Firefox: Private, Safe Browser Reviews

I have used this app on and off now for a span of seven years, and I keep checking in to see if they fixed their terrible bookmark UX, and I am disappointed every time. Let me go into detail. For as long as I can remember, the most frustrating aspect of mobile this app is accessing bookmarks. Too many taps!! There should be a library icon on the navigation bar at the bottom, you tap ONCE and it shows you your bookmarks. More specifically the user should be able to customize what bookmarks they want to see right up front. For me, all my bookmarks live in the Bookmarks toolbar. I never put bookmarks into the Bookmarks menu - I mean, does anyone? Second point, right now when you tap the menu and tap “Your Library” it slides up this pane which displays your bookmarks, great - however, it’s super annoying to dismiss. If you don’t land your finger exactly on the right spot and swipe down, you end up swiping something else. There should be a “Done” element or some other way to dismiss that pane other than swiping. Even tapping on the gray swipe element to dismiss would be ok. I really love what Mozilla is doing with this app, with emphasis on security and privacy, but their UX/UI needs some serious attention. Even the desktop browser looks dated and has issues. These things wouldn’t bother your average user that much, but as a UX/UI designer myself - it grinds my gears.

Many Thanks to this app and The Developers for their very helpful response to my Pocket problem as indicated by my previous review (see "What Happened?", below). I am happy now. I was having a problem trying to make Pocket go away. Now I know how to do it and how to get it back if I choose to do so. I have already re downloaded Firefox . I'm leaving my older review below for reference. Once again, thank you.

Original Title : What Happened? I used to love this app. But I had a problem clearing something from the browser and I therefore chose to delete Firefox with the intention of downloading it again. And so I did. But when I downloaded it, I saw a different app. It was this app, but it was loaded with Pocket and I couldn’t get the things off the Home Page. I do not want Pocket on my browser. I find it frustrating. It’s like having ads all over the screen. It’s distracting too. I tried to learn how to remove Pocket, but I couldn’t. The results are that I deleted Firefox , and I don’t know if I ever will use it again. I’m totally disappointed!!
(This is where the developer responded to my review titled, "What Happened?").

EDIT July 12: Another small update, no fix for any of the issues mentioned.
EDIT July 8: Several months since its introduction and many times the issue has been reported, night mode is still unusable after a few minutes and causes the entire screen to become a garbled and unreadable mess. I appreciate the additions to the developer log that I didn’t even know existed on mobile but there might be more pressing issues.

I’ve used Firefox for years and it seems to continue to get more buggy with each release. My first and main tab is Wikipedia, and so most of the bugs I find are experienced on that site. Whenever Firefox crashes (which happens very frequently, especially when switching from another app back to this app) it sends me to a completely random page from my browsing history on that tab, sometimes pages I visited last week. Night mode is great when it’s usable for a few minutes before causing the display to show a mess of distorted lines, partially or fully destroyed images, and various parts of the page being displayed on top of each other making it unreadable and impossible to tell where you are on the page. The night mode bug has existed for as long as I can remember night mode being a feature, while the flashback-on-crash issue seems to have only cropped up in the past two or three months.

I use this app on all of my desktops and I love it, but the mobile version just doesn’t work right.
First it needs to incorporate the privacy of this app Focus into the main app, and give users the ability to control the level of privacy they need, without having to use a completely different app with all or nothing being your choice.
Second they need to work on the interface. Too many steps required to get to bookmarks or to switch tabs. And every time I switch tabs it automatically highlights the last one I opened, not the one I’m on or the next one in the sequence.
Finally, it needs to be coded in iOS native tools. It’s obvious that interface elements aren’t native and it just doesn’t fit. For example: tapping a bookmark icon highlights the target area for the tap and you can see that the icon and tap area don’t align. It’s a little thing but it makes the software feel unfinished and buggy, even when it works.
Since it can’t match the functionality of Safari or chrome I’m forced to use an alternative, and I really would rather have this app on all of my devices. I’ll keep checking back and hoping for the day they get it right.

