this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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Does Firefox support multiple windows on iPad OS yet? That was the reason I stayed with Chrome for so long, and also is why I've more recently switched to Edge as the only other cross-platform browser I could find that had that.
Firefox on ios is barely more than just a skin to Safari.
Its renderer is, yes. But not its UI, and the UI is the problem here.
I'm not sure, but Firefox on iOS isn't true Firefox. To my knowledge, Apple doesn't allow browsers to use anything but their Safari engine. As another user put it, "Firefox on iOS is barely more than a skin for Safari."
I can speak to Firefox on desktop and Android, however: they're fantastic!
tl;dr: If FF sucks on iOS, it's Apple's fault.
Nope, not in this case. iPad OS has supported multiple windows of the same app for years now (since 2018 or 2019), and Safari naturally supported it out of the gate. Google supported it in Chrome very quickly, and Microsoft got around to it with Edge last year.
It turns out that while the rendering part of all browsers on iOS is Safari, the skin and UI elements (the "chrome" that Google's browser was named after) are all custom to each app. And Firefox has been very poor at upgrading theirs.
That's so weird, then, that it'd be so radically different than it is on Android. Why do you think that is?
Is it radically different? It's a feature that iPad OS supports that the iPhone version of iOS doesn't, and I don't think Android does (though I've not used an Android tablet in nearly 10 years, so maybe tablets on Android can do it?). Obviously desktops all support multiple windows and have done forever. Technically, by not having implemented this feature it actually means it's more similar to Android.
Firefox is rather under-resourced in terms of developer power, and they've been consistently prioritising other things rather than implementing this feature. I don't think there's much more to it than that. It's a perfectly reasonable explanation for why they haven't done it—any team needs to prioritise what they work on. But it's also reasonable for a user who values that feature to choose a competitor that has delivered it over one that has not. That's the natural trade-off.
I'm dumb, and had to reread what you wrote. I thought you meant tabs this whole time (doh). I haven't even used an iPad before, so I didn't know that feature existed. I don't believe I've ever seen multiple windows of Firefox on Android (but you can have multiple apps open side-by-side).
I think it is unlikely Mozilla would support that feature, given the lack of resources and demand; iPad's are niche.
Yeah and that's fine. I'm not saying Firefox is evil for not having this feature or anything like that. I'm merely explaining why it is that I find it to be a sub-par option, and why I choose Edge instead, for the moment.
I mean this with no personal enmity: piss off with your iPad. (Don't expect power user features to actually be good)
Umm, why? With all due respect, why would you expect me to stop using a device that does everything I want it to perfectly well? I use Edge and it syncs with my Windows desktop and Android phone perfectly well. Both Edge and Google Chrome have supported this feature. It's only Firefox that is being a laggard.
This is not an iPad problem, it's a Firefox one.
Nah, Apple doesn't allow any other browser engines on iOS other than their own, so every browser available on it is just safari.
Sure, but that's not actually my point.
Since 2018 or so, iPad OS has supported multiple windows of the same application, but only if the app developer supports it. Safari, of course, supported this immediately. Google got around to implementing it pretty quickly on Chrome. Edge took years before they finally got there last year or maybe the year before.
Firefox, last time I checked (which was admittedly a few months ago) still did not support it. Plus, on their GitHub page, there was some talk about trying to implement it in a really dumb way, with each window sharing all the same tabs—completely defeating the point of the feature, in my opinion.
When wanting sync between my desktop (Windows), phone (Android), and tablet (iPad OS), I don't really care what renderer is used under the hood. I care what name brand is on the browser and what it's able to sync with. Firefox syncs with Firefox, even when Firefox is secretly Safari.