Browser Extensions Standard
browserext.github.io
Browser Extensions Standard
1–10 of 82 posts
Re: Browser Extensions Standard
#2Finally! WebExtensions (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions) have slowly been becoming an adhoc standard for a little while now, but with a few tricky small differences here and there between browsers (e.g. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Ch...). So far it's just been Firefox and Edge slowly building a close approximation of Chrome's existing API, but a proper standard for this would be great, and make it much clearer what extension developers can _depend_ on, and what's optional.
Right now you basically write your extension once (probably for Chrome), and then port it to the others, often with various small manual changes or workarounds for incompatibilities. It's much better than it used to be, but still pretty inconvenient and error prone.
I can see at least a couple of differences with current implementations though, like using the `browserext://` protocol instead of `moz-extension://` and `chrome-extension://`. Does anybody more involved with this have a summary of the differences between this spec and Firefox, Edge and Chrome's implementations?
Re: Browser Extensions Standard
#3Looks a really good idea
Re: Browser Extensions Standard
#4Cute idea, but I will eat a broom before this actually becomes reality.
Re: Browser Extensions Standard
#5Hm, if web extensions become a standard, are they really even extensions? Isn't that just new web APIs with tweaked security parameters?
This is great for security and all, but browser extensions were borne out of the idea that you wanted your browser to do things that the browser vendor didn't want, or didn't even conceive of.
Having it be a standard adds security but strictly limits extensions to things the browser vendors explicitly did conceive of, and stamped their approval on -- sometimes literally, if you're going through a curated store. Is that a net win? I'm not sure.
Re: Browser Extensions Standard
#6Cute idea, but I will eat a broom before this actually becomes reality.
Not sure what you mean by this, but this (like most modern web standards, and I'm not even sure of the modern part) is just documenting what the implementations are already doing.
Mozilla and Microsoft are specifically re-implementing the Chrome Extensions API, and documenting it.
Re: Browser Extensions Standard
#7As a chrome extension developer I really like this. Previously I didn't develop extensions for other browsers because I would have to learn another ecosystem. Now it could be pretty simple to do.
I also like that all of the asynchronous API calls are returning Promises. Chrome API is still using callbacks. This also means that some time will pass while this is even added to chrome. I expect that there will be a polyfill library that translates the new API calls to legacy browser API calls.
Re: Browser Extensions Standard
#8Cute idea, but I will eat a broom before this actually becomes reality.
Not sure what you mean by this, but this (like most modern web standards, and I'm not even sure of the modern part) is just documenting what the implementations are already doing . Mozilla and Microsoft are specifically re-implementing the Chrome Extensions API, and documenting it.
Eating a broom is a German saying: «Eher fress ich einen Besen...!».
Re: Browser Extensions Standard
#9The only problem which Mozilla didn't think about or hasn't given much value to is the huge number of add-ons that are going to die or just stop working when they completely switch to WebExtensions (as there's just no replacement to the previous API in them). One of the Firefox's USPs was its addons which could modify the browser behavior and UI in any manner. It's all going to go, and Mozilla is moving closer to becoming a Chrome clone (albeit open).
For example, a hugely useful feature for me was TabGroups (Panorama) which they removed from the main browser to make it an external add-on, and even that will stop working soon [0]. Similarly, there are add-ons which modify the browser's inbuilt 'Find in page' behavior in Firefox. Looks like even they are not WebExtension compatible.
[0] : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-groups-pa...
Re: Browser Extensions Standard
#10Cute idea, but I will eat a broom before this actually becomes reality.
WebExtensions are already supported by Firefox and Edge. Today.
Hard to believe, but extensions are standardizing without any real standardization body, just kind of... on their own. This is just a formalization of that.