Cloning a GitHub Repo via Mobile Firefox

Sometimes I’ll use my Android tablet, a bluetooth keyboard, an SSH client and an SFTP-capable text editor to do writing or coding on a remote Linux system.*

The other day I wanted to work on a project that wasn’t already on the remote box. So I opened the GitHub repo in Firefox and went to copy the git URL to paste into a git clone command in the SSH client…and the big green “Code” button just wasn’t there.

Weirdly enough, telling Firefox to request the desktop site fixed the problem!

I don’t know why GitHub is serving a phone-specific layout to widescreen tablet browsers that might as well be small desktop displays, but at least there’s a workaround.