I'm not that optimistic that Mozilla is capable of building a good iOS browser. It's been a few months since I last used it, but the issues of Firefox on iPadOS were not because of the engine. Tabs would frequently lose order, closing a tab would close some other tab, broken keyboard shortcuts, cursor/selection issues in the address bar, random non-responsiveness and just janky UI. The issues were so obvious that it felt like it was built without any QA process, so I resorted to using Safari most of the time, which worked perfectly.
Firefox Focus on Android works much better, but it's also a simpler browser. I haven't used the full Firefox on Android, so can't comment on that.
Firefox is my default browser on Android for couple of years now. It supports uBlock Origin, and I cannot browse internet without it anymore. I don't have major trouble with it, except 1-2 cases per quarter, when it is faster to open Chrome than turn the ad blocking off and then back on.
Another case for Chrome for me is full page translation. It is very neat and mostly of decent quality.
It you go the extra mile and actually disable Chrome on Android, even Google apps will start making calls to Firefox as the browser. It makes for a much better experience, otherwise Google apps don't honor the default browser choice in many circumstances.
I don't have any Google apps with this problem (I don't use mentioned below Google News). My biggest problem so far are apps without setting "Use external browser to open links".
I can't use the internet with Firefox on Android, because while is supports uBO, it doesn't support full-page translation or Bypass Paywalls Clean.
So instead, I use Firefox Nightly on Android. It supports any extension I want to install, not just those approved by Mozilla for the Android browser. I would have a very hard time without translation.
Being able to use Fennec F-Droid was my primary motivator to switch off of iPhone. It's not perfect, but there are things it offers that iOS Safari does not that I consider to be absolute necessities for browsing the web. (uBlock Origin is certainly one of them, also WebM support.)
I've been told this at least three times now on HN over the years (pretty soon I'm going to start keeping a list of URLs so people know I'm not exaggerating.) Every single time it turns out that it isn't actually true.
It was added to desktop Safari. iOS Safari supports VP9 only in WebRTC. It may have changed, but I can't find any evidence that it has.
If you see it working somewhere, it is almost definitely using the polyfill[1].
> It's been a few months since I last used it, but the issues of Firefox on iPadOS were not because of the engine.
You don't actually know that, though, it's entirely possible that these issues are caused by having purposely limited ways to hook into the engine and system as 3rd party browser.
If GP is talking about the same issues that I frequently run into, then I'd say that's almost definitely not the case. I continue to use Firefox iOS despite these issues because I like the shared history and bookmarks with my desktop, but they do annoy me on the daily.
A couple off the top of my head...
If you do something to trigger a page load, like open the app after it has been suspended, and while the page is still loading you touch the address bar to enter an address or pick one of your "recently visited" or whatever, you will be surprised when the page finishes loading and replaces the view. It replaces the view, but you're still in the "navigation bar selected" state, so you can get them back without hitting the tiny back chevron and tapping the address bar again. I doubt this has anything to do with how they are forced to hook into WebView. It's just sloppy handling of async code.
Speaking of that same view, the top four links shown there as favicons are in a constant state of flux. Generally, it's HN, Reddit, Google News and whatever else I frequently visit, but sometimes for reasons I don't understand they get completely jumbled into something else. The icons are constantly disappearing and reappearing. It's not a big deal, but it feels unstable. I'm not sure why they don't just let me pick bookmarks to save on this view instead of automatically picking them for me. There are many things I would like to have available at a single tap, but I don't visit frequently enough to make it into my top four. Like trash pickup schedule. I don't read that several times a day, but when it's time for the trash truck to come and I forgot if today is plastic or paper recyclables, I'd like to have that link bookmarked for quick access.
Without actually digging into the code and integrations, it's speculation on both of our parts. I've had to work with platforms that made implementing certain "easy" and "simple" features in a bug-free manner difficult to impossible.
Once the native engine is available to the general public, there will be more users. When there are more users, there will likely be more resources thrown at development.
The issues in question aren't something you'd ignore just due to lack of a native engine - Firefox on iOS matters for market share reasons, they need to care about that stuff regardless of what's running under the hood.
> Once the native engine is available to the general public, there will be more users.
Why do you think this will happen? The landing page for firefox.com above the fold only makes one claim about "a lightning fast browser", with their selling points being privacy, Firefox View, editing PDFs in-browser, and total cookie protection, all of which are possible in the current WebKit experience. Either Mozilla really doesn't know how to market Firefox, or less people download Firefox if their CTA is "our browser engine is better than Chrome".
Other browsers on android can do that too. Actually, firefox has a fairly restrictive extension policy, while browsers like Kiwi let you install any chrome extension that you want.
I use it as my main browser and only had to go Chrome to open some trash sites (litteral “let me load a bitcoin miner in an invisible element” kind of trash)
Unfortunately, I had the same experience with iOS and iPadOS versions of Firefox. Very janky, lots of bugs that went on unfixed for months and years, and general lack of polish and thoughtfulness in the UI. Despite using Firefox on every other platform, I had much better experience with Safari, and kept Firefox installed only for an occasional password lookup.
FWIW, I noticed all of the same issues when using FF on my iPad, but I stuck with it, and it actually got much better, and I haven't noticed a UI/UX bug in months now. It's been rock solid once they got the kinks worked out, and I've loved running FF on all of my devices and having everything synced between them appropriately.
I use firefox on iOS. I like it because it has integrations with firefox's password management, and it feels somewhat fire-foxy.
But it is a bit janky and it is strictly worse than the android version, and that's because it's layered on top of the wrong engine and there's only so much customisation they can do to make it more firefoxy.
I really welcome a full-fat fox on iOS, not least because it implies extensions like ublock origin, and adblocking on iOS is just not as good compared to UBO on android or the desktop.
Firefox Focus on Android works much better, but it's also a simpler browser. I haven't used the full Firefox on Android, so can't comment on that.