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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

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 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 12:03:30 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

2 sources
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...
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