Add-ons in 2017

#1

Post by nachtigall » Thu, Nov 24, 2016, 1:44 PM UTC

Add-ons in 2017
blog.mozilla.org

Re: Add-ons in 2017

#2

Post by morinted » Thu, Nov 24, 2016, 2:30 PM UTC

I'd love some figures on whether the main popular extensions will continue working, as well as how many in the Firefox Add-ons site are already web extensions.

I'm curious about my mains:

- Classic theme restorer

- uBlock

- DownThemAll

- Markdown Here

As I'm already using electrolysis, I know Markdown Here basically doesn't work. How I can check whether things will break or not.

Re: Add-ons in 2017

#3

Post by Amezarak » Thu, Nov 24, 2016, 2:34 PM UTC

morinted wrote: post #2

I'd love some figures on whether the main popular extensions will continue working, as well as how many in the Firefox Add-ons site are already web extensions. I'm curious about my mains: - Classic theme restorer - uBlock - DownThemAll - Markdown Here As I'm already using electrolysis, I know Markdown Here basically doesn't work. How I can check whether things will break or not.

I think it's safe to say that many if not most popular extensions will be provided API support and converted over.

I think the real issue is that innovation in the extension space is effectively over - the Firefox extension system is so vibrant because anything was possible. Now Mozilla is reducing the possibility space to that which is provided by the much more limited WebExtensions and adding in support for existing popular extensions. But new extensions, doing things yet undreamed of, will no longer be possible.

I'm not sure what the distinguishing features of Firefox will be moving into the future. More and more, I think it's becoming Just Another Browser, with a better ideology behind it. Well, that's not a winning formula. I'm really disappointed and I don't know what to do other than stay on old versions of Firefox as long as I can.

Re: Add-ons in 2017

#4

Post by vanni » Thu, Nov 24, 2016, 2:34 PM UTC

morinted wrote: post #2

I'd love some figures on whether the main popular extensions will continue working, as well as how many in the Firefox Add-ons site are already web extensions. I'm curious about my mains: - Classic theme restorer - uBlock - DownThemAll - Markdown Here As I'm already using electrolysis, I know Markdown Here basically doesn't work. How I can check whether things will break or not.

About DownThemAll:

http://www.downthemall.net/the-likely-end-of-downthemall/

Re: Add-ons in 2017

#5

Post by dvh » Thu, Nov 24, 2016, 2:39 PM UTC

RSS reader, Another RSS reader, Dictionary, something for user scripts, domain white list, Another dictionary, Gmail checker, uBlock origin. 4 of those extensions are my own. NIH much :(

Re: Add-ons in 2017

#6

Post by _pdp_ » Thu, Nov 24, 2016, 2:41 PM UTC

The decline of XUL started around 2009. I spent months building a very complex app around XULRunner only to find out that Mozilla had no interest to support the technology in the future.

So I decided to leave the platform and put my efforts on native and web and frankly it was a good decision.

The WebExtensions API is no match to XUL and XPCOM but I only hope that now that we have Mozilla behind the technology we will see further API improvements.

Re: Add-ons in 2017

#7

Post by detaro » Thu, Nov 24, 2016, 2:42 PM UTC

morinted wrote: post #2

I'd love some figures on whether the main popular extensions will continue working, as well as how many in the Firefox Add-ons site are already web extensions. I'm curious about my mains: - Classic theme restorer - uBlock - DownThemAll - Markdown Here As I'm already using electrolysis, I know Markdown Here basically doesn't work. How I can check whether things will break or not.

uBlock and Markdown Here also exist for Chrome, so they'll very likely work or be ported.

The DownThemAll devs have been very vocal about "WebExtensions being the likely end of DownThemAll", although I don't know if due to understandable unwillingness to redo a lot of their work or actual technical limitations.

Classic theme restorer probably relies on XUL/features unlikely to be re-implemented, see dev response to this review https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/classicthemerest....

Ironically the long-term ideas of having a HTML based GUI could enable heavy modification again, at least in modified "distributions" of FF? Doesn't solve the now/next year though :/

Re: Add-ons in 2017

#8

Post by newscracker » Thu, Nov 24, 2016, 2:49 PM UTC

I hope the "end of 2017" deadline is flexible to change based on what's supported and what's not supported for current extensions. As people have said on the comments on the Mozilla blog post, Firefox will die without the popular extensions, of which there are many. Even today, Firefox extensions are far ahead of extensions on other browsers in what's available and how well they function.

Re: Add-ons in 2017

#9

Post by speps » Thu, Nov 24, 2016, 2:50 PM UTC

Anyone knows about the fate of SeaMonkey? It's still based on XUL as far as I know and supports a lot of existing Firefox extensions.

Re: Add-ons in 2017

#10

Post by hucker » Thu, Nov 24, 2016, 2:54 PM UTC

Extensions is currently the only thing FF is better than the competition at, and they scrap it to copy Chrome APIs... I just can't understand why they would scrap XUL-based extensions before their new APIs reach feature parity. The day pentadactyl stops working is the day I stop using firefox.