Floccus: Firefox for Android support

[iwsbarker]

There is no configuration screen for floccus on firefox 48.0 for android. The only options are to disable or uninstall.

[marcelklehr]

Confirmed. Filed a bug with mozilla's WebExtension implementation to figure this out.

[marcelklehr]

It appears android support for webextensions is not a priority for mozilla, atm :/
Until they fix the options I will try adding a menu item to open the options.

[realrudi]

Hi there

Could you do something about the options menu item for android devices. Or is there anorher way to edit the addon settings. Maybe in a configuration file or so?

Nevertheless
Thank you very much for this addon.

Regards
Rudi

[realrudi]

For your info, i'm on ff 49. According to your code, does the icon only works for ff 48?

Regards
Rudi

[marcelklehr]

@rudi123 The manifest says FF>48. Even if there was another way to edit the config, I recently found out that fennec (firefox for android) doesn't cover as much web extension features as the desktop version, so floccus doesn't work regardless, atm. I will update the readme to make that clear.

[realrudi]

Ok, thanks for your repley. I will keep an eye on your addon. It's very promissing.

Bye

[poVoq]

Any updates on firefox on android support? would be very helpful to have.

[marcelklehr]

No updates,It would be nice indeed, you can track the status of the availability of the bookmarks api in android over at http://arewewebextensionsyet.com/#bookmarks as well as the relevant issue on bugzilla:

Bugzilla: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1330160
Trello: https://trello.com/c/aitkalQs

[marcelklehr]

As an intermediate "solution", I stumbled upon https://github.com/Nethar/owncloud-bookmarks which is an android app that syncs with owncloud bookmarks. It doesn't work with nextcloud, yet, but it's in the process of being updated. fingers crossed

[marcelklehr]

@theScrabi was so kind to polish the above app and give it a boost to work with nextcloud. Awesome! https://github.com/theScrabi/OCBookmarks

[marcelklehr]

Maybe a bounty or something like that is in order to speed things up on the firefox side?

[flohall]

here is the requested bounty:
https://www.bountysource.com/issues/56793689-implement-bookmarks-on-android
May more people want to support this by donating money?

Or least upvote for the bounty or this comment.

And a big thank you to @marcelklehr for this browser extension. Looking forward to be able to use the addon in firefox for android.

[prog-amateur]

Hello, just for my understanding, Bugzilla team say that the bug is solved :
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1292347
They say it is a duplicate of this bug :
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1302504
which is solved too. So, do you think it is a misunderstanding from their side ?
May I have misunderstood something ?

FYI : OCBookmarks is said unmaintained on F-Droid, too bad.

Thank you very much !

[marcelklehr]

@prog-amateur See https://github.com/marcelklehr/floccus/issues/3#issuecomment-275495298

[Shookbelf]

So the problem is that it's not possible to access the options?

The only thing not working is that the Add Account button is not working, but a similar overlay is working in other extensions.

[marcelklehr]

@Shookbelf Please read the complete thread. Fennec (firefox for android) doesn't cover as much web extension features as the desktop version, so floccus doesn't work on mobile at the moment. The relevant issue is https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1330160

[Shookbelf]

Sorry, the thread was a bit unclear in that regard, I wanted clarification.
Thank you

[Joshndroid]

...sigh. Atleast i complained on their bugzilla

[marcelklehr]

Great news:

Just a quick update if anyone else is interessted in a solution for Android: the latest version of Kiwi-Browser supports Chrome extensions - not all are working but floccus is :D

[marcelklehr]

I will polish the UI to be more mbile friendly, now. This is a dream come true :heart:

[Tank-Missile]

I just tried it and it worked perfectly, except for folders being synced before my other bookmarks, but I guess that's intended. The UI works! The only problem is it's scrunched in the top left. Other than that, this is fantastic!

[korelstar]

Is that Kiwi browser trustworthy? It isn't open source and I can't find any information about the author and her/his motivation - except that the app asks for many permissions.

[Tank-Missile]

The source code is available here.

