It’s been a long ride, but Mozilla confirmed that Firefox is in fact almost ready for its official launch on iPhone and iPad. The company announced a limited release of the browser in the New Zealand App Store.
It’s appreciable that Firefox is finally hopping on board with iOS, but at this point it seems Mozilla is far too late to the game to give Firefox a meaningful opportunity for reemergence.
You remember Firefox, don’t you? It never became quite as popular as Internet Explorer, but back in 2009 and 2010 it was the go-to browser for anybody who had even the slightest sense that Internet Explorer was truly awful. Among other things, it gained fame for its enormous selection of add-ons and extensions — all of which typically slowed down the browser or made it atrociously ugly, but hooray for creative expression.
Right around the end of 2011, Google Chrome passed Firefox in worldwide desktop browser market share and Firefox continued a steady decline from there. Today, 52 percent of desktop Internet users browse the web using Chrome. That’s mostly because Chrome was much faster than Firefox or Internet Explorer at its launch, plus had a growing extensions library that didn’t clutter the browser’s appearance.
Well here we are in 2015, seven years after the iOS App Store launched and the app revolution exploded. Just now Mozilla is releasing Firefox for iOS. Uh, shouldn’t this have been a no-brainer a long time ago?
Had Mozilla realized the potential of iOS years ago, it could have possibly saved its dying web browser. When there was less competition among third-party mobile browsers, Mozilla should have captured attention and sparked brand awareness by being the first to ship. Instead, the company was too busy working on Firefox for OS, which wrongfully viewed iOS as competition rather than a marketing aid.
I guess it’s not fair to totally knock Firefox because at least its delivering an app at all. Plus, it does have some promising features. The app includes includes Firefox Accounts, which lets you keep everything in sync across multiple devices. If you sign in with your Firefox account in the desktop browser, you’ll be able to migrate your browsing history, bookmarks and tabs right over to Firefox for iOS. You can also use Intelligent Search, which lets you pick the website or service to search through as you’re searching. It supports everything from Bing and DuckDuckGo to Amazon and Twitter.
Still, Mozilla missed a golden opportunity to capitalize on the App Store’s success. A mobile browser might not have been enough to save Firefox from the torture it has since endured from Chrome, but it would have kept more Firefox users loyal.
Mozilla says that the reason for Firefox for iOS’s limited release is primarily to collect feedback. New Zealand is the first country with access. From there, Firefox will roll out to a few other countries to gather up additional insight, then make a public release worldwide when the app is ready.
For now, New Zealanders can download Firefox free in the App Store and other enthusiasts can sign up to see when Firefox becomes available elsewhere.
Are you a loyal Firefox user excited for the iOS app or are you perfectly content with Safari or Chrome? Let us know in the comments.
George Tinari has covered Apple and technology for over six years. On the rare occasion that he’s not sitting in front of his laptop, you can find him eating, awkwardly socializing, listening to music or singing along loudly to said music. You can also follow George on Twitter if you need more complaints and sarcasm in your timeline.
10 responses to “Mozilla missed a golden opportunity with Firefox for iOS”
I, as an avid iPhone user, thinks Chrome’s incognito capabilities are subpar due to their use of a standard UI View, slowing down the rendering of web content, thus leading to its poor ratings on the app store. I actually am excited to test and try Firefox for iPhones since there’s new technology out to improve browser implementation for iOS9, etc. and it’s not bloated with clunky Objective-C code. Both browsers are great in their own right, but I think Firefox for iOS could be a new, hot thing to come!
This post is a little simplistic. AFAIK the reason firefox was never released for iOS was because Apple will only allow browsers that use the webkit engine on iOS. So Mozilla had to decide between pitching its browser engine out the window just for the iOS platform, or only releasing on platforms without such strict control. I believe the control was so that Apple could make sure of the performance and security. Chrome also uses Webkit. I’m not sure if Mozilla decided to write a Webkit browser or if Apple decided to let alternate engines into the app store, but to say that mozilla missed the boat makes it sound like they could have released Firefox whenever they wanted to and chose not to.
Yeah, Firefox on iOS is just a wrapper like how Chrome is, basically a jumped up safari clone. It is mostly for convenience for users like who use features like Firefox and Chrome sync.
But the new Firefox still runs webkit.
There is a new Adblock iOS browser.
…which also runs webkit.
I am still a die-hard Firefox user on the Mac desktop, for one BIG reason: the Bookmark Sidebar. The ability to have all your bookmarks WITH the site icon for easy recognition readily available without having to use a pull-down menu you have to sort through every time you want to switch websites is a function that only Firefox provides and is one that I will never give up, even for a faster browser such as Safari or Chrome. I know that Safari has a Sidebar but for some strange reason, Safari cannot use or display site icons. They make it really easy to identify a site without having to read the name. A small thing indeed but it does save some time.
If there is an extension or add-on that will give Safari or Chrome this complete capability, I hope someone will point it out here and I will try it out. Till then, I’m sticking with Firefox. I will try Firefox on iOS if/when it does come out in the US, hopefully it will have syncing capability to share bookmarks with the desktop using my Firefox account.
Chrome syncs for me across all devices, as long as I’m signed into the same account across all browsers. Also, as long as you go to (the 3 stacked lines – burger icon {if you will}) and ‘bookmarks’ you can click ‘show bookmark bar’ not only will you have all of your bookmarks, but the icons for the site for easy visual recognition.
Hope this helps! :)
The Bookmark Bar is good but not as useful as a sidebar that shows all your bookmarks in a list. Having to drop down from a toolbar and scroll every time takes a bit too much time, having them all visible all the time in a sidebar is much more handy. Thanks very much for the suggestion though.
I use Safari on my Macs, iPhone, iPads, but Firefox on my Windows computer.
I use FireFox for work (full-time employment) related stuff. Mostly, because it syncs across all the computers (and now hopefully devices) that I use for work related stuff. Safari I use for any personal and freelance work because it syncs across the same devices. Though I do wish that Apple still supported Safari for Windows.