Firefox is an open source, private browser, one of the few mainstream browsers that supports extensions on mobile (Android) as powerful as the desktop ones (A lot of extensions have been ported), with seamless sync and a customizable homepage.

Browser Extensions

There are many extensions that have improved my browsing experience dramatically, by helping me fight the bloat of modern web browsing. This is especially more important on mobile, where resources and screen space are more limited.

Firefox’s extension store for android

The extension store is very similar to the desktop one. My browsing use case on my phone is to read articles, look up something quickly, buy things in online stores, or just see what people are saying online. When I do that, I don’t want to see ads, and I don’t want pop-ups taking up half of my screen. No, I don’t want to download your app, The website is fine; I don’t want to talk with your AI chat. I’m not interested in receiving fake notifications either. And I might have subscribed to your newsletter if you hadn’t put a pop-up while I was midway through reading your article.

The following extensions have helped me in my fight against bloat and antipatterns on the web. Making my time on the web rather a pleasant experience

Block ads and more (Ublock)

Ublock is the best ad blocker. Besides blocking ads, it also blocks other annoyances such as mobile banners, like those super annoying ones where they tell you to download their app instead of letting you use their website

Amazon your app sucks and I won’t use it

Amazon’s app pop-up

Ublock filter lists

Here it’s my the filter list that I use that not only removes those install the app for the best experience. They also remove other annoyances like chat widgets, newsletter notices, popups, cookie banners, etc.

Ublock filter lists

To activate it go to the extensions menus. Press the Ublock one and then press in Open the dashboard And the go to the filter lists tab.

There is the step by step tutorial with images

Ublock extension menu Open the dashboard filter list menu select

I hate the Medium UI (Libredirect)

So when you open a medium article you get the following delightful UX

a Full screen pop-up to subscribe to medium

And after you close it, they show you bunch of annoying elements in the article

Medium main page with unnecessary elements

Compare that with the beautiful experience you get with the Scribe front-end.

Scribe frontend with just content The extension that makes this possible is called LibRedirect

Twitter/x. won’t let you to see the comments unless you create an account

Twitter page requiring log in to see the comments If you tap in read replies button you’ll be presented with a log in screen

Compare with the nitter frontend also using LibRedirect where you can actually see comments

Nitter frontent showing comments

Don’t fuck with paste

This one is self-explanatory, but if you hate that some sites don’t let you paste as me, this is for you.

Don’t fuck with paste

Can I just listen to something in the background?

This extensions will allow you to fix issues in some sites where they don’t let you to play audio in the background

Video background play fix

Video background play fix store page

404 Not found

404 not found

When this happens, you want to look up for a tool that let’s you to check for an archived version. Web archives let’s you to do exactly that

It even let’s you to choose from multiple archive sites Web archives

Web archives archive site selection

Stop wasting time on the web

Are you wasting time on the web? Install Lechblock You can block websites, set time limits and more with Lechblock

Sync

The other nice thing, about Firefox is that if you use Firefox on desktop, you can sync your data between your phone and your desktop easily, like bookmarks, addresses, passwords etc.. (I only sync bookmarks and tabs though )

Desktop’s tabs You can see the tabs opened on your desktop See mobile tabs opened on desktop

A useful feature is send to the desktop Where you can send tabs for checking them later on your computer.

Send to desktop

customize homepage

you can customize the home page to only leave what you want. I for example remove sponsored shortcuts and stories from the page

customize homepage