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mozilla-mobile
focus-ios
Swift2016–2024
mozilla-mobile / focus-ios · Archived

focus-ios

⚠️ Firefox Focus (iOS) has moved to a new repository. It is now developed and maintained as part of: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios

Web DevelopmentSecurity & PrivacyMobile & Desktop
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
16Distinct people
21Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
1.2KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

⚠️ Firefox Focus (iOS) has moved to a new repository. It is now developed and maintained as part of: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:03:16 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year21 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2016-11-17 14:35:47 UTC to 2024-09-25 20:56:01 UTC.

024682016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments20162017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 8 mentions; 0 submissions, 8 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments20202021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2024

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC808
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202

What Hacker News says

21 sources
commoner·Jan 26, 2024
When Mozilla launched Focus for iOS in 2016, Apple had two WebKit implementations on iOS. Focus was implemented with UIWebView (slower, with more extensive content blocking capabilities), while Firefox was implemented with WKWebView (faster, with limited content blocking capabilities).[1] Focus was Mozilla's way of offering Tracking Protection on iOS in some form without slowing down the performance of its main Firefox for iOS app. In addition to blocking ads within the Focus browser itself, Focus also provided iOS content blockers, which ironically (due to iOS content blockers being exclusive to Safari) allowed Focus users to block ads in Safari but not in Firefox for iOS at the time.[2] Focus migrated to WKWebView in 2017 after iOS 11 bridged WKWebView's feature gap, allowing Focus to retain its Tracking Protection feature through the t
Read the rest
ransition.[3] With Firefox and Focus both on WKWebView, Mozilla then ported Tracking Protection to Firefox for iOS in 2018.[4] Tracking Protection improved Firefox for iOS, but could never be as comprehensive as the Safari-exclusive content blockers. By that time, Mozilla had already launched Focus for Android in 2017[4] even though Firefox for Android already had the ability to block ads more comprehensively with extensions such as uBlock Origin. As a privacy-focused secondary browser with a one-tap "erase session" feature, Focus was a niche app that turned out to be well-received by users, and Mozilla probably did not have a good reason to discontinue it even after Firefox for iOS gained Tracking Protection. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12977855 [2] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/introducing-fir... [3] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-ios/issues/274 [4] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/latest-firefox-... [5] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-focus-n...
In Platform Tilt
commoner·Sep 4, 2021
The way Firefox Focus is implemented on iOS is a little complicated, since it's both a browser and a Content Blocker. As of 2017, Firefox Focus uses WKWebView as the webview component: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-ios/pull/507 WKWebView does not support the Content Blocker API. Ad blocking apps that use the Content Blocker API are only compatible with Safari and the SFSafariViewController component, which is very feature-limited and not suitable for a full web browser app: - https://www.wwdcnotes.com/notes/wwdc20/10188/ - https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=trjs0tcd As a workaround, Firefox Focus uses script injection to block ads and trackers within the browser part of itself, but the Content Blocker part of Firefox Focus only affects Safari: - https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-ios/blob/main/Blockz... - https://github.c
Read the rest
om/mozilla-mobile/focus-ios/blob/main/Blockz... - https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-ios/issues/1761 However, both Firefox Focus and Safari (with the Firefox Focus Content Blocker enabled) score 78% on that test, so Firefox Focus might be good enough for web browsing on iOS if you're comfortable with its feature set and don't need the additional filter lists or custom rules that another third-party Content Blocker would offer. Apple should still allow third-party browsers to use third-party Content Blockers, since this restriction is an unnecessary handicap for any non-Safari browser on iOS.
In uBlock Origin review
jsinai·Mar 24, 2021
I use Firefox Focus on mobile which lets you reset your entire browser and cookie history with one click. It also has some built-in tracking protection and content blocking. While it doesn’t solve the issue of add-ons, it has enough of a privacy focus to make me feel better about reducing my footprint on the mobile. It’s a pity that development is not as active as it used to be, but looks like Firefox are still supporting the project: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-ios
In Google Removed ClearURLs Extension from Chrome Web Store
hawaiian·Jun 22, 2019
It's hard to take anything you write seriously when you're being disingenuous. >Unfortunately, these prototypes broke the web badly. The web was simply not ready for such protection. Yet Apple was fine disabling third-party tracking since 2001 according to GP? >Now, Apple, with their iOS monopoly A monopoly over their own product? >If you recall, Apple's stance on privacy is quite recent. The tech world has a short memory, but I remember Apple being caught red-handed slurping data from user's iPhones not so long ago. A quick Google search shows that Apple was embroiled because they enabled WiFi-assist by default, which caused some people to use more cellular data than intended. Is this the privacy-invading data "slurp" you mean? >But don't forget that they do this for strategic reasons Who doesn't? Apple is not a charity. We should rejoic
Read the rest
e that Apple is monetizing privacy, because it means the system is working. >We're also working on it (is anyone else doing so?) GP literally just mentioned expiring first-party cookies after 7-days. I don't trust Mozilla _at all_ these days. Instead Mozilla seems interested in marketing themselves as privacy-focused only enough to grow their userbase for the near future. Once at some critical mass, Mozilla seems to proceed exactly like Google. - Google Analytics tracking users on configuration page, https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785 - Firefox Focus, a tracker blocker, sending user data to third-party Adjust https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-ios/wiki/Install-Tra... - Firefox installing an add-on without user consent https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15931730 - Targeted advertisement via Pocket - SHIELD Studies and Telemetry
In Is Firefox better than Chrome? It comes down to privacy
digitalshankar·Oct 5, 2017
Firefox Focus does not and will never leak or send browsing behavior details. The article is factually incorrect. I am not sure how the researcher came to the conclusion that Focus reports 'server connections' or 'visited websites'. It does not and it never will. Firefox Focus is an Open Source product. Its code can be found for verification at https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus and the Adjust usage is documented at https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus/wiki/Install-and-eve...
In Firefox Focus privacy scandal
farhanpatel·Jul 3, 2017
Mozilla | Firefox Mobile Engineer | Mountain View, Portland, Remote, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver | https://mozilla.org We are looking for an iOS engineer to work on https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios and other open source products that Mozilla is working on. You'll get to work on one of the few projects on the iOS platform that are built completely in the open. Apply here https://careers.mozilla.org/position/gh/688096
In Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2017)
farhanpatel·Jun 1, 2017
Mozilla | Firefox Mobile Engineer | Mountain View Portland, Remote, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver | https://mozilla.org We are looking for an iOS engineer to work on https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios and other open source products that Mozilla is working on. You'll get to work on one of the few projects on the iOS platform that are built completely in the open. Apply here https://careers.mozilla.org/position/gh/688096
In Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2017)

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