- Open source: helps with security - dark theme. I don’t really understand why edge and chrome can’t do this I think these folks found a really nice solution by building it in proper. Dark mode is not a niche at all. Reading at night is horrid on a white background. I never could stand it. - talk about privacy focused, look at the this app business model - speed, and user interface. - stable and fast, and standards based. Not sure why there aren’t more downloads for this app. Especially because of the dark background i find it to be one of the more useable browsers.u fact it had one before safari did.

My one ask to the devs as far as features if we aren’t talking security which i always want more of: please add the profile switching (make it convenient) like chrome. It’s a useful way to manage. browser state and usage. I get it’s an advanced feature, but if i’m doing something for work like testing webpages, and making tracking harder or just managing browser state by profile it helps.

In Version 37 for iOS, the new feature that every time the browser is closed and reopened, you will be directed to a new tab — I can find no way to turn off this feature!! this app has been my favored browser across all my devices for years due to its simplicity and freedom.

On my Apple devices, I utilize this app Focus for anything I need to one-time search, and Mozilla this app proper to check for digital updates across a dozen of different websites and resources (and I keep several dozen favorite resources constantly open in the background tabs). In the past two days since I updated, I have repeatedly closed the new tab that is forcefully created every time I open Firefox . This, in and of itself, is an inconvenience at best.

What has become more than inconvenience, is that by closing the tab that you are currently using [mind you, the tab that is forcefully generated], this scrolls my ‘open tabs’ screen to the top of my list of 50+ tabs. While I should invest some time to learn the Pocket feature (and intend to eventually), I do not wish to accidentally close any of my tabs while attempting to scroll back to the bottom.

Because people use this amazing application for so many various purposes, such as my own with hoarding academic materials, please consider including a toggle in the settings menu for this feature. I could not find any more discreet way of making this request than here.

Thank you for reversing the ridiculous decision to open a new copy of the homepage every time I launch Firefox . Now please restore the refresh button to the bottom toolbar. The homepage is not something I need quick access to from every page I navigate to, but the refresh button absolutely is. Restore it, and you'll be back to 5 stars Previous review (1 out of 5 stars): You have now made my browsing experience MORE distracting, not less. There's a reason I don't have a homepage configured and I set the new tab page to "about:blank"... I don't want my phone making decisions for me about what I look at. Launching a new instance of the homepage is literally never valuable to me. Meanwhile, the refresh button, which you've inexplicably removed from the bottom toolbar and *replaced with the home button*, IS something I find valuable, and I wish you'd put it back. Firefox was working better before the update. Please revert the features or allow me to customize back to sensible settings and I will update my review to 5 stars.

I have been using this app as my sole browser since 2008. They have had a fantastic and secure browser for a long time and it has been a great relationship. Apple products on the other hand are complete garbage in the usability department. I bought a Mac mini in 2014 because my hard drive went out on my 5 year old gateway laptop, within 18 months the Mac mini was unusably slow. And now for my Ipad I got this little dandy last year and I have never owned another piece of technology so infuriating in my life, the one respite was the fact that I had this app on it, the one program I knew would never let me down. I was asked to do a major update a couple months ago, and I figured what’s the harm this app has never steered me wrong. When the update was complete, lo and behold I have lost all my loveable this app usability. They have updated me to what is little more than a safari skin. I am permanently unable to access any of my this app account information. I can’t change my password because all of my information will be lost and with it still working on my other devises (pc and galaxy) I cannot afford to risk losing that information. This one star review is not for Mozilla as a company but their decision to bow to apple and its BS.

I was happily using it until the latest update when they introduced a feature that automatically opens a new tab upon opening that goes to the home page. This is not a good feature so far it happens every time I exit to go to another app real quick. It is especially frustrating if I’m reading something because I have to go through all my tabs Togo back to what I was reading or the site I was browsing. Also I sometimes also have a problem where when I go from one tab to another it closes itself out but I might just have to many tabs open. Also sometimes when I close out a tab it will send me to another tab that’s far away from the next closest tab from the one I closed. Also it would be nice if like chrome we could have more than one window open. Other than those problems it’s been a decent browser.

Why can we not get an adblocker list on the iPad app like the one in the screen shot for the iPhone app in Firefox Store? You would think the iPads should have more functionality right?

It would be great to be able to control the blockers and trackers like what is available on iOS to see how fast this browser can really go once it doesn’t have to load all the junk that is littered all over websites these days.

