Reviews for Progressive Web Apps for Firefox
Progressive Web Apps for Firefox by Filip Štamcar
Review by Ded10c
Rated 5 out of 5
by Ded10c, a year agoWhen I finally got sick enough of Edge to migrate my work PC to Firefox, being able to use Power Platform apps as PWAs instead of having them fill my browser with tabs was the one of the two things I missed. Between this and Sidebery, both features are covered to such an extent that going back to what I was missing now would be a significant step down.
Privacy was one of the main reasons I moved to Firefox, and I expected PWAs to be a necessary sacrifice in the name of effective isolation, but this extension supports all my existing extensions too: I'm able to supplement each app with uBlock, JShelter, LocalCDN, and whatever other site-specific extensions I might want to. PWAs run completely isolated from the main browser in their own shared instance of Firefox, and each can be set to launch on a specified profile - meaning I no longer need to think about Meta's cross site tracking seeing anything outside the profile I've set up to sandbox my Messenger PWA away from my Google Drive or Microsoft Office ones.
The PWAs are reliable and lightweight, and in my experience much better at handling their boundaries than their mainstream cousins - I've not had one kick me back to my main browser when I try to open a document yet, and they've had every opportunity.
PWAs for Firefox does have a more involved installation experience than most extensions and it can be a little bit finicky if you're working in a deployed environment - this is unfortunately by necessity, and I imagine most of the target audience are likely to be the sort of power user who has few qualms manually unpacking a Firefox installer. This is also the only thing I've encountered that even comes close to being a downside.
This took less than three hours to become an essential extension for me, and it's heartily recommended to anyone who prefers their convenience to come without a helping of tracking on the side.
Privacy was one of the main reasons I moved to Firefox, and I expected PWAs to be a necessary sacrifice in the name of effective isolation, but this extension supports all my existing extensions too: I'm able to supplement each app with uBlock, JShelter, LocalCDN, and whatever other site-specific extensions I might want to. PWAs run completely isolated from the main browser in their own shared instance of Firefox, and each can be set to launch on a specified profile - meaning I no longer need to think about Meta's cross site tracking seeing anything outside the profile I've set up to sandbox my Messenger PWA away from my Google Drive or Microsoft Office ones.
The PWAs are reliable and lightweight, and in my experience much better at handling their boundaries than their mainstream cousins - I've not had one kick me back to my main browser when I try to open a document yet, and they've had every opportunity.
PWAs for Firefox does have a more involved installation experience than most extensions and it can be a little bit finicky if you're working in a deployed environment - this is unfortunately by necessity, and I imagine most of the target audience are likely to be the sort of power user who has few qualms manually unpacking a Firefox installer. This is also the only thing I've encountered that even comes close to being a downside.
This took less than three hours to become an essential extension for me, and it's heartily recommended to anyone who prefers their convenience to come without a helping of tracking on the side.
251 reviews
- Rated 5 out of 5by Eric, a day ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 15853143, 4 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by treesap, 4 days agoGreat stuff. Just wanted to leave this note in case current users come here after theirs breaks: The native program has to be manually updated to support the latest Firefox. Go to github - filips123/PWAsForFirefox/issues/611
- Rated 5 out of 5by Nahuel, 11 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by mohammad3a1eh, 15 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by shuuji3, 22 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by igorlogius, 25 days ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by Klementine Des Pêches, a month ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by jw, a month agoEvery once in a while, newly pinned extension is not showing in the title bar. it does show in the toolbar, which is hidden.
to make it worse, it is also hidden in customization page, so it's impossible to move it in any way. also, because it weirdly requires long press to show the extensions, it's then impossible to trigger on the touchscreen.
closing all the instances will help, but, why not show the the address bar along with the toolbar in the customization page? - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 12319602, a month agoGreat add on and works perfectly fine for me.
I would appreciate if the PWA can safe login cookies, so that I don't have to type my password every time I start the app. - Rated 4 out of 5by Impromptu1300, a month agoI only wish it was made simpler.
Compare with Apple's web apps, which strike the best balance between reasonable customization and simplicity (i.e. I don't need any of the profile configurations and what not, I just want a working app that will work always; that will adjust to my system and blend in nicely with it, from showing the right (shape of the) icon to behavior).
Right now some web apps, after being closed, don't work. I have to relaunch them. And not all pages can be made to web apps. - Rated 5 out of 5by ff@n , a month agoThis is an impressive addon. This functionality is present in chromium/chrome based browsers but sadly lacking in Firefox. Working well so far on Windows 10.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18644222, a month ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Deewens, a month agoWork really well, even better than on Chrome, because you can customize a bit the PWA (like adding tabs for example, works really well to replace electron app on Linux)
- Rated 5 out of 5by BelFox, a month agoProfessionally build extension that brings PWAs to Firefox! Easy set-up and extensive user guide. Congrats to the developer!
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18104801, 2 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by CodeDead, 2 months agoPretty much does what a PWA is supposed to do! I hope one day this extension will not be required and Firefox will just have PWA's by itself.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Allen, 2 months ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by Emre Akar, 2 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18625448, 2 months agoDoes exactly what it says it does and looks native on my linux desktop
- Rated 5 out of 5by iresurrect, 2 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Parakeet709, 2 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Johnssson87, 2 months ago