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Firefox Android: Make the openning screen a web address (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Recently I installed Firefox on my parents' phones (uBlock Origin too) in order to make them surf the web more securely as we've had a few cases in the past with malware. (Google Chrome, the advertisement company's browser, does not like ad blockers. Wonder why?)

All they care about it is it openning Google.com and apparently they don't like Firefox's home screen. There are only options for "the last tab", "home screen" and "home screen after few hours of inactivity" but no option to go to a specific web address. In this case, google.com.

So... how do?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Go to any site (eg weather). In hamburger menu (bottom right) select Add To Home Screen. Launch Firefox using that Home Screen icon.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

I use a completely blank opening page with a search bar on it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You can explain them google is already integrated, they can use the address bar to type their query and hit enter to ask Google whatever they want.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I already did. And they "don't like" it. They want to see the Google logo for some reason.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

My father also couldn’t digest this information. I chose to pick my battles and let him keep doing it his way because there’s a limited amount of influence I could spend.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

i believe you can do that in desktop firefox. sadly, idk about the android version

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I found this page that says they removed that feature on mobile for some reason (ugh,) but if you scroll down there's a possible workaround that may work for your purposes. You could swap out the Firefox shortcut on their home screen with an 'open Google(.)com in Firefox' shortcut.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I really hope that there is a logical reason for Mozilla's stupid choices. Because I can't think of one.

You could swap out the Firefox shortcut on their home screen with an 'open Google(.)com in Firefox' shortcut.

That's what I will do.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I believe, they basically re-implemented Android Firefox when that feature fell under the bus. Their previous architecture was incredibly laggy on Android, so that's why they pretty much had to start over...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Yup, I remember the first Firefox for Android. Rough times. Nice black interface, but clunky. The new one is butter and by far the best browser for Android

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

So… how do?

You can't: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1807866