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uBlock Origin Maintainer on Chrome vs. Firefox WebExtensions

discourse.mozilla.org

171–180 of 340 posts

Re: uBlock Origin Maintainer on Chrome vs. Firefox WebExtensions

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not entirely unreasonable. We use software because it's useful. If you make it so secure that it is no longer useful, what have you got left? In the case of Firefox extensions, I'm aware of the risks of the old model, but the fact is that the only observable difference it has made to me so far is that when I accidentally hit back on a page with an unsubmitted form the other day I lost about 20 minutes' worth of…

The idea that the XUL extension model is necessary for a browser to be useful is obviously false. The majority of Web users use browsers that do not have a XUL extension model. (And, of course, I don't believe your desired functionality is incompatible with Web Extensions anyhow.)

With respect, that doesn't really matter.

I used to have a useful feature that worked.

Now I don't.

That was the practical result of the change we're talking about for this user, regardless of any theoretical benefits elsewhere or any theoretical ability to provide equivalent functionality within the new architecture.

Other people are welcome to use other browsers, but I was using Firefox, and a big reason I was still using Firefox despite various other changes I didn't particularly want was the range of useful extensions I could choose from.

Re: uBlock Origin Maintainer on Chrome vs. Firefox WebExtensions

#172
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not entirely unreasonable. We use software because it's useful. If you make it so secure that it is no longer useful, what have you got left? In the case of Firefox extensions, I'm aware of the risks of the old model, but the fact is that the only observable difference it has made to me so far is that when I accidentally hit back on a page with an unsubmitted form the other day I lost about 20 minutes' worth of…

If you hit Backspace in error, you can disable the “Go Back” action associated with the backspace key using about:config like so: browser.backspace_action = 2 Read [1] for more instructions. If you explicitly used the mouse to click the Back button, I am sorry for the time you lost. 1. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.backspace_action

browser.backspace_action = 2

Thank you, that's very useful!

My earlier mistake was clicking to focus on my Firefox window but not quite on the form text area I was aiming for, and then trying to delete the last word I had typed. Your tip would have saved me on that occasion.

Re: uBlock Origin Maintainer on Chrome vs. Firefox WebExtensions

#173
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who don't notice the speed, multiprocess may be disabled due to certain addons. Go to about:support to check if it enabled. The addon compatibility checker addon can tell you which are the offending addons. For me 1password was the big blocker, but they recently released a beta that works with the new API. Sorry for the lack of links, I'm on mobile.

Oh interesting. Firefox still seems slow and a bit of a memory hog compared to Chrome on my machine. Sure enough I checked and three add-ons are marked as legacy (and presumably disabled the multiprocess stuff): uBlock Origin, Websocket Disabler, and NoScript.

At least uBlock Origin is compatible with multi-processes. I'm using it right now.

Firefox 55 marks classic extensions as legacy, this has nothing to do with multi-process comparability.

Re: uBlock Origin Maintainer on Chrome vs. Firefox WebExtensions

#174
After being a Chrome user for several years, I've switched back to Firefox for the past two years or so and I'm really, really happy with it.

Latest version does multi-processing, e10s is finally here (though it might still get disabled by usage of certain add-ons, I remember I had to force it to stay enabled).

On performance, in the past it felt sluggish, but now Firefox is fast and for my usage patterns it uses less memory than Chrome.

And one thing I really love is the Awesome Bar, which is a pain point every single time I open Chrome. I have a lot of websites I need to return to and in Chrome I end up searching on Google far more than I should. I guess that's the biggest difference between Firefox and Chrome, as Mozilla does not feel obligated to shareholders to extract ads clicks from you (although I hope that whatever they do keeps them afloat).

Also, tab management. I installed "Tab Center" from the Test Pilot and it's awesome. The experiment is now over unfortunately and the code itself for Tab Center isn't compatible with WebExtensions, but there's work going on to port it and that highlights that Firefox's WebExtensions will be more flexible than Chrome, if they aren't already.

