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Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions will be supported

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions will be supported

#71

Post by exceptione »

lucideer wrote: post #38
exceptione wrote: post #12

Ouch, the comments over there are extremely negative. As mozilla is our last bastion of hope between advertising giants it pains me to see mozilla having an increasingly hard time to sustain a positive brand image. It is crazy if you think about it, because Mozilla is the last giant that respects its users. It has a very good proposition with regards to privacy and user-interest alignment. There are still tons of les…

I agree generally with your points, but this doesn't really address the issues being criticised in comments here. I want to use Firefox (I do currently use Firefox, despite a lot of limitations), but there comes a tipping point where the balance of privacy (and apparent "user-interest") and actual usability and power leads to a not-so-good proposition. Someone has commented above that it seems like Mozilla management…

I can't rule that out either. It might be that it is in Googles best interest to kill firefox.

Here is an alternative view I have in mind. The strategy to mimick chrome makes sense, because the masses think this is how the browser -- or as they call it the "internet" -- should look like. Its imho feasible to launch a television and internet campaign promoting firefox after the transition by stressing the privacy qualities. Mozilla has a quality other venders don't have.

By making it a pain free switch a big market share is possible for firefox.

Still, i doubt the current board has this view really in mind. I am thinking if I should apply for a position :)

Re: Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions will be supported

#72

Post by tyingq »

bastawhiz wrote: post #23
dagenleg wrote: post #8

I am honestly starting to believe that Mozilla is trying to run Firefox into the ground. I am not sure if it's just bad decision making or if the decision makers themselves had been bought off by competition, but it sure does feel like this. Why do we need one more Chrome like browser out there? I specifically use Firefox because it's a) not chrome, b) has better addons. If you hamstring the addons and make everythin…

> has better addons The add-ons might be better, but XUL-based Firefox add-ons are not better. They essentially give full control of your computer to the developer of the add-on. There's no permission model. The "APIs" are mostly the internals of Firefox itself, and when Firefox updates, lots of add-ons break. Most add-ons can be ported to webextensions. The ones that can't probably shouldn't have ever been add-ons t…

>XUL-based Firefox add-ons are not better. They essentially give full control of your computer to the developer of the add-on

XUL does open up more attack surface than a web extension. However, web extensions open up enough that you're already in the business of trusting the creator of the extension.

A web extension is fully capable of stealing my online banking credentials, for example.

Re: Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions will be supported

#73

Post by falcolas »

bad_user wrote: post #57
falcolas wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox will be better off for only supporting webextensions. Sounds like Firefox developers will be better off. Everyone else will suffer. I'm a developer, I understand how much the job sucks sometimes (that's why it's a job ). But if you want a product to succeed, can't afford to put the comfort of your developers over that of the end user.

I've developed extensions. Chrome and the WebExtensions API is by far the easiest way to do it.

They may be easier to write but they aren't as powerful. There are a number of examples of addons in sibling comments which won't exist any more because Mozilla wanted to make it "easier".

Even PG has remarked in an essay that success isn't easy - the people who will really succeed are the ones who put in the effort to do the hard things.

Re: Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions will be supported

#74

Post by dagenleg »

willemmali wrote: post #54
dagenleg wrote: post #8

I am honestly starting to believe that Mozilla is trying to run Firefox into the ground. I am not sure if it's just bad decision making or if the decision makers themselves had been bought off by competition, but it sure does feel like this. Why do we need one more Chrome like browser out there? I specifically use Firefox because it's a) not chrome, b) has better addons. If you hamstring the addons and make everythin…

For now using Firefox ESR might be a good stopgap measure for you? That way you can use an old version with the old add-on ecosystem for at least a year longer, and still get security updates. I usually work on Debian Jessie which ships (a variant of) Firefox ESR, and it's very well-usable. I haven't noticed any differences between the latest Firefox on Windows and Firefox-ESR on Debian. The latest LastPass, XMarks,…

Yes, I an using it already since Vimperator is broken on the latest release of FF.

