discontinue it?

It's for the best. WF for Android never received a single bug fix since 2018. More useless now after the FF extension fiasco, assuming the developer didn't plan to support its own mobile browser as much as its desktop counterpart.

[gepus]

Just search for Telemetry in About:config right?

Right.

Off-topic:
It's not the Bible but a comprehensive list explaining privacy related items and suggesting optional settings.

[Brian]

Well, this has been an interesting road to travel on. I really thought I had finally
found something that would fill the needs for my mobile browsing, and then this
crazy F.F. WaterFox issue came up and disabled my Ublock Origin and Ad Block Plus.

What don't you like about Android Firefox?

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Right. Time to lay down the fuckin truth to cut through the bullshit.

Opera for Android is the premiere user experience from the UI to the feature set. It is where it is at for simple users to those nutty wackjobs who hates what mobile has done to not only the tech world but the WHOLE world.

The other fact is that blink is to android to what trident was at one time to Windows. That is something we will never be able to change or compete with and god damn it does it sting.

ANY EFFORT to do an android browser MUST be blink-based. It must also strive to match Opera UX wise not Chrome. Obviously Opera put some serious money and talent into the mobile browser and while that is great it does mean their desktop offering is an unimpressive rebranded Chrome with a built-in ad blocker. Which is a real shame. One that is well known and discussed no no need to elaborate.

UXP will never be able to compete in the mobilesphere no matter what we do. We don't have the people and we don't have the support from the mainstream. The moment you need to add a SSUAO we would have failed in the mobilesphere. Period.

A chromium mobile browser project with weave is totally possible however and maybe in a few years I might learn enough to produce one. However, as idealistic and desirable that may be.. I don't see it happening despite what I said I wanted to do. You would also need an integrated adblocker and all the UX of Opera. THEN it would viable to the lot of us from the simple user to the wackjobs that keep the UXP dream going.

[moonbat]

IIHC, you don't need to "jailbreak" Android phones like you have to with cough cough Apple iPhones.

If at all you care about your privacy, and using adblocking software that doesn't run a local VPN (that conflicts with any other ones you use), you do. Also the ability to run Titanium Backup and backup all your apps and their data together.