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, 2 years 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.
276 reviews
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18475550, 13 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Misaka, 16 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by tyleralbee, a month ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by DAR, 2 months ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 15245456, 2 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 19014561, 3 months ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by Pxtl, 3 months agoStill works well but the latest update degraded functionality a bit. Icons often have to be manually added to the PWA, and the Windows OS can no longer store persistent links to the PWA in the taskbar - "pin to taskbar" results in a link that gets invalidated every time FF starts. IIRC that feature used to work.
- Rated 3 out of 5by ShahabRasekh, 3 months agoI like the app and i can run it on debian, but installing on Ubuntu isn't successful yet.
Developer response
posted 2 months agoIf you are using Snap-based Firefox on Ubuntu (which is the default), you might need some additional steps: https://pwasforfirefox.filips.si/help/faq/#why-doesnt-the-extension-find-the-native-connector-on-linux - Rated 5 out of 5by Kay, 3 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Stefan, 3 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 13751407, 3 months agoWorking great! I can use multiple profiles to access the same website with alternative accounts, and I can sync all my Firefox apps to access there as well (uBlock and Bitwarden 🙏🏻).
- Rated 5 out of 5by Alastal, 3 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Alex Trujillo, 3 months agoThis is great! It works much better than I expected.
I couldn't get the extension to work in Firefox installed via Snap on Ubuntu, but that doesn’t bother me at all.
Thank you! - Rated 5 out of 5by lidi_a, 3 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by ZwrvKrll, 5 months ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Cascais01, 5 months agoFirst time user: I successfully installed a PWA but when launch pressed only a blank page appeared.
Developer response
posted 5 months agoPlease check troubleshooting steps (https://pwasforfirefox.filips.si/help/troubleshooting/) and open an issue on GitHub with provided native and runtime logs. - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18596238, 5 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18882831, 5 months agoPWAs on Firefox – that's actually something I've wanted for a long time. I use them for MS Teams and, what can I say (?), at least as good as the variant that works with the other browser engine.
To all decision-makers at Mozilla: please reconsider your decision regarding support for PWAs. At the very least, you should praise Filip Štamcar and officially recommend his plugin. - Rated 5 out of 5by Dexterix, 5 months agoThe last feature that I was missing in Firefox was PWA. Thank you!
- Rated 5 out of 5by sayimburak, 5 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 14618035, 5 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by c0des1ayr, 6 months ago
- Rated 3 out of 5by Frozux, 6 months ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by KSH, 6 months agoIt seems to work well but the update process is constant, and the extension itself does not seem to recognize if and when it needs updating.
Further it is unclear (from the user perspective) *WHAT EXACTLY* needs updating. There's the standalone install (what is that called?) -vs- the stuff that gets installed in the Firefox folder... and is there more? I've updated the standalone install but it still complains it needs to be updated - well OK then do it, I am not sure what else I am supposed to do?
As far as I can tell I am up to date - 2.14.1 [application installed in C:\Program Files (x86)], and extension is still at 2.13.3 on this very page, but the extension is complaining I still need to update.