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Do the right thing and give us version 68 back under a new name

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There have been so many complaints and one star reviews about version 79, would it really be so hard to reintroduce version 68 back onto the play store under a new name like "Firefox legacy" or "Firefox classic", so we could run that side by side with 79 until the dismal failure that is version 79 has at least been fixed to the extent that people can decide it's worth changing over, i.e., when the things that are most important to them have been fixed? For me that is a customisable home page because I've set up my own site to be my home page on all browsers on all platforms because (so I thought) nobody would be stupid enough to release a browser that doesn't allow that to be customised, and more access to important addons like adblock plus and the home page button, and, of course, a back button.

You could add a big disclaimer that there would be no security or other updates in the description.

There have been so many complaints and one star reviews about version 79, would it really be so hard to reintroduce version 68 back onto the play store under a new name like "Firefox legacy" or "Firefox classic", so we could run that side by side with 79 until the dismal failure that is version 79 has at least been fixed to the extent that people can decide it's worth changing over, i.e., when the things that are most important to ''them'' have been fixed? For me that is a customisable home page because I've set up my own site to be my home page on all browsers on all platforms because (so I thought) nobody would be stupid enough to release a browser that doesn't allow that to be customised, and more access to important addons like adblock plus and the home page button, and, of course, a back button. You could add a big disclaimer that there would be no security or other updates in the description.

All Replies (10)

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Hi Pete

Thank you for your feedback, we do appreciate it.

There is no plan that I am aware of to rollback Firefox for Android. Considerable effort has been put into making this update much faster and there is much more we plan to do, including looking at the issues that you have raised.

uBlock is currently available as an add-on and you can use the Android back icon as the back button in the browser.

I hope this helps.

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Seburo said

Hi Pete Thank you for your feedback, we do appreciate it. There is no plan that I am aware of to rollback Firefox for Android. Considerable effort has been put into making this update much faster and there is much more we plan to do, including looking at the issues that you have raised. uBlock is currently available as an add-on and you can use the Android back icon as the back button in the browser. I hope this helps.

Thanks but I didn't ask you to roll it back, just make the previous version available alongside the new (and hopefully improving one). As things stand, it's perfectly possible to manually roll it back by downloading the old apk (I've already downloaded it but not yet installed it) but then we can't see what improvements are being made to the new version.

Thanks for the information about the back button. The real showstopper for me is not having the ability to customise the home page (and a home button to return to it from any other page) to avoid the horrible and pointless "top sites" page, and the very, very limited number of addons. One of Firefox's biggest attractions was that, if you wanted some feature, you could almost always find an addon to help.

As I said in a previous post, this looks like the basis of an improvement but it seems to have been released way, way too early in its development - it hardly counts as a decent beta for a proper replacement for version 68.

Modified by Pete

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Hello,

I was very disappointed by the lost of all my add-on too, and I don't really like the new design. I'd be interested in the old APK link :)

Thanks

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stefan.eu2 said

Hello, I was very disappointed by the lost of all my add-on too, and I don't really like the new design. I'd be interested in the old APK link :) Thanks

Here's how I went back to 68: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1300966

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Okay, well if Mozilla won't do the right thing, there is a way to get 68 running alongside the new version. You need Fennec F-Droid, which is pretty much Firefox 68 (at least at present). You can log into your firefox account and it syncs OK (at least for all the things I've set to sync). It's here: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/

I can't recommend it unless you're pretty familiar with Android and understand the risks involved in installing from non-play store sources. I tried downloading the apk directly but it wouldn't install even after I gave permission (in android settings) to install from my file browser, so I ended up installing the F-Droid app itself (which is like google play), then had to give permission for installation from that, then installed Fennec and uninstalled F-Droid (probably not necessary but I didn't want to risk an auto update to 79).

I now have both 68 and the new 79 both running on my tablet. :-)

This is a risk in the long term as 68 won't get security updates, so unless Mozilla get their act together on the new version pretty quickly, I'll be looking for a new browser entirely.

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Seburo said

Hi Pete Thank you for your feedback, we do appreciate it. There is no plan that I am aware of to rollback Firefox for Android. Considerable effort has been put into making this update much faster and there is much more we plan to do, including looking at the issues that you have raised.

The update is slower and it's awful. Well, sometimes if you worked hard on something and you consider after I while your hard work let to nothing good and all the time was wasted, you should throw away what you did and redo it from the scratch on or - as in this case - from a previous version. Okay. So you did put much effort in doing an awful software? You should better not tell anyone!

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I agree - this new Android is AWFUL. you cannot rearrange any items on the toolbatrs - why? your cannot rearrange bookarks-why? the 'bookmarks' control is the 9th item in the list-why? why isn't it first? and instead of asking every time if i want the desktop, give us a way to ALWAYS have desktop versions load. 'save to collection'? 'top sites' let me get rid of the garbage i wil never use. such a sad, sad update

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This is a community created and supported browser. The fact that we the community were and are ignored (what we NEED) and locked out of configuring it to the way we individually want, IS COMPLETELY WRONG. Dev's not considering the full and even basic needs of the users! Users needs and wants are what makes this a COMMUNITY not a overcontroling dictatorship! When Dev's DICTATE and remove the ability for users to customize THEIR browser (not the DEV's browser!) THIS IS NO LONGER A COMMUNITY BROWSER. If I had the resources I would investigate every developer to see how much google has paid them. -_- and ban them for life! Power to the people, not the dictators!

Modified by Glenn 8D

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I am dismayed that no satisfactory answer has been given to the reasonable points raised. I've donated to Mozilla for years, used Firefox for well over a decade, thunderbird too. This release makes fundamental changes which are user-hostile. I can't think of another browser that doesn't have the tabs showing under the menu bar, or useful buttons like favourites in a customisable menu bar. I'm writing this on my droid pad...the menu looks ridiculous. Nearly all url, very little of use. I can't even see how to determine which version I'm running. I shall use kiwi browser until you sort this mess out. This has been the update of doom, poor show, must try harder. How about some proper acceptance testing? Not trendy these days, slows down development, but the quality of the end product and user satisfaction are surely what's important, I reckon.

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I downgraded to 68 as soon as Daylight hit, but google likes to turn auto updates back on every time android updates so I get forced to update every so often. I generally take a few minutes to poke around the new version and see if any of the stuff I complained about when it originally hit changed at all. None of it has. I've gotten downgrading and getting everything back to how I like it down to a pretty quick process now. It still feels like a beta of a completely unrelated browser, made by people who had never used Firefox on Android.