CheckMag | Firefox still sucks on Android tablets despite making progress on the desktop

With the release of Firefox 138, desktop users now have access to both tab groups and vertical tabs — the latter of which was added around a month prior in a previous update — giving users far more options to manage large quantities of tabs and streamline productivity workflows, especially on displays with wide aspect ratios. Mozilla says that tab groups was the most-requested feature by Firefox users, which is why it implemented the feature. As of Firefox 138, the browser also integrates profile management into the desktop version of the app, another feature that was sorely missing from Firefox. 

Unfortunately, Android users are still seemingly being left by the wayside when it comes to their web browsing experience. 

To call Firefox on Android a frustrating experience would be a disservice to just how bad it is. Sure, the basics are there: it loads webpages well enough, there are tabs, and the browser now automatically enables desktop mode on big-screen devices, like tablets. But that's about where the positives end. While competitive browsers, like Brave, Vivaldi, and even Chrome, all have tabs listed in a ribbon along the top of the screen above the address bar — vertical tabs would be better, but beggars can't be choosers — Firefox on Android makes its users open a tab overview, adding an extra step and forcing users to task-switch, which can be far more distracting than it seems. 

Clunky tab switching and mediocre UI design isn't uncommon in Android apps, right? You'd think that you could at least work around clunky design with keyboard shortcuts when connected to an external keyboard or keyboard cover. Unfortunately, common keyboard shortcuts, like Ctrl+Tab/Page Up and Page Down to switch tabs, Ctrl+T to create a new tab, and Ctrl+W to close a tab simply don't work in Firefox, and there don't seem to be any alternatives. The only "convenient" way to flip between tabs on Firefox for Android is to enable swiping on the address bar. Although this is a reasonable gesture, it also forces users to move their hands off the keyboard if they have the tablet set up as a pseudo-laptop. 

That doesn't even touch on support for windows in Firefox. While Firefox technically supports resizable windows, both Brave and Vivaldi have built-in multi-window support. By simply tapping the "New Window" button in the browser's menu, it splits your screen in half, with your original content on one half and a new window with a clean tab in the other half. Firefox has no such window support, which forces anyone trying to use Firefox as a productivity browser on Android to adopt a second browser or use weird features, like OnePlus's duplicate app support to get multi-window support.