Upload file(image) on firebase

I am having an issue regarding the upload of the user avatar on firebase.

First of all i have noticed that the tag input file does not work on every android version:

 <input id="file-upload" type="file" name="file">

Second of all i am uploading the avatar as base64 on a firebase record, but this method makes the app really slow! because if i have a list of users on a view the dom has render the base64 of each avatar.

I was thinking if there is a way to upload the file on firebase in another way, i have tried to follow this tutorial:


or installing http://ngcordova.com/docs/plugins/fileTransfer/ but it fails during the installation:
Error: 404 Not Found: cordova-plugin-file-transfer

Any other ideas?
thanks!