@relan
I have a strong desire for this feature, so I would like to know the maintainer’s opinion.
I’m hesitent to enable an unstable feature. Also, someone will have to work with complains that “extension X doesn’t work.”
In my opinion it doesn’t really matter.
First, enabling about:config has potentially similar problems, but I haven’t seen anyone complaining about this to the Fennec F-Droid.
Some of your more “common” settings may work completely differently, not at all, or may actually break your Fenix installation!
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/i51k0q/mozilla_could_turn_on_about_config_and_have/g0n9nn0/
Second, even if enabling the general extension installation, it will be hidden by default. Anyone who tries to install add-ons through the complicated way should know about add-on incompatibilities by reading Mozilla’s blog.
Thank you for answering my question. @relan
Makes sense.
OK, I’ll enable the “Custom Add-on collection” setting in Fennec 84 (will be out in a fortnight).
5 Likes
i can never download anything from fennec, it just stalls on any download… i have to use another browser in order to download… why?
Since the “New Fennec F-Droid” has replaced the old one I encountered several issues. Stalling downloads are fixed now but Fennec is still very slow and crashes randomly. I’m on Android 11 and I’m using the standard F-Droid repo. The previous Fennec was fast and stable. Is there any hope that performance issues will be fixed too?
Why you don’t rename it to fenix fdroid, so people won’t get confused?
Because there’s no Fennec to install then, right? How would this help exactly?
Because it will tell people people that is not fennec, it’s fenix
And then what? They’ll install that since there’s no other FOSS up-to-date browser, right?
Why you don’t rename it to fenix fdroid, so people won’t get confused?
- This will confuse those who don’t know what’s Fenix.
- Folks who didn’t read the description and installed Fennec F-Droid thinking it’s the old Fennec, will immediately find this out and uninstall. Not a big deal.
- I (as a sole maintainer) am fine with current name and icon and don’t want to spend my time changing them.
3 Likes
Hi @relan
Just wanted to point out that for the next Fennec build (Firefox 84 is already out), you should undo the changes you made to include the “Wait Until First Paint to Show Page Content” secret setting (sed in prebuild.sh I think). Starting with Firefox 84, white flashes in dark mode are finally properly fixed and that setting isn’t needed or wanted anymore.
Fennec 84 is going to be really good. “All” add-ons supported (ability to install them at least) and fixed dark mode!
When they finally fix the order of links opened in new tabs (they are working on it) and let us select web content language to fix weird HTTP-Accept headers (no progress in this regard sadly) I will be able to say I don’t miss old Fennec anymore.
2 Likes
Why is it good? It has about config, it has view source, it has all add ons?
It is good for me, don’t know about you.
Fennec F-Droid (Fenix version) has always had about:config.
In the next release, it will also have the ability to install any add-on, which doesn’t mean all add-ons will work. Probably many of them won’t work, but at least you will be able to install and try them (although, as far as I know, the process of installing them is in a roundabout way, truth be told), unlike with non-F-Droid’s Firefox release (Nightly can also do this, though). Actually, I’m happy enough with just uBlock Origin and Dark Reader, which have been supported since long in any Fenix version of Firefox. Add-on bloat in a phone doesn’t sound like a good idea. But I might try one or two more nice add-ons I use in desktop.
About view source, it isn’t back yet. I also want it back, old Fennec had it, most browsers have it, it’s a glaring omission. I’m with you. Fortunately, though, I can’t remember the last time I actually wanted to use the feature.
Fennec 84.1.0 with “Custom Add-on collection” is on its way, should be available in a few days. Don’t complain that some addons don’t work. 
6 Likes
I still have Firefox from Play Store installed, can Fennec F-Droid be installed in parallel or does it produce conflicts? Can user profiles easily migrate from Firefox to Fennec F-Droid?
They can be installed in parallel, no conflicts. They are independent apps, their data is stored in different locations.
You can use Firefox Sync to migrate some things, like bookmarks. Mozilla doesn’t provide an offline export/import function, which is quite a shame, so you are forced to use Sync. If you have root I suppose you can just copy the profile folder, though (but don’t blame if something goes wrong).
1 Like
So you need a Mozilla account to install unsupported addons and a valid email is mandatory for it. 
You need it to create the collection, yes. Just create a new random email you will never use again with a provider that doesn’t ask for a phone, create a Firefox account you will never use again either, add your wanted addons to a collection, add the collection data to Fennec and forget.