If apple doesn’t start becoming capable of blocking ads out the gate without having to purchase adblocking software and install it then hope it works then I say the sales will probably go downhill pretty soon. Nobody will care if the iPad has an M1 or M2 chip and it can go so fast if you can’t even access the site because your fast tablet can’t block ads. Especially if Apple claims it’s all about privacy they should stand behind this without a doubt.

I never write reviews for things. But this I can’t stand. I’ve been a this app user since 2006. Used it without issue as its always been the best and has always been reliable. Every phone, every computer I’ve had since then has had trusty old this app on it. But recently, this app had this update on the iPhone where every time you open it, it basically treats all the tabs you had open as brand new tabs and its practically impossible to go back and revisit sites again. I like to keep tabs for tracking packages, carts that I’ve built on websites, work systems etc. open in this app on my phone so I can quickly reference them and switch between my phone and my desktop whenever I like. This new update where every time you open this app; your previously open tabs now all just act like brand new tabs, is absolutely garbage. And as extreme as it may sound, if it isn’t reverted to the way it used to be or at least a setting allows me to turn this feature off, I’m going to end my 16 year relationship with this app because it’s just so ridiculously annoying to deal with now.

THIRD UPDATE: I might have figured out the setting to turn off the new tab on opening. It’s not obvious, and the “what’s new” page is 404, so it was no help. Here’s hoping!
SECOND UPDATE: Oh, no! Not again? I thought saner minds prevailed when the decision to force a new tab on opening was reversed. Now it’s back. Why? It’s so frustrating to open Firefox and first thing delete the new tab. PLEASE, PLEASE, turn this back off!! Or at let me turn it off. UPDATE: I applaud developers on responding to user comments and reversing decision re forced home page on opening. I nearly took them up on their offer to change my “default” browser and quit using this app entirely. Why do you have to keep changing things and moving things around? I don’t need a new tab every time I open Firefox . At least make it a setting I can disable. And now I keep going “home” every time I think I’m refreshing the web page — because you’ve moved the icons around on the screen. No thanks.

Not sure where some of these reviews are coming from with unsubstantiated claims of Mozilla not respecting privacy of users. If that was and is the case then people should provide at least names of articles rather than bash Firefox.
this app is by far the fasted app I’ve used. The UI is something I had to get used to but loved once I gave it some time. I personally don’t like integrating my this app with my phone so I can’t speak to those offerings. Lots of great features to Firefox and the night mode for pages is a huge plus for me because I hate viewing white screens. Wish I could add extensions but I know that’s an iOS issue. For future updates I’d love to see the ability to customize the home page to hide the bookmarks bar as well as the frequently visited pages and land me on the Mozilla page similar to the desktop and then Firefox would be perfect!

Generally speaking I adore this app and use it on Web and Mobile, but ever since the penultimate update (or some such change on this app’s end), I’ve been unable to load images at all. Whether it’s the Google images tab, a search on DuckDuckGo, literally any kind of website, or video thumbnails, I can’t see it. Certain interfaces don’t load as well; tiktok links (don’t have Firefox ) lead to a black screen (though “play” still works) and I’ve noticed that on some websites it just doesn’t work entirely. I don’t understand why FF changed like this, and I can’t really file a broken site report on everything. It significantly impacts my web activity while reading articles, logging in, or looking at reference photos. I have to use Safari instead… and requesting the web version of the site both doesn’t fix it and makes it hard on my eyes. I’m writing this review after updating to the latest version, please fix it ASAP

this app is a good browser depending on how you use it. In the newer updates it gets really frustrating to look up images. Instead of showing you the images like most browsers would, it shows you but when you click it, it takes you directly to the website instead of letting you look at the images. You would have to click the front to see it. To me this is frustrating, as an artist, I need to look up references to draw things, this leaves me with a huge disadvantage because I’m unable to directly see the image. this app also seems to switch from update to update at times, well for me at least. Say there was a new update for your device, or a new update for Firefox , this app would instantly go back to its old ways, which makes me hesitant to update my iPad because I want to have the freedom of looking at an image. I would appreciate if this problem was fixed in someway.... but I wouldn’t really suggest this browser if your soul purpose for it is to look at images.

