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Rendering on phone

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by Paul

kirkp
kirkp
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Hi community, I really hope someone can help. I *want* to use Firefox as my mobile (Android) browser b/c I am deeply disturbed by Google/Blink beginning to dominate web architecture. But, I cannot get F/F to render sites even approximately correctly---and definitely not acceptably. One of the sites I read most is CNET's news.com. I am attaching 4 images: the first is Firefox in normal mode; second is Firefox in "Request desktop site mode." ...Both are wrong. Terrible.

The third image is from Privacy Browser, a very basic and lightweight webkit-based browser. This is very good, it is only missing video and 3rd-party content that I have chosen to block. The fourth is from Kiwi Browser, an open-source blink-based browser. This is excellent, and is what I expect from Firefox Android, which is also a full-weight browser. Why is Firefox not rendering properly? Is there something I can do to get proper performance.

Note: I have tried multiple blink-based tools (e.g., Bromite, Brave), and all work ok, as do multiple webkit ones (e.g., FOSS browser, yuzu). But, all Firefox variants (Fennec for F-Droid, Tor, ...) fail.

Is this a known issue? I have tried searching and found nothing :(

Thanks in advance for advice/guidance!

Hi community, I really hope someone can help. I *want* to use Firefox as my mobile (Android) browser b/c I am deeply disturbed by Google/Blink beginning to dominate web architecture. But, I cannot get F/F to render sites even approximately correctly---and definitely not acceptably. One of the sites I read most is CNET's news.com. I am attaching 4 images: the first is Firefox in normal mode; second is Firefox in "Request desktop site mode." ...Both are wrong. Terrible. The third image is from Privacy Browser, a very basic and lightweight webkit-based browser. This is very good, it is only missing video and 3rd-party content that I have chosen to block. The fourth is from Kiwi Browser, an open-source blink-based browser. This is excellent, and is what I expect from Firefox Android, which is also a full-weight browser. Why is Firefox not rendering properly? Is there something I can do to get proper performance. Note: I have tried multiple blink-based tools (e.g., Bromite, Brave), and all work ok, as do multiple webkit ones (e.g., FOSS browser, yuzu). But, all Firefox variants (Fennec for F-Droid, Tor, ...) fail. Is this a known issue? I have tried searching and found nothing :( Thanks in advance for advice/guidance!
Attached screenshots

All Replies (3)

Paul
Paul
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Hi

Thank you for your question.

I agree and am greateful for your efforts to help break up browser monopolies and make the web more open - thank you.

Different browsers try to provide the best possible browsing experiance and may display pages differently. This is not just about the engine being used, but make sure that on a smaller screen, mobile device, that the user has the best browsing experiance. "Best" can be defined differently, but no browser is trying to push a rubbish experiance.

You may wish to try the newer version fo Firefox for Android (currently at Beta stage in the Google Play store). This is the browser that our developers will be focussing on going forwards and has been rebuilt from the ground up to provide a better browsing experiance.

kirkp
kirkp Question owner
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Thanks for replying. Alas, FF beta also does not work acceptably. This is super frustrating. I realize that different browsers may render differently, but the user has to be able to have a good experience...as the USER himself defines "good." We don't want others telling us how to view something b/c 'our screen is small' or 'our connection is poor.' We may want options/controls to adjust for those conditions, but we don't want a de facto, and unavoidable, watered-down experience.

Different browsers may render differently. But, when I am on FIREFOX on my phone and I request to view "Desktop Site," I want to get (almost) exactly the same content and layout I get when I am on FIREFOX on my laptop computer. That should be obvious / the definition. This isn't working.

So, for now it looks like I am stuck using FF on the computer but Privacy Browser and Bromite on my phone. I really hope Mozilla can fix this, because it is a sad state of affairs. I hope the Firefox beta dev team will look at the screenshots I have provided b/c the problem is serious and glaring.

Paul
Paul
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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Hi,

If you want to leave feedback for Firefox developers, you can go to the Firefox Help menu and select Submit Feedback... or use this link. Your feedback gets collected by a team of people who read it and gather data about the most common issues.