# Failure: Android firefox beta with orbot proxy **URL:** \ **Category:** StartOS Support\ **Created:** [March 7, 2024, 10:25pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199 "2024-03-07T22:25:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![LeChateaux](https://community.start9.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/ccd318/32.png) [@LeChateaux](https://community.start9.com/u/LeChateaux)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2024, 10:25pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/1 "2024-03-07T22:25:10Z")
Andoid 14 Firefox beta 124.0b8 from play store Orbot 16.6.3-RC-1-tor.0.4.7.10 from play store Followed all directions at [https://docs.start9.com/0.3.5.x/misc-guides/ca-ff](https://docs.start9.com/0.3.5.x/misc-guides/ca-ff) and [Start9 | Configuring Firefox for Tor](https://docs.start9.com/0.3.5.x/misc-guides/tor-ff) In firefox beta, all onion URLs produce the error “Address not found”. ---
**Author:** ![StuPleb](https://community.start9.com/user_avatar/community.start9.com/stupleb/32/195_2.png) [@StuPleb](https://community.start9.com/u/StuPleb)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 7:22pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/2 "2024-03-09T19:22:01Z")
You’ll need to very slowly and carefully walk through each of the steps. Any slight mistake will cause this to not work. 99% of the time, this is what is wrong. What is the status or Orbot? Is it connected and working? When completed, did you close Firefox Beta completely and open it again? ---
**Author:** ![LeChateaux](https://community.start9.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/ccd318/32.png) [@LeChateaux](https://community.start9.com/u/LeChateaux)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 8:27pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/3 "2024-03-09T20:27:49Z")
Thanks for the reply StuPleb. Orbot is connected. Works fine in VPN mode. Just can’t seem to get Firefox beta to work via orbot proxy. Have verified each step several times; closed and reopened Firefox; rebooted Android. Sounds like I’m at a dead end on this issue for the time being. At some point I’ll do a virgin reinstall of Android, ca cert trust, orbot, Firefox beta. Zooming out, it’s a real pain to try to simultaneously use tor for some apps and clearnet for others. Throw in a desire to use a regular VPN for clearnet traffic… Tor for start9 service apps when away from home network and clearnet home network when home… etc. Has anyone solved this in an elegant way? What I really need is a network layer that conditionally forces certain traffic to route through tor proxy, other traffic to local subnet, other traffic to clearnet VPN. Bonus would be to universally enforce CA certs. ---
**Author:** ![start9dave](https://community.start9.com/user_avatar/community.start9.com/start9dave/32/6_2.png) [@start9dave](https://community.start9.com/u/start9dave)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2024, 3:09pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/4 "2024-03-11T15:09:45Z")
Not that we know of. Perhaps overlay networks or split tunneling can assist with this. We intend to make advanced networking like this more approachable in the future, but at this time we are focused on the personal server. ---
**Author:** ![Joseph](https://community.start9.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/dc4da7/32.png) [@Joseph](https://community.start9.com/u/Joseph)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2025, 2:04pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/5 "2025-02-17T14:04:58Z")
Hi guys, I am reading through the forum to find a fix to my problem. This post is a partial match, so let me ask here. I am on a mobile device with Android 14 and have followed the guidelines mentioned by OP. So Orbit is running (tried both power mode and VPN mode). if I use Duckduckgo browser, I can connect to my start9 embassy using Tor (onion address is resolved and working) but there’s no way to configure duckduckgo to accept start9 private certificate and I don’t want to connect through Tor in clear text. if instead I use Firefox Beta (as suggested in start9 guidelines), about:config is no longer available so I cannot configure Firefox to run through Tor. I think the start9 guide about this must be updated. I found out that Firefox Nightly still allows to access the about:config page. So I tried configuring Tor for Firefox Nightly but still all onion URLs produce the error “Address not found”. Is there a way to fix this? TLDR: Tor configured on Android 14 device. Onion address resolved and working if using Duckduckgo but only via http (no way to tell duckduckgo to trust my start9 certificate, so no https). Firefox beta is OK to trust my start9 cert (can reach my .local address in https) but no longer supports about:config so not possible to configure it for Tor. Firefox Nightly allows about:config but still onion address give error. Sorry for the long message. Does anybody have a fix for this? ---