Re: Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions will be supported

#75

Post by hlandau »

detaro wrote: post #67
dagenleg wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I want the addons to have full control over my browser, that's the whole point! It's my browser and I've tailored it to myself and my requirements. The one thing that is striking every time I try to use chrome/chromium is just how limited the addon functionality is and how much less freedom the user has. Have you seen "treestyletabs" implementation on chrome? It's a whole other window that has to be started and p…

But Mozilla cares about average users, not about making something for power-users only. That seems to be the big conflict here: power users saying "you've lost the masses, so make something for us" while Mozilla's mission is making something that would be good for the masses, and they'd rather fail trying than failing that mission by abandoning it.

Except this doesn't make sense.

The set of clueless users who would install arbitrary malicious extensions and the set of clueless users who would download and run arbitrary executables is basically the same. Yet if they do the latter, any extention sandboxing is completely and utterly moot. It's the same issue as with mandatory extension signing; requiring signing for extensions while nothing stops someone from downloading an unsigned .exe (which could memory-patch Firefox if it so wished) is absurd.

Re: Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions will be supported

#76

Post by untog »

falcolas wrote: post #69
untog wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, security threats make both developers and users worse off. It's undoubtedly true that power users will lose a little of the functionality they like in Firefox, but that normal users will have a more secure browser. I'm sure someone will fork Firefox to keep a version alive for those power users. You might not agree with it, but the logic is sound.

So, fix the problem instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I get it, it's a hard problem to fix. There would be a lot of pain in getting there, both for Mozilla and addon developers. But throwing in the towel feels like a cop-out. The logic is sound, but so is closing down every theater because someone got shot in one of them. After all, everyone has TVs and blu-ray players now, and you can't get shot i…

But this is the fix. Instead of allowing open access to the internals of Firefox, which will never be secure, you use a limited API. It isn't difficult to imagine that they can expand this API later to allow things that aren't currently possible. It's a hard problem to fix and there will be pain getting there.

And the theatre analogy is just silly. It's not like shutting down a theatre because someone got shot in it, it's like enacting a "no guns in this theatre" policy instead.

Re: Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions will be supported

#77

Post by vocatus_gate »

richardboegli wrote: post #13
darkengine wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Firefox 56 is the last release to support Tree Style Tabs, it will be the last release of Firefox before I begrudgingly switch to Chromium.

Try Pale Moon. It has Tree Style Tabs and will continue to even after Firefox gets rid of XUL

Been a happy Pale Moon user for a while. I hope the project keeps ticking on.

Re: Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions will be supported

#78

Post by jacquesm »

Is there a quick way to check whether or not specific add-ons are supported in the new version? I'm addicted to tree based tabs (100's of them open at the same time) and Scrapbook. Without those two I would have a very hard time to get through my workday.

Re: Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions will be supported

#79

Post by oblio »

icebraining wrote: post #50
oblio wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is, why is Chromium the better browser? Firefox 57 will have sandboxing and per-tab processes (most likely) plus a better extension system than Chrome's. Firefox 57 should be at least equivalent to Chromium.

How will the extension system of FF 57 be better than Chrome's?

Can Chrome do this: https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/tab-center/?

Re: Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions will be supported

#80

Post by callahad »

dagenleg wrote: post #60
bastawhiz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has better addons The add-ons might be better, but XUL-based Firefox add-ons are not better. They essentially give full control of your computer to the developer of the add-on. There's no permission model. The "APIs" are mostly the internals of Firefox itself, and when Firefox updates, lots of add-ons break. Most add-ons can be ported to webextensions. The ones that can't probably shouldn't have ever been add-ons t…

But I want the addons to have full control over my browser, that's the whole point! It's my browser and I've tailored it to myself and my requirements. The one thing that is striking every time I try to use chrome/chromium is just how limited the addon functionality is and how much less freedom the user has. Have you seen "treestyletabs" implementation on chrome? It's a whole other window that has to be started and p…

> I want the addons to have full control over my browser

I can assure you that you only want this if you can guarantee that your add-ons only do what they claim, don't have security vulnerabilities, and are never acquired and maliciously updated. Otherwise, a permissionless add-on model means a bug in TreeStyleTabs could potentially be used to exfiltrate your entire password database, plant malicious binaries on your system, and destroy local data. If TST had limited permissions along the lines of only being able to manipulate tabs and their UI, that wouldn't be a problem.

> Have you seen "treestyletabs" implementation on chrome? It's a whole other window that has to be started an placed on the left of the screen by user because of the addon limitations.

Firefox will not have this limitation.

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