Last month, Firefox released the newest version of its mobile browser: Firefox Daylight. From what I understand, it's newly built from the ground up and doesn't use Google's Blink web engine and instead uses Firefox's own, called GeckovView. It's a big change from past versions of the browser. As always, big updates like this can be iffy.
In this case, Mozilla really dropped the ball because the new mobile Firefox is trash.
This is the old Firefox's home page when you opened a new tab:
From the get go you can see the sites you visit most (you could also pin sites here). Swipe to the right, you get your Bookmarks. Swipe to the right again, you get your history. Intuitive and simple.
The new version completely changed the home screen when you open a new tab. Here's what it looks like:
By default the search bar is on the bottom in Daylight, btw. But you have an option to move it to the top. In any case, the home screen no longer shows your bookmarks and history. How do you get to those? You tap the 3 dots in the top right and then select bookmarks in the menu. So they added an unnecessary extra step to get to bookmarks. Same goes for history.
Everyone's bookmarks also got rearranged into some random order. I used to have all of my folders at the top and then any other bookmarks below those. Now folders and bookmarks are in random order, as best as I can tell. There is also no option to sort them. None whatsoever. Apparently this is because the Firefox team concluded that bookmarks aren't that important to the browsing experience anymore:
The initial home screen wasn't even "cluttered" as they claim! Going by how many 1-star reviews I'm seeing on the app store (to the point that the overall score has dropped below 4.0), I'm really wondering what kind of data they were looking at for usage.
Now they're pushing this new "Collections" feature that seems to let you group tabs? I haven't tried this feature much, but from what I've read in user reviews, they let you group tabs together.
Speaking of tabs, they fucked those up, too! Older versions of Firefox mobile had tabs appear in a gallery view, arranged in 2 columns. They also had clearly visual thumbnails of the page. Daylight for some inexplicable reason now displays tabs arranged in a list. The thumbnails are now smaller and overall it's not as great as the old gallery view.
What I've mentioned so far is just the tip of the iceberg and is the stuff I mainly noticed based on my own experience. Other issues users have mentioned:
A lot of common functions take more taps to access. The browsing experience is just much, much worse now. With the news about Firefox laying off a quarter of their work force and being hit hard by the pandemic, I really worry about the future of the browser. Not just the mobile version. I loved the mobile version of Firefox for offering a wide variety of add-ons compared to Chrome, and now it doesn't even really have that advantage anymore.
Now I'm looking for another browser with functionality comparable to the older versions of mobile Firefox.
I have no clue what the Firefox team was thinking with this update, and I'm not optimistic that they'll reincorporate the better features of the older version despite a lot of negative feedback from users.
Oh, and the new version has night mode. Yay.
In this case, Mozilla really dropped the ball because the new mobile Firefox is trash.
This is the old Firefox's home page when you opened a new tab:
From the get go you can see the sites you visit most (you could also pin sites here). Swipe to the right, you get your Bookmarks. Swipe to the right again, you get your history. Intuitive and simple.
The new version completely changed the home screen when you open a new tab. Here's what it looks like:
By default the search bar is on the bottom in Daylight, btw. But you have an option to move it to the top. In any case, the home screen no longer shows your bookmarks and history. How do you get to those? You tap the 3 dots in the top right and then select bookmarks in the menu. So they added an unnecessary extra step to get to bookmarks. Same goes for history.
Everyone's bookmarks also got rearranged into some random order. I used to have all of my folders at the top and then any other bookmarks below those. Now folders and bookmarks are in random order, as best as I can tell. There is also no option to sort them. None whatsoever. Apparently this is because the Firefox team concluded that bookmarks aren't that important to the browsing experience anymore:
(From this article)
The initial home screen wasn't even "cluttered" as they claim! Going by how many 1-star reviews I'm seeing on the app store (to the point that the overall score has dropped below 4.0), I'm really wondering what kind of data they were looking at for usage.
Now they're pushing this new "Collections" feature that seems to let you group tabs? I haven't tried this feature much, but from what I've read in user reviews, they let you group tabs together.
Speaking of tabs, they fucked those up, too! Older versions of Firefox mobile had tabs appear in a gallery view, arranged in 2 columns. They also had clearly visual thumbnails of the page. Daylight for some inexplicable reason now displays tabs arranged in a list. The thumbnails are now smaller and overall it's not as great as the old gallery view.
What I've mentioned so far is just the tip of the iceberg and is the stuff I mainly noticed based on my own experience. Other issues users have mentioned:
- Overall slower to load some pages
- No more Configuration Editor (about.config)
- Significant reduction in compatible add-ons (last I read, now there are only 9 available)
- Worse tab management (opening and closing tabs is more tedious)
- Issues with downloading images off the web
- No longer saves pages as pdfs for offline viewing
A lot of common functions take more taps to access. The browsing experience is just much, much worse now. With the news about Firefox laying off a quarter of their work force and being hit hard by the pandemic, I really worry about the future of the browser. Not just the mobile version. I loved the mobile version of Firefox for offering a wide variety of add-ons compared to Chrome, and now it doesn't even really have that advantage anymore.
Now I'm looking for another browser with functionality comparable to the older versions of mobile Firefox.
I have no clue what the Firefox team was thinking with this update, and I'm not optimistic that they'll reincorporate the better features of the older version despite a lot of negative feedback from users.
Oh, and the new version has night mode. Yay.
