In December 2014, Mozilla announced it was designing a version of Firefox for iOS. In September 2015, it released a limited preview of the app available only in the New Zealand iOS App Store. In November 2016, Firefox Focus, a stripped-down version of the full browser with a specific focus on private browsing, was published in the Apple App Store.
Version history
Version 9.0, released in September 2017, introduced tracking protection on iOS 11.
Version 10.0, released in November 2017, introduced a redesigned user interface, corresponding to the new "Photon" UI introduced with Firefox 57 later that month.
Version 11.0, released in April 2018, set tracking protection to be enabled by default.
Version 12.0, released in May 2018, introduced file downloads, unified share extension, and easier syncing.
Version 13.0, released in May 2018, introduced dark mode, tab search.
Version 14.0, released in November 2018, introduced support for Siri shortcuts and allowing the user to pick the items to be deleted from the history.
Version 15.0, released in February 2019, introduced an improved menu, new tab settings, and allowing the user to drag tabs to reorder them.
Version 16.0, released in April 2019, introduced access to bookmarks, history, reading list, saved passwords and downloads, and includes a redesigned search bar.
Version 17.0. released in May 2019, introduced bookmark sync via Firefox Account.
Version 18.0, released in July 2019, Bookmark improvement
Version 19.0, released in September 2019, Tracking Protection redesign.
Version 20.0, released in October 2019, added “Clear all History” option to the history tab.
Firefox Home was a previous project for a companion app for the iPhone and iPod Touch based on the Firefox Sync technology. It allowed users of either device to access their Firefox browsing history, bookmarks, and recent tabs. It also included Firefox's "Awesomebar" location bar. Firefox Home is not a browser; the application launches pages in either a Webkit Web viewer or in Safari. Mozilla pulled Firefox Home from the App Store in September 2012, stating it would focus its resources on other projects. The company subsequently released the source code of Firefox Home's underlying synchronization software.
Features
Firefox for iOS supports many features common to other mobile browsers, including tabs, history, and bookmarks. It also implements some unique features, including the same tracking protection as found in Firefox Focus, a new tab page mimicking that found on other versions of Firefox, and support for syncing with a Firefox account between devices. Unlike Firefox on Android, Firefox for iOS does not support browser add-ons. Additionally, it uses Apple's Webkit rendering engine, rather than Mozilla's Gecko. Both of these limitations are in accordance with Apple's rules for submitting apps to the App Store.