[korelstar]

I don't think so. That repository has one commit only and according to here you can't even build an app from that.

[Tank-Missile]

Look at the releases page. I did a bit of digging, and this reddit thread has some discussion on the topic. However, I don't suspect malicious intent. I think we should either convince the developer to open source his code, or implement extensions using his code (I'm not sure if the code can be used) in another project like Ungoogled Chromium. Well, first projects like Ungoogled Chromium need to be made available for android.

[lorddoumer]

@korelstar private project of a XDA member, have a look here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/apps-games/app-kiwi-browser-chromium-adblock-caf-t3797252
Looks good to me, at least better then all the other mobile browser out there like Dolphin, Puffin and whatever. Stayed on Chrome and Firefox till now becaue I have the same concerns like you but using floccus on mobile is just such an big advantage over the big ones that I can't resist ;-)

BTW: you can disable most permissions without breaking it, e.g. if you don't download stuff you don't have to five storage permissions etc.

[j-autuick]

This is a long thread, that is very old (~3 years). I just wanted to summarize the current situation:

1. Mozilla's Android development doesn't deem it important enough to create/code/fix the extension that would allow Floccus to work--in 3+ years.
2. Chrome doesn't support extensions on Android (which seems strange to me).
3. Alternatively, one can use the Kiwi Browser, but like some, I am leery to use some random Browser, that is not FOSS. Kiwi Browser does work with Floccus, which is a plus, but it is limited in many other features/options that I do not like at all--like selecting my search engine. I don't want to pile onto Kiwi, but it's not for me.

In sum, there is no android extension for Floccus to work properly on any major android browser, after over 3 years.

Floccus is a fantastic extension. I wish I had searched around for it years ago. Great job @marcelklehr

Having a functioning floccus extention on android, on any major/trustworthy Browser is what I wish for for Christmas.

[lorddoumer]

@j-autuick just a quick note: sure, a foss browser supporting floccu would be awesome but as you said, both Firefox and Chrome on Android are just too crippeled to be any real good and Kiwi is at least a very well made Chromium-based browser AND you can select your own search engine, so Kiwi has everything I wish for as a Android browser where every major browser falls short - and in the end, beeing able to use floccus seamlessly on Android is just superb ;)

[leorlf2h]

I knew KIWI earlier and I want to sync something from chrome. Bitwarden can sync PW. I want to sync bookmarks and test many extensions. Because KIWI only has a mobile bookmark folder, many of them are not work at all (or I didn't know how to set up.) I think floccus may help, but I can't sync well to OwnCube's nextcloud host. (I want to find a free solution.)
It shows "E019: HTTP status 500" and "E016: Request timed out." But I'm not an admin. I don't want to set up a nextcloud by myself. Is there a way to use floccus without paying for nextcloud?

[marcelklehr]

Short update:
There is some movement on this. Apparently, mozilla is moving away from their current Android code base ('Fennec') in favor of a project dubbed 'Fenix' that is based on GeckoView, which appears to be a cleaner, more modular browser component for Android. Chances are that implementation of the bookmarks API will be easier with GeckoView, so it may be more likely for it get picked up. For now they're only working on recreating the features from fennec (~Q2), but they're working on a roadmap for more APIs and they do intend to implement the bookmarks API at some point as far as I can tell. So, maybe next christmas? :)

[Tank-Missile]

@korelstar @lorddoumer @j-autuick @marcelklehr As of last month, Kiwi Browser became 100% open source! I say this browser is now a viable alternative to Firefox for Android until bookmark support is added.

[NewB108]

Seems as if a solution was just about to come...

Unfortunately Fennec/ Fenix does not support Floccus yet. But the bookmarks-API has been implemented...

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1330160

Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 2 months ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE

PS: thanx 4 your great work on Floccus!

[marcelklehr]

@NewB108 The issue was resolved as a duplicate, which means the original issue is still open.

[marcelklehr]

For everyone concerned with this, I'm currently holding a vote about how best to tackle Android support for floccus: https://github.com/floccusaddon/floccus/issues/861#issuecomment-812863473