Firefox faces an uphill battle gaining share on iOS when Safari is the default, and Chrome is easily the most popular alternative. However, that single-minded strategy might be Mozilla's ace in the hole. There's no question that Firefox Focus is a one-trick pony, and it's not completely necessary when Mozilla's content blocker for Safari (confusingly named Focus by Firefox) is still around. You still have the option of jumping into standard Firefox or Safari if you want to load a page in a more conventional browser. There's an option to block more content trackers if you're not worried about breaking site compatibility, and you can disable sites' custom web fonts if they're bogging you down.

You can take your browsing to extremes if you want. Also, see that conspicuous 'erase' button up top? Hit that and it immediately wipes your current browser history - all the evidence of your gift shopping goes away in a moment. Firefox Focus isn't very sophisticated (you don't even get multiple tabs), but it blocks ad, analytics and social trackers by default, with simple sliders used to turn tracking on and off. Mozilla wants to try something different: it's launching a browser for iOS that revolves around privacy. They're rarely turned on by default, however, and you may have to wade through settings just to make sure you're a ghost online. Many modern smartphone web browsers have private modes.

Firefox focus desktop