Firefox for Android


Firefox for Android is the build of the Mozilla Firefox web browser for devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Mozilla also makes another mobile browser for iOS called Firefox for iOS.
Firefox for Android uses the same Quantum engine as Mozilla Firefox.

Name

The codename used for Firefox for Android is Fennec. It comes from the fennec fox, a small desert fox. Firefox for Maemo Beta 5, released in 2009, was the first release to have the official Firefox branding, with the Firefox name and logo.

History

Earlier versions of Fennec used 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.
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 4.x has been enabled for most smartphones in version 14.0; later it was removed in version 56.0.
The browser's version numbering was bumped from version 2.0 to version 4.0 to more closely match desktop releases of Firefox since the rendering engines used in both browsers are the same.
In June 27, 2019, Mozilla announced it was designing a new Android web browser rebuilt with GeckoView, a Gecko-based rendering framework for Android, as well as the Mozilla Android Components. The first preview release, under the name of Firefox Preview, was released on that day.

Platforms

Firefox for Android, starting with Version 56 from September 2017, only runs on Android version 4.1 and later; earlier versions of Firefox also supported earlier versions of Android. Support for Android devices that run Intel x86 processors was added in December 2013.

Platforms previously or unofficially supported

Previously, Firefox for Android was available under a different name, Firefox for mobile, and supported other platforms.
Official support for the Nokia N900 Maemo device ceased with version 7.
Firefox mobile was available for MeeGo through the third-party OpenRepos repository.
An alpha build of version 1.1 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.

Add-ons

Firefox for Android allows installation of themes and extensions.

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.
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.

Security advantages

For various reasons, 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. People in developing countries and low-income people in advanced economies are less likely to upgrade to newer smartphones with newer built-in Android versions, which may entice them to choose Firefox as the more secure browser, thus contributing to Firefox's marketshare.
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, 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.
Similar to the desktop- Firefox: Version 60 introduces the setting DNS over HTTPS and has to be activated manually in about:config.

Forks and code reuse

IceCatMobile

GNU maintains fork of Firefox for Android with all proprietary binaries removed.

Fennec F-Droid

On 1 February 2015 and beginning with version 35.0, the open-source F-Droid app repository hosts the Fennec F-Droid package. This is a FOSS-only version of the browser, pulled from the unbranded Firefox source code, licensed under MPL2, and based on the latest Firefox releases. Part of the package's name comes from the mobile Firefox's Fennec code name.
Maintainers of this version strive to keep out all proprietary binaries used in Firefox. As of version 38.0.5, the following items have been removed:
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.

Orfox

On 30 June 2015, The Guardian Project announced a stable alpha of Orfox, the new mobile counterpart of the Tor Browser. Orfox is built from Fennec code and the Tor Browser code repository, and is given security hardening patches by the Tor Browser development team. Some of the Orfox build work is based on the Fennec F-Droid project.
The project removed in Orfox the WebRTC component and Chromecast connectivity, and app permissions to access the camera, microphone, contacts, location data, and NFC.
Orfox is to supersede the Orweb browser project, which used the WebView engine.

LibreOffice

Firefox for Android 's front-end code was taken as a base for the new development in the LibreOffice project for Android. Further work made that Fennec code the core component of LibreOffice Viewer for Android, which was released on 28 May 2015 for Android 4.0 or newer.

Release history

Release dates: