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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

#311

Post by Kubuxu »

trome wrote: post #306
Kubuxu wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, this is one of the developers that took it serious [0]. You can see, he started preparing in August of 2015. If other developers did that, this info wouldn't be a problem. [0]: https://github.com/lidel/ipfs-firefox-addon/issues/20

IPFS is a one off though, it has multiple paid developers who can spend their full time rewriting their addons at the drop of a hat. Plus that IPFS addon didn't require deep access to Firefox's internals, which many popular addons do.

This addon is not worked on by paid developers.

> didn't require deep access to Firefox's internals

Quite contrary, it needs to handle new URI schema, override URL origin policy, scan pages, do DNS queries and so on.

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

#312

Post by josteink »

pvg wrote: post #310
josteink wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chromium still requires you to log into a google account and share your private data with google to sync. Definitely not an option.

To sync what? I use Chrome and never log into a non-web google account. In fact, I'm able to browse the web without 'syncing' anything.

Bookmarks, history, passwords etc.

I don't want to give those to google. Is that unreasonable?

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

#313

Post by sp332 »

CaptSpify wrote: post #224
JohnTHaller wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only about 250,000 users use the tab modification extensions that people keep claiming is Firefox's only advantage out of 10s of millions of Firefox users. Addons that greatly alter Firefox's behavior are the main reason for crashes. And maintaining XUL is hampering Firefox future development.

What Percentage of users is that? I can't seem to find it, atm. If 250,000 = 1%, then sure, who cares. But if 250,000 = 50%, then that's a big deal

https://blog.mozilla.org/press/ataglance/ says it's near 500,000,000. But while Firefox tries to keep the core browser lean, they have always catered to power users through the extension APIs.

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

#314

Post by digi_owl »

kuschku wrote: post #225
ripdog wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sidebar API and tab modification API will be implemented specifically to allow TST to work. The addon will have to be rewritten completely on a very short timescale, though.

So, can I use that to add Tab Thumbnails to Firefox? Can I use it to port AutoHiDPI, which changes the scale of the UI depending on which screen the window is on? Can I use this to replace the entire browser history system and omnibar autocomplete with a custom one? Can I use this to replace the entire browser chrome? Some of these changes I need (AutoHiDPI) to use a browser at all. Others I wish for. All of them I c…

Dunno if you have taken a look at Palemoon.

https://www.palemoon.org/

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

#315

Post by kuschku »

digi_owl wrote: post #314
kuschku wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, can I use that to add Tab Thumbnails to Firefox? Can I use it to port AutoHiDPI, which changes the scale of the UI depending on which screen the window is on? Can I use this to replace the entire browser history system and omnibar autocomplete with a custom one? Can I use this to replace the entire browser chrome? Some of these changes I need (AutoHiDPI) to use a browser at all. Others I wish for. All of them I c…

Dunno if you have taken a look at Palemoon. https://www.palemoon.org/

If I already have to switch the browser, I might as well switch to Vivaldi.

But neither of them is good enough. (Especially Palemoon’s UI is painful to look at, and hard to fix).

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

#316

Post by pvg »

josteink wrote: post #312
pvg wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To sync what? I use Chrome and never log into a non-web google account. In fact, I'm able to browse the web without 'syncing' anything.

Bookmarks, history, passwords etc. I don't want to give those to google. Is that unreasonable?

No, not at all but by the vehemence of your reply, you make it sound like Chrome or Chromium force you to give these things to google. And I don't think they do.

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

#317

Post by fulafel »

greggman wrote: post #40
exceptione wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right. I did and do not say every chrome user is stupid, there might be legitimate use-cases. But the vast amount of people just install chrome or get it side-loaded with some freeware and don't even think about their options and the impact of their choice. Now that is less than smart.

Go look at the CVE reports for each browser. Your taking a > 10x risk running anything other than Chrome. These changes Mozilla is making are to fix that.

Chrome comes with Flash, and Flash vulnerabilities are not counted against Chrome. So this is highly skewed. (Never mind CVE counts being a poor proxy of risk)

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

#318

Post by FractalNerve »

Solution:

• Mozilla Sponsored Add-On Migrator/Converter that transpiles to equivalent WebExtension code

• Separate lightweight container hosts with DTrace for Core and Extensions (not sure if that makes sense, can you help?)

In fact a friend of mine pursues his Dr. degree on Model-Driven "API-Transpilation" (that's how I call it, albeit limited to CMSs), such that API-breaks caused by CMS upgrades don't result in high integration costs for add-on migrations. Having a complete model for the CMS allows him to support convert add-ons to other CMS too.

Why all the anger? Because API-Breaks cause friction, are avoidable and are commonly known as the biggest "cost-centers & risk-factors" in the software industry. Software-Architects should instead try to find a composable architecture that supports the transition, instead of moving migration costs to the developers. That would allow everyone else to move over more easily.

The anger caused by the limitations of WebExtentions, are they in fact unavoidable? HN, you've a collection of the most clever engineers of the World! Can we find a solution to this?

My question to HN: Do you know an example or show-case of any complex software that reached similar goals in a way that is transferable or at least advisable to Mozilla? I am really interested, if there is a way to migrate from old to new platforms without "API hiccups". Moving (avoidable?) architecture-debts to a huge fellowship of developers doesn't sound like the way to go. I hope you know about guidelines that removes such frictions for us HN devs that we can just follow suit.

PS: I'm a n00b, but incrementally recreating kernel-level APIs on user-land, then writing an abstraction layer ontop, then exposing a limited set of it via Java-Script doesn't sound elegant and counter-productive. Why not reuse an existing kernel and create drivers and bridges or DSLs ontop of that?

Happy Monday and thanks for your time! :)

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

#319

Post by digi_owl »

kuschku wrote: post #315
digi_owl wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno if you have taken a look at Palemoon. https://www.palemoon.org/

If I already have to switch the browser, I might as well switch to Vivaldi. But neither of them is good enough. (Especially Palemoon’s UI is painful to look at, and hard to fix).

Well Palemoon is a fork of pre-Australis Firefox that is trying to maintain compatibility with the existing XUL extensions as best i can tell, so i figured the transition would be smaller than going to a webkit/chrome based browser.

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

#320

Post by antisthenes »

ReverseCold wrote: post #289
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 last used Firefox in December 2017, and there was something else weird that made me stop using it. I'm waiting for Mozilla servo to be released as a standalone browser that doesn't use more memory than chrome, and doesn't have trash font support. Right now it's worse than chrome for battery life and RAM usage on Windows.

I would be more concerned that you have figured out how to travel forward in time.
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