**Author:** ![h0mer](https://community.start9.com/user_avatar/community.start9.com/h0mer/32/20_2.png) [@h0mer](https://community.start9.com/u/h0mer)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2025, 5:19pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/6 "2025-02-17T17:19:57Z")
Hi Joseph, The configuration you described is for Firefox on desktop. To configure Firefox Beta on your Android device: 1. Tap the Kebab Menu \> Settings \> About Firefox, and tap the Firefox icon 5 times to enable “developer mode.” 2. Go back to Kebab Menu \> Settings \> Secret Settings (at the bottom), and enable “Use third party CA certificates.” This information is available in the documentation; just be sure to check the Android tab. I hope this helps you move forward. ---
**Author:** ![Joseph](https://community.start9.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/dc4da7/32.png) [@Joseph](https://community.start9.com/u/Joseph)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2025, 8:46pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/7 "2025-02-17T20:46:20Z")
Hi h0mer, thanks for your reply. The configuration you quote is about making Firefox accept third party certificates. I’ve done that, no problem (I wish there were a similar config for duckduckgo…). I am referring to this guide about “Configuring Firefox for Tor” (Android tab) [https://docs.start9.com/0.3.5.x/misc-guides/tor-ff#tor-ff](https://docs.start9.com/0.3.5.x/misc-guides/tor-ff#tor-ff) Here I should access the about:config page which is not available for Firefox beta on Android. At the moment, I can access my start9 .local address via https on Firefox beta (third party cert OK) but not my .onion address (Firefox beta not configured for Tor since no about:config page). On the other hand, with duckduckgo I can reach both .local and .onion addresses but only in http because I didn’t find a way to tell duckduckgo to accept third party certs. Any help? Thanks a lot! ---
**Author:** ![h0mer](https://community.start9.com/user_avatar/community.start9.com/h0mer/32/20_2.png) [@h0mer](https://community.start9.com/u/h0mer)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2025, 6:48am UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/8 "2025-02-18T06:48:10Z")
Ok, I understand now. It’s possible that the documentation is outdated and Firefox has changed something. What version of FF beta and Android you are using? What I found is that DuckDuckGo does not currently support third-party certificates, which is why you’re unable to use HTTPS with `.local` or `.onion` addresses. Unfortunately, there isn’t a built-in way to configure DuckDuckGo to accept third-party certificates. Alternatively, you could try using one of Firefox’s forks, such as **Firefox Nightly** or **Iceraven** , which may still support `about:config` on Android. I can’t confirm this since I don’t have an Android device to test it on, but I’ll check with the team to see if Firefox has indeed removed `about:config` and whether the documentation needs updating. ---
**Author:** ![Joseph](https://community.start9.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/dc4da7/32.png) [@Joseph](https://community.start9.com/u/Joseph)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2025, 12:13pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/9 "2025-02-18T12:13:01Z")
Hi h0mer, again thanks a lot for taking the time. I am on Android 14 and FF beta136.0b6 I can confirm Firefox Nightly still supports “about:config”. I have followed the guide “Configuring Firefox for Tor” on FF Nightly but still receive “Address not found” error for any .onion address (tried with Orbit both in Power mode and VPN mode). I’ll give Iceraven a try and update with results. ---
**Author:** ![Rexter](https://community.start9.com/user_avatar/community.start9.com/rexter/32/371_2.png) [@Rexter](https://community.start9.com/u/Rexter)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2025, 6:28pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/10 "2025-02-18T18:28:56Z")
I’ve verified that the Firefox Beta instructions work for Fennec as of version 135, on GraphineOS. There’s a lot of steps, and it’s pretty technical, so go slow. Let us know if you get stuck, or something doesn’t look right along the way. ---
**Author:** ![Rexter](https://community.start9.com/user_avatar/community.start9.com/rexter/32/371_2.png) [@Rexter](https://community.start9.com/u/Rexter)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2025, 6:48pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/11 "2025-02-18T18:48:16Z")
> [@Joseph](#): > > there’s no way to configure duckduckgo to accept start9 private certificate and I don’t want to connect through Tor in clear text. Let me just point out that there is no clear text over Tor. Everything is encrypted. Most .onion addresses don’t use https, because it’s unnecessary. The concern would be if you are connecting to a .com, .net, or some other non-.onion address, over http. The traffic over tor would be encrypted, but the exit node would see clear text. You’re not using an exit node. ---
