Firefox 81 for Android gets much needed Downloads interface

[harlan4096]

When Mozilla released the new Firefox web browser for Android, it appeared rushed in several regards and while users liked the improvements done to web compatibility and performance, others criticized Mozilla for various things including that only a few extensions are supported.

Mozilla is working on bringing (some) of the missing features back. The Nightly version will get full add-ons support soon, and a new downloads page is about to be released as well.

If you download files in the new mobile browser, you may have noticed that the browser lacked an interface to manage these. While it does display a notification when a download completes, once that is gone, there was no option to display that download from within the browser again.

The main menu does not list a link to a downloads page to manage these downloads, e.g. to open them from within Firefox or delete them from the device once they are no longer needed.  The only option that Firefox for Android users have at the moment is to use the Android file browser or third-party applications to access downloaded files.

Mozilla plans to resolve the oversight in the upcoming Firefox 81 Stable for Google's Android operating system. Once updated, Firefox users may access a Downloads link in the main menu that leads directly to all downloads made with the mobile browser.

Firefox lists all downloads on the page and displays filenames and sizes. Information such as the download date or the site the file was downloaded from is missing in Firefox 81.

While downloads are listed on the page, options to interact with downloads in any way are missing, at least in Firefox 82 Beta at the time of writing.  A tap, or double-tap does not open the download on Android, and a long-tap does nothing either.

It is quite possible that Mozilla will introduce the missing functionality before the Stable channel promotion of Firefox 81, but for now, all you get is the list of downloads when you open the downloads listing.

The current state of the downloads page does not help users much as it provides no options to interact with the downloads. While it provides users with a list of file names, it is still necessary at this point to use a file manager or other tools to open or delete these from the system.

Closing Words

The introduction of a dedicated page for downloads is a step in the right direction but the current implementation, as seen in Firefox beta, lacks functionality. Firefox 81 will be released on September 22, 2020.
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