I am really liking the privacy features but and want to make this my main browser but the god awful dark mode is implemented horribly. It not only changes the interface but inverts the website colors. So a website that is default dark becomes light. It completely defeats the purpose of dark mode. You either need to only change the system to dark and ignore the website colors or give us an option on a per site basis. Will not be using until that is fixed.

Edit: so there are two settings for dark mode. There is the one in the settings which just changes Firefox but doesn't touch the websites. And one in the menu that affects the websites and app depending on the other setting. Would help to have this better explained. Otherwise Firefox is great.

The this app app is very tedious and annoying to work around but I have stuck with it due to their appreciation for privacy.

Feedback-
- Firefox gets bugs often and it is like a maze to report bugs and feedback, currently the this app app continuously keeps crashing randomly. Sometimes even a handful times a day. We should have a option to report the bug after this app realizes Firefox has crashed unexpectedly and let us add notes and comments to it. Also passwords don’t save all the time!! Even when adding manually it wouldn’t save; this feature should be looked over, unsaved passwords isn’t fun. Also this app should look into if we can auto fill passwords on Firefox instead of having to go to passwords menu and copy and pasting: since this app is my default browser, the phone suggesting safari passwords is no use.

- When this app is launched, it should open to the MOST RECENT tab not all the way to the first tab, as well as when tabs are being closed, it should not automatically prompt us to the first tab opened; it’s really annoying. this app should add preferences in settings for this on mobile. A great idea would be to let us put tabs in folders to help users stay organized.

- this app mobile should add some more themes, preferences.

this app on desktop is great but this app iOS needs a lot of work and tweaking, lacks a lot of features as well.

this app has been my browser of choice for a little over a year now, and part of that came from the fact that the actual layout and simplicity of Firefox was incredibly comfortable. Not only was it quick, everything was easy to find, and it felt really good to use when compared to other browsers.

For some god forsaken reason, they decided to redesign the website with the latest update for a more ‘modern’ feel, and now Firefox is a sluggish, slow mess that is arranged in a confusing and uncomfortable way. Finding where stuff is now is a bit of mess at first and a lot of the menu pop up boxes are now sort of located towards the middle and left of the screen. As someone who is right handed and primarily uses my phone with the right hand, this is asinine.

Please, for the love of all that is holy, either restore the original interface and layout from before this update or at least add it as an option and make the new ‘modern’ design something one can opt into if they desire. This isn’t just a step down, this is devolution.

The best personal phone internet browser because of the unique and accessible way this app places my most used sites right under the search bar, so I can get there with a single click—and be signed in already! For sites that I don’t use as often, or for random searches, I usually use chrome due to its better speed. However, nothing can beat this app’s single-click common websites—sometimes I can load my gmail even faster on this app than on the gmail app!

At the same time—actually the reason I wrote this—I really hate the new logo. It’s cheesy and unappealing; the shape of the center circle and the unrecognizable fox make Firefox look a lot like a cheap chrome copycat, which it isn’t. For the specific applications I mentioned above, this app is clearly superior to chrome and I wish this app wouldn’t downgrade what was once an appealing logo to copy them.

Browser glitches so that newly opened tabs can’t be seen in the tab switcher until I toggle to private browsing and back. Close the tab switcher? Have to toggle again before I can switch to a new tab; only older tabs are available without doing that. I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled four times across multiple this app updates in case it was a bug that got fixed but it keeps coming back. I’m getting sick of having to redo all my shortcuts and tabs and settings just so that the browser will function normally for a month or two (or in the case of this week, an hour or two; what an absolute waste of time). I’ve posted on the support forum but no answers. I really like using this app and don’t want to switch but this is getting incredibly annoying. I guess at least it’s not crashing all the time like it did last year before I did a fresh install. I can’t state enough just how sick I’m getting of having to fix every issue by uninstalling and reinstalling.

I initially wrote an extremely positive review on Firefox but that was awhile ago and now my opinions have changed.
I use this app for literally every device I own and have had no problems but Firefox is the only one that seems to have a problem. Upon shutting out Firefox and reopening it, if I was doing something where progress doesn’t save (e.g, watching a video, typing something, and even switching from one app to back to this app) Firefox will shutdown before I am able to recover my progress. It will continue to do so until I reinstall Firefox or spam click incognito until Firefox can get its bearings together and attempt to recover the lost progress.
I’ve had this problem for months now and it becomes annoying when I need to search something but am unable to do so because of this problem. I have started to use google and even safari much more than this as it provides the same as Firefox and doesn’t crash every time I open a new application. I really hope this can be fixed in some future update. I’ve read some reviews and a lot of people have complained about the same bug for awhile now which means that this bug is the least of your priorities?

