Add-ons in 2017

I'm pretty sure that there is some such mechanism. At least, I've seen patches related to such a mechanism. I don't remember the specifics and I can't find the documentation right now, but I seem to remember that there was something called the "WebExtensions Extension API" or something such that let developers access existing unstable APIs. It's probably somewhere.

Note that in this case, we're not discussing (only) "unsafe" APIs but also "unstable" APIs that can change from one day to the next without warning.

Thanks for that pointer! I've been off Firefox for the past six months since they broke my private feedreader extension[1]. I'd been using Opera but I'm typing this out on qutebrowser.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11287049

> On the other hand, this is the kind of paradigm shift that was implemented by operating systems ~20 years ago

No. Kernel modules can be installed at runtime. The user just has to grant the application the necessary privileges.

This means OS developers do not try to attempt to "strike a balance" between power and safety. They allow both, the unsafe stuff merely requires a fairly simple opt-in.

This is the whole crux of the issue. I do not mind security measures, as long as there is a bypass. Mozilla has taken the - in my opinion extremist - position that even bypasses cannot be allowed because they know what's best for users.

> I haven't checked, but I seem to remember that you can provide a platform-specific binary as part of an add-on, spawn it from WebExtensions and then communicate with it through the native bridge.

I am not aware of any such feature. This used to be true for bootstrapped extensions, but not for webextensions.

> I haven't checked myself, but I believe that this mechanism has been published, as an extension called "the WebExtension Extension" or something like that.

yes, only works on dev edition though.

There may be a lot of components and interests involved in this change.

As a user of, not developer for, Firefox with its extensions, it's this simple for me: The day my existing extensions stop working -- the day neither they nor an alternative under the new paradigm offer equivalent functionality -- is the day I no longer have any reason to stay with Firefox.

I'm not saying, "Stop, wait, a user is unhappy!"

I'm simply saying that, as a perhaps sophisticated user with some more advanced functionality, security, and privacy concerns, the set of extensions I currently use is my only compelling reason for using Firefox over Chrome.

Well, that and Google/Chrome's current trend towards its own version of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish wrapped within a panopticon.

I embrace the browser as the user client. I'm glad to have security issues addressed, but I also require that the browser do what I want, and not what -- a la Chrome, for example -- media interests want to dictate.

I'm watching 2017 with trepidation, and wonder whether and when something may fork. Not unrealistically, though; I'm skeptical any fork is going to have the resources and commitment to maintain a modern, full-featured browser in the face of current and future... err, developments.

Maybe such a fork will, both of desire and of necessity, look instead towards a bit of minimalism. Not doing "everything", but doing core functionality well and securely.

I guess then we'd have to see whether the content farms with their Javascript++, DRM delivered content, end up leaving such a fork too much out in the cold for it to maintain sufficient interest and/or usefulness to keep itself going.

Zotero will work the way it does with Chrome now: there will be a plugin that integrates with Zotero Standalone, which will continue to be developed using XULRunner.

I think this will be good in the long run--Zotero is complex enough to merit being its own application, and separating Zotero and browser plugins will make it easier to migrate Zotero off XULRunner at some point, if the developers choose to do so.