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

People naturally feel anger in their lives (about home, work, politics, health, etc.) that is not socially acceptable to act on; to varying degrees, they need an outlet. It's not a new phenomenon; some go to the gym or play video games (where some act out on audio channels); some people drink heavily; some abuse people close to them, or the waitress, or get in a fight at the bar, or join an angry mob and lynch someone in the streets. When there is a socially acceptable target, indicated by lots of other people acting out, they act out too.

Changes like Firefox's attract outrage not because they are wrong but because they create a social attack surface: People can see that the change isn't socially secure (e.g., messages about inclusiveness are relatively secure right now[0]) and thus know that it will be a target for attacks; again, it's socially acceptable. They attack because it's a vulnerable target; there is chum in the social waters.

Consider how much of such outrage completely disregards the facts and betrays a lack of interest in learning the facts. They make no effort to learn about the facts - I see almost no discussion of the merits or facts on this page - and you can put the information in front of their eyes and they will ignore it and attack you: by not joining them you expose your own social vulnerability.

It's very dangerous socially; mass bullying campaigns have serious, real effects on their victims. Whole nations embrace bad policies, from discrimination against their own to war, that can kill in the hundreds of thousands or more and ruin generations. Evil leaders manipulate this phenomenon.

But also consider the affect it has on innovation, something we should be very concerned about at HN. It stops innovators from getting too far ahead of what's already accepted; they will be judged by their social security not its merits. It kills innovations from those who are socially acceptable; for example, the Blackberry Passport was the most innovative phone in years, but it was trashed, including on HN, because Blackberry Inc. was socially vulnerable, an outcast.

If you read this far, thanks for listening!

[0] To be clear, I'm not disparaging them - I strongly support them.

It is being done. That's what people are up in arms about.

> When the argument is being made that it's better to make it easier on Firefox developers at the cost of the user base

As far as I can tell, you're the only one making that argument?

* Chrome/Chromium is more secure against attacks by governments or criminals (i.e., attacks against the integrity of the system; I can't think of the right word).

* Firefox may be more secure against advertising and corporate confidentiality attacks.

* Firefox with certain add-ons, too technical for most users, may be as secure as Chrome/Chromium.

[1] https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qpr... [2] https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qpr...

> people who advocated for them feel betrayed ...

Consider how strong an emotional response that is to a search engine change, etc., especially from people very familiar with IT and capable of adjusting to change (changing the default search engine, for example), and in a context where they see software changes frequently (think of hosted apps like Facebook!).

I don't think Firefox's changes are enough to explain that emotion; if you'll pardon the metaphor, they don't contain enough energy to explain the reaction; the energy must be coming from someplace else. I think the emotion is from someplace else and about something else.

Also, the comments raised above don't address the merits; they reflect only anger, which is consistent with my point. (In fairness, it may not be the context to review the merits of all those changes.)