As much as I love the team at Mozilla, their testing team just isn’t doing good. In terms of mobile devices they do not address issues even after many releases.

Many times the entire app will be unresponsive to any gestures, making you force quit the application and restarting it. Sometimes you also have to close the tab even after a restart. Second, is their copy and paste... you must hold longer than apples normal settings to even copy a link. Normally you could click once on the address bar to select the entire thing but Mozilla thinks we want to edit the middle of our link when we click on it. Another is pop up light boxes are very buggy and become unresponsive. As you’re adding new features please also keep in mind to fix your bugs. I am no longer using this browser after 3 months of skeptical transition to a new browser but it seems I’ll be heading back to chrome for now. Sorry Team @ Mozilla.

I recently left Chrome because of Google’s recent policy changes and am enjoying Mozilla a lot more.

But wow, I cannot seem to make a full change on mobile with this browser. This is utterly garbage and it seems this has been an ongoing issue with no fix in sight.

Night Mode is awesome but it has a few bugs such as discoloring pictures. It doesn’t affect videos, only pictures. Which, makes sense on the surface because it’s changing the colors on the page, but something needs to be done to improve this.

The more pressing issue is screwing with the layout of a page when you’re trying to read. Think news article or Wikipedia. It is impossible to get through the whole thing without quitting because as you scroll, everything gets jumbled up. You can’t see where things are to press them. Going back and coming back doesn’t help.

It’s a mess and it needs to be fixed. This is unbelievably bad.

Still, Mozilla is better than Google as a company and this app is a better experience than Safari, so I still use it but I need this to be better before I give it 5 stars it really deserves.

One of my favorite features is being able to send tabs to my devices. You have no idea how great that is.

Also, Mozilla, you guys should look into adding a password generator in the mobile and desktop version like Google did for Chrome. It’s really great and much needed.

Love it but takes 20 seconds to launch and sometimes even forget what I opened it to search for.

Other times, I’ll end up typing in the search bar once it does load, realizing later that I replaced a previously open tab with the new session... and this is the main problem. As Firefox opens, cannot please show as soon as it BEGINS to launch, that their is already a webpage populated in the url, and/or a screenshot of the page it was on when last closed or exited from... or even just open on a new we page either when Firefox is relaunched after closed, as well as when it is just left running in the background.

Otherwise, I’ll always just open safari because it already does all of the things above... quick and I’m sure to never replace a previous session.

Revised review:

Thank you this app for listening to loyal users!

Finally! Thank you for full bookmark editing and sync. Also, thank you for the ability to delete ALL history.

Now fix the Reading List sync and add the ability to FULLY TURN OFF history and Firefox will be perfect!

————————-

Old review:

NEEDS FULL BOOKMARKS ORGANIZATION:
What is the point of sync if I can’t FULLY organize my bookmarks? Why, in this day of using MANY types of devices do you insist on
treating my bookmarks as separate things? They are all just bookmarks! Let me organize them exactly the same on all devices.

NEEDS READING LIST SYNC:
Why do reading lists not sync across devices? People would like to add an article on iPhone, then access reading list article on their Mac. What is the point of sync if nothing actually syncs?

PRIVACY:
Why can’t I set the browser to not save history? Why can’t I clear history easily more than one day back without diving into settings? Also why can’t I turn off the top sites? Having sites I visit very large on the screen when I open Firefox for all to see is not very private.

I’m confused as to why a company that promotes their privacy and sync features does not do a very good job at implementing either.