But in the end I actually care more about trusting my browser and its maker to protect my interests. I actually trust Google more than I trust other companies, but something feels very wrong for a company to have so much leverage on me. Which is why, as long as I have a choice, I'll always prefer Firefox over Chrome, or Safari, or Edge.

Re: uBlock Origin Maintainer on Chrome vs. Firefox WebExtensions

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think "not designed with Firefox in mind" breaks things, try using uMatrix for a while.

If people would focus on content in HTML and CSS for layout and newfad devs weren't shoving 50 jscripts a page down our throat this wouldn't be happening as bad. I plan to make all my future sites librejs compatible, and forgoe js altogether whenever possible.

History keeps repeating.

Flash? Now you have heavily javascripted "website".

Table layout? Now you have bootstrap and friends.

Progressive enhancement? Fuck that, we don't have time.

And 5 years from now people will rediscover those and accessibility. Then 5 years later another kind of hell will have appeared to replace this.

The only big change for the current wave is that everything is obfuscated so it's harder for a newcomer to learn by checking how people coded things.

Re: uBlock Origin Maintainer on Chrome vs. Firefox WebExtensions

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox is maybe 80% of the way there. Just like in the IE Anitrust days, firefox suffers from sites that do not design with it in mind. Still better than Google Creep. Change to a search engine that protects privacy too.

If you think "not designed with Firefox in mind" breaks things, try using uMatrix for a while.

I've been using uMatrix for over three years and very very few websites don't work with it.

By far the most annoying 'feature' (more of a consequence of the internet) is the way that you can't whitelist HTTPS sub-domains. (Makes AWS Console a pain.)

Re: uBlock Origin Maintainer on Chrome vs. Firefox WebExtensions

#177

After being a Chrome user for several years, I've switched back to Firefox for the past two years or so and I'm really, really happy with it. Latest version does multi-processing, e10s is finally here (though it might still get disabled by usage of certain add-ons, I remember I had to force it to stay enabled). On performance, in the past it felt sluggish, but now Firefox is fast and for my usage patterns it uses les…

You mention tab management. One of the main reasons I like Firefox is due to one, exemplary addon: Tab Mix Plus. It's the kind of tinker-y addon that lets you do almost anything that is typical for Firefox.

With ad-blocking especially, I just can't trust Google to be fully supportive. I mean, who are we kidding? It's literally their business model.

Re: uBlock Origin Maintainer on Chrome vs. Firefox WebExtensions

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem related to the topic unless I'm missing it. Also it has nothing to do with browsers or Chrome vs Firefox

http://go.instartlogic.com/AppShield-Ad-Integrity-Data-Sheet... "Web publishers make simple DNS changes to flow the network domains that carry their HTML through the Instart Logic system. This allows our system to inject a small piece of JavaScript that can detect the presence of ad blockers. When an ad blocker is detected, the JavaScript-based virtualization layer Nanovisor, together with our intelligent cloud-based…

Buzzword Bingo.

Re: uBlock Origin Maintainer on Chrome vs. Firefox WebExtensions

#179
post #17

> It baffles me that some people thinks Firefox is becoming a “Chrome clone”, it’s just not the case, it’s just plain silly to make such statement. That's probably the single most reassuring statement about Firefox that I've heard in some time, coming from a serious dev who makes a popular cross-platform addon for both Firefox and Chrome.

What do you think of Opera becoming Chrome?

It never did - Opera was killed just after Kestrel, and a new Chrome clone was slapped with the logo and name. There is no Opera, and hasn't been for some time.

Re: uBlock Origin Maintainer on Chrome vs. Firefox WebExtensions

#180
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is indeed disturbing. Why should a web page be able to detect if dev tools has been opened? Isn't this a browser security issue?

It's pretty insane how much your browser knows about you: http://webkay.robinlinus.com/ There's another one I can't find, but it writes out things like "user moved mouse to x,y. User has been idle for 10 seconds, page lost focus, page gained focus" .. kinda creepy how much is available to the Javascript engine.

>Browser Plugins

>No plugins detected.

Interesting. I have 6 installed on Firefox.

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