fix(functions): remove pre-turbomodules implementation / fixes Expo 53

[mikehardy]

Description

Expo 54 appears to work if the old unused implementation still exists, however Expo 53 discovers the old implementation during autolinking and attempts to autolink it instead of the TurboModules one so functions doesn't work

Related issues

Among the regressions from react-native-firebase 23.7.0 to 23.8.0 was that functions stopped working on Expo 53

Why? As it migrated to TurboModules, the pre-TurboModules implementation was still there, and auto-linking on Expo 53 (but not 54!?) tried to link the old implementation vs the new one, and couldn't find it

So this is a fix for one of the regression in the listed issue:

• Related: [🐛] v23.8.0 .1 and .2 have a publishing regression - Expo plugin config is not valid - remain on 23.7.0 or wait for 23.8.3+ #8829

Also directly fixes this issue which was opened about this exact problem while I was investigating it -

• Fixes [🐛] 🔥 @react-native-firebase/functions@23.8.3 does not seem to be linked properly natively #8846

Release Summary

fix commit, so patch release via conventional commits

Checklist

• I read the Contributor Guide and followed the process outlined there for submitting PRs.
  • Yes
• My change supports the following platforms;
  • Android
  • iOS
  • Other (macOS, web)
• My change includes tests;
  • e2e tests added or updated in packages/\*\*/e2e
  • jest tests added or updated in packages/\*\*/__tests__
• I have updated TypeScript types that are affected by my change.
• This is a breaking change;
  • Yes
  • No

Test Plan

e2e tests work locally for android

I also verified using local package creation from source and a run of https://github.com/mikehardy/rnfbdemo/blob/main/make-expo-demo.sh against the local packages and Expo 53 that this works

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Project	Deployment	Review	Updated (UTC)
react-native-firebase	Ready	Preview, Comment	Jan 21, 2026 4:40pm

[mikehardy]

This was Android only and that e2e test has already passed CI, merging