**Author:** ![Joseph](https://community.start9.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/dc4da7/32.png) [@Joseph](https://community.start9.com/u/Joseph)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2025, 8:52pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/12 "2025-02-18T20:52:56Z")
good to know, thanks! I guess I need to study Tor more in depth. Meanwhile I finally managed to connect to my start9 .onion address via https using the Tor browser. No config needed. It just works. So now I use Firefox beta to connect to my .local address and Tor browser to reach .onion. Both via https. Thanks for your support! ---
**Author:** ![Alex71btc](https://community.start9.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Alex71btc](https://community.start9.com/u/Alex71btc)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 5:31pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/13 "2025-04-19T17:31:00Z")
Hey i had the same issue on android with orbot and Firefox beta i could not connect, first followed the instructions by start9 manual, no luck, but here is my solution found with chat gpt: Orbot in power user mode ( no VPN) And about:config network.proxy.type = 1 network.proxy.socks = 127.0.0.1 network.proxy.socks\_port = 9050 network.proxy.socks\_remote\_dns = true Restart Firefox Viola it works! ---
**Author:** ![Alex71btc](https://community.start9.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Alex71btc](https://community.start9.com/u/Alex71btc)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 10:58pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/14 "2025-04-19T22:58:01Z")
The problem with this solution mentioned above (network.proxy.type = 1) was that without Orbot I couldn’t use Firefox at all to browse clearnet sites… So after another 3 hour session with Chat Gpt, I found out the instruction from Start9 works when modified like this: On my android 14 (Samsung Galaxy S21FE with One Ui 6.1) device the file:///storage/emu…/proxy.pacaccess link did not work so I had to use the Simple HTTP Server app (Playstore or f-Droid) to expose the pac file to Firefox and to complicate it even more also the Download folder is restricted and not accessible for Firefox beta… So I had to move the proxy.pac file to the Document folder. So the setting about:config in Firefox: network.proxy.autoconfig\_url = [http://IPofSimpleHTTPServer:8080/proxy.pac](http://IPofSimpleHTTPServer:8080/proxy.pac) network.proxy.type = 2 worked! Set Simple HTTP Server stetting to start on boot checked and allow no notifications for the app in android (this way it’s invisible), Orbot is on Power User setting without VPN… worked! ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://community.start9.com/user_avatar/community.start9.com/rick/32/339_2.png) [@Rick](https://community.start9.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2025, 12:42am UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/15 "2025-04-20T00:42:10Z")
Thanks for putting the time in and sharing your results. I am not sure, I use mac and IOS. I had to come up with a solution for moving the proxypac on mac too because of changes. This is something we just have to keep up with across updates ---
**Author:** ![Alex71btc](https://community.start9.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Alex71btc](https://community.start9.com/u/Alex71btc)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 5:44pm UTC](https://community.start9.com/t/failure-android-firefox-beta-with-orbot-proxy/1199/16 "2025-04-23T17:44:18Z")
Found a working solution without the need of running a Http server for serving the PAC file to firefox beta, with chat GPT I made this logic: function FindProxyForURL(url, host) { url = url.toLowerCase(); // Wenn die URL irgendwo auf .ico endet → direkt laden if (url.indexOf(“.ico”) !== -1) { return “DIRECT”; } // .onion-Domains → über Tor if (dnsDomainIs(host, “.onion”)) { return “SOCKS5 127.0.0.1:9050”; } // Alles andere → direkt return “DIRECT”; } this is now encoded into this string: data:application/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig,function%20FindProxyForURL(url%2C%20host)%20%7B%20url%20%3D%20url.toLowerCase()%3B%20if%20(url.indexOf(%22.ico%22)%20!%3D%3D%20-1)%20%7B%20return%20%22DIRECT%22%3B%20%7D%20if%20(dnsDomainIs(host%2C%20%[22.onion](http://22.onion)%22))%20%7B%20return%20%22SOCKS5%20127.0.0.1%3A9050%22%3B%20%7D%20return%20%22DIRECT%22%3B%20%7D this you would have to insert into firefox beta, about:config , then: network.proxy.autoconfig\_url insert the long string, press enter also `network.proxy.type` → `2` and `network.proxy.socks_remote_dns` → `true` The long string has to be without line break one continuous string.