FoxBox

UserLAnd Technologies

About this app

FoxBox allows you to run desktop Firefox on an Android device.

What is FoxBox?

FoxBox is not Firefox itself and is not a Mozilla project, but instead is a compatibility layer that sets up a Linux desktop Firefox build, launches it, renders it and provides a way to interact with it.

What features does it provide?
*Web page rendering
*Standard desktop Firefox extensions
*Built-in file manager. Can interact with files on sdcard, after you give it permissions.
*Developer tools.
*Sound support.
*Etc

How to Use FoxBox?

Use it just like normal. But here are some specifics to the app.
* Tap with one figure to click.
* Pinch to zoom.
* Slide to fingers up and down to scroll.
* If you want to bring up a keyboard, tap on the screen to get a set of icons to appear and then click the keyboard icon.
* Hold and slide one finger to pan (useful when zoomed in).
* If you want to do the equivalent to a right click, tap with two fingers.
* If you want to change the scaling or the dns settings, find the service android notification and click the settings. You have to stop and restart the app after changing these settings for them to take effect.

Why Use FoxBox?

Desktop Firefox has a different set of features than the Android mobile app. Also, websites behave different when opened in a desktop browser vs a mobile browser (even when you say you want the desktop version of a website).

Other tidbits:

FoxBox is fully open source with the source code posted on github: https://github.com/CypherpunkArmory/FoxBox

Ratings and reviews

I love the concept, but there are some serious issues that should be addressed. The primarily being that it installs a Firefox ESR version that is 3 years old and is way behind, with no easy way to update. I ran into a few important extensions that wouldn't work due to this. This needs to have auto/manual updates capability or be maintained by provider. Beyond that, it works ok, but that is such a serious issue that I cannot recommend this.

I am able to use it to ssh into a digital ocean droplet to then ssh into my computer at home from any public WiFi with my phone thanks to this. I can use all of the essential keyboard keys for interacting with tmux and auto completing with zsh. It is awesome. I am still learning how to use it. For instance I haven't figured out how to use my phone's clipboard to copy and paste between different apps yet, but I am sure I will figure that out eventually.

Once you get the hang of it it does work really well, far better than any of the other apps I tried. My laptop was stolen and I needed devtools on mobile. It is by no means a laptop replacement but I am able, with some effort, to achieve the task I have been trying to do with many other apps. Thank you to the devs.

What's new

Add ability to set display preferences
Includes scaling
Includes setting screen orientation