I jjst I just tried to call this app for customer support and they actually do not have a phone number to call. Anytime I try to do any Google search or check my email with Google on this app browser it shrinks the tax and makes everything so large that you can actually see any of the things that are going on in your email anytime I go to use a Google search on this app it makes the text super large and the areas were you trying to type super small so you can actually see anything. I’ve opened the same links in safari not an issue so it’s definitely not just my desktop and I called the so-called this app Support number I then spoke with the person for 20 minutes getting them to remote into my account at which point they told me they could fix the issue but I have to pay a one time support fee then that lady started to trying to open up my personal emails while she was remolding into my computer!!

this app always was the best browser made! Now it’s even better ! These are the cutting edge people & now it even fights for your rights on the web , phisically & in principal & legislation !! Current news coming in about the web is there as well , can you believe this !! ???
Well, for us , always have hads’s, we know what’s going on and for today’s world ????
It’s just a must have , you idiot , what were you thinking 😟☺️, app that you will simply kick yourself for missing the boat !!! This is more than a browser fellas , it’s a gall’ dern’ organization working on your side of use & abuse that the web can , nowadays , do too you , if it can !! Your best defense is this puppy senior !! Take a look, & read a little for once, you’ll be impressed I guarentee !

this app,

Your app is very useful. I use the incognito mode and bookmarks all the time. I also love the way you organize my tabs but your app does have something that may eventually make me turn to a different browser. unfortunately, it is very inconvenient to use because if ever I am curious about what time it is, or if I’m wondering if I’m connected to WiFi, I have to either exit your app or open the Notification Center just to figure it out.
The reason why I have to do these other steps is because your app makes it so that the information on the top of the screen are blended in to your app. If you could please find a way to make the background stick out from the bottom of the screen then this would be a great improvement in overall convenience. You could maybe make the font of the information black so it would not blend in to your app’s background or you could just make the top part of the screen black so the font wouldn’t have to be changed at all.
I really do enjoy using Firefox and I would not want to switch to any other app. Please make this improvement so that I may stay a loyal patron of your app. Thanks for your time and I look forward to any improvements you make in the future!

Best Wishes,

Ryan Garcia

I’ve recently switched over to this app because Chrome’s become an slow pile of trash. this app is better performance wise, but is especially lacking in its bookmark system (in terms of convenience). Trying to edit bookmarks is tedious as you have to press the edit button then tap the bookmark, whereas Chrome allows you to just simply tap and hold the bookmark to edit. When you add a bookmark, you can’t immediately edit its information or even specify what folder you want the bookmark to be in (You have to open up the bookmark menu, find the bookmark, then edit from there). Chrome allows much better convenience with a small popup that asks if you want to edit the bookmark’s information every time you add a new bookmark. Bookmark syncing is also extremely delayed.

Some of my complaints also apply to the desktop version.

Works reasonably well for browsing, but it can be slow in loading pages. There is no way to download a pdf to your phone. (Online this app documentation mentions a download button which simply does not exist. Elsewhere it suggests the button is hidden in customization, but the is no Customize item in this app for IPhone.). Bookmarks are poorly integrated into the browser as creating a bookmark is completely separated from locating a bookmark. An item called Send to Device requires signing up for and signing into this app Sync, which seems to defeat the purpose of sending something to device. (I guess we are supposed to understand that as “to a device” instead of “to the device”.) In short: fine but slow for basic browsing or reading Facebook, but other features are poorly integrated or unimplemented.

I hardly use Safari unless I’m taken there by some other app as a result of it being the native browser. I never use Chrome because of its bloat.

What needs work is bookmarking and maintenance of bookmarks. As far as I can tell, one can add new Bookmarks to websites, but the ability to name them or categorize them across a folder hierarchy doesn’t exist. Clicking the option to view “Recent Bookmarks” actually opened a search page with the query formula as the search.
When bookmarking a page I like to change the default title from the lengthy (and meaningless) default description to something more meaningful and memorable to me, e.g. what the site does and/or why I bookmarked it in the first place. Fix the bookmark functionality and I’ll be very happy.

I use this app on desktop and it’s great, I appreciate what it does for privacy. But the mobile app is falling behind in terms of layout, it isn’t nearly as convenient or simple to navigate as the competitors. Easier access to the favorites list would bump this one up to that last evasive star—as it stands, it takes several confusing and slightly obscured links to access one’s favorites. It’s really annoying and makes Firefox harder to use efficiently. It would be great if Firefox let you use your favorites list as a default option for new tabs. So like if I open a new tab I immediately get my favorites list.

Apart from that annoying feature though, great app!