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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.
I'm with you. We should start moving to Pale Moon before the end comes.
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I can see where they're coming from though. Today, developers need to create two versions of their extensions - one that works on Safari, Chrome and Opera (and Edge?) and one specifically for Firefox. As the market share of Firefox is not that high, maybe extension developers eventually won't be bothered with supporting that extra version, which means Firefox extensions will be less up-to-date and there will be less…
That's an argument for providing similar/the same APIs as Chrome et al sure, but not for deprecating the old ones.
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So, will extensions like pentadactyl or Tree Style Tabs be able to exist after "some point in 2017"? Ignoring rewrite time etc., will there be APIs available to do what they do today?
The WebExtensions team has been very proactive, attempting to get in touch with add-on developers across the spectrum. If the add-on developers have responded, there's a 99% chance that new APIs will be available for their add-ons.
And this is how Mozilla goes out. Their last remaining reason for existence is being destroyed. They've already gotten rid of Thunderbird, Tab Groups, full themes, and more, but left us with the things nobody wanted (Pocket, Hello, etc.). They've also slowly let performance go in many places, seemingly. A few years ago, I switched to Firefox for precisely the set of features they've axed. It was also much faster than…
Very relevant to this thread, addons and plugins are a huge cause of poor performance - I ran into this a while back, where an addon was leaking memory via zombie tabs. Have you tried disabling addons?
And this is how Mozilla goes out. Their last remaining reason for existence is being destroyed. They've already gotten rid of Thunderbird, Tab Groups, full themes, and more, but left us with the things nobody wanted (Pocket, Hello, etc.). They've also slowly let performance go in many places, seemingly. A few years ago, I switched to Firefox for precisely the set of features they've axed. It was also much faster than…
Thats what they want to fix by getting rid of XUL, among other things.
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Surely the burden is on the extension developers and not Mozilla?
As a Firefox developer, whenever I make a change (and I mean pretty much any change to an API accessible through platform JS), I have two choices: 1/ either try and locate all the add-ons that will be broken, get in touch with their developers, be ignored by most of them, start several weeks of negotiation with those who do answer, then eventually, several months after my code is ready, land the change, and notice th…
(emphasis mine)
And responding to that emphasis: so what?! People who use Firefox instead of Chrome do so for a reason! You're failing in two ways: 1) "breaking the user experience of millions of users for no understandable reason," and 2) turning Firefox into Chrome.
If Firefox users wanted Chrome, they would already be using Chrome. They don't want Chrome, they just want Firefox to continue being Firefox, to keep working without breaking their add-ons that make their browser theirs!
Why is this so hard for Mozilla to understand?
The day Firefox stops supporting XUL extensions is the day I stop using Firefox. I've been using Firefox since it was Phoenix. I already have Chrome installed--I'm not using it, and there are reasons for that. You should meditate on this.
Mozilla is slowly committing suicide. It's painful to watch, because it doesn't have to be. One of the great forces in the Internet's history is not going to be around in a few years. Firefox will live on, because of the MPL. But what a shame to destroy the organization that brought it into being. Such a waste.
Oh well. If the Internet has taught us anything, it's taught us that, when it comes to software, developers are fungible. The phoenix will rise again.
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.
FYI, uBlock is abandonware[2].
[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases (search for "webext")
[2] https://github.com/chrisaljoudi/uBlock/releases ("released this on 31 May 2015")
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 t…
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That article is more than 1 year old. And Mozilla is going beyond the Chrome APIs, they are implementing shims and additional APIs to port almost everything over.
Is there a statement otherwise from DownThemAll? I haven't found anything, just references to that blog post.
I communicated to the mozilla people who got in touch with me that there will not be a crippled DownThemAll!, at least not from me.
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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 t…
I am the DownThemAll! developer. First and foremost it's technical limitations, other than that it's also time.