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Extensions in Firefox 59

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#2

Post by cirowrc »

This is very cool:

> Extensions can now override the proxy settings in the browser which has been another highly requested feature

I see that there's an opportunity here to improve the experience of using SOCKS in the browser. Pretty cool.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#3

Post by npongratz »

I find this pretty exciting for (hopefully; someday) wider adoption of alternative protocols:

Starting with Firefox 59, several protocols that support decentralized architectures are available for use by extensions. The white-listed protocols are:

+ Dat Project (dat://)

+ IPFS (dweb:// ipfs:// ipns://)

+ Secure Scuttlebutt (ssb://)

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#4

Post by kibwen »

Happy to see that Mozilla was serious about their intentions to extend the WebExtensions API in post-57 Firefox. I'm also happily surprised at the section about user notification of extension overrides; having a nice UI for this sort of thing is a difficult yet worthwhile problem (and I'm also a big fan of the new Preferences tab in general, it works far better than the old popup window). Hopefully some of this will make it in time for the next ESR so that people who are still on Firefox 52 ESR due to unsupported extensions will have the option to upgrade (though I don't see anything that will satisfy the vimperator users, I'm encouraged by the new mouse gesture APIs). Kudos to Mozilla for conducting this process with an eye towards keeping the security threat of addons reasonably manageable, even if the overall process is slower than we'd otherwise like.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#5

Post by shmerl »

Mozilla should fix no exit confirmation for Ctrl+Q. It's just too easy to close the browser this way, and extensions that offered this feature aren't working anymore.

It's really a problem in general, there is no way to make an extension that customizes browser behavior itself (rather than page behavior), since WebExtensions can't do that.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#6

Post by kzrdude »

shmerl wrote: post #5

Mozilla should fix no exit confirmation for Ctrl+Q. It's just too easy to close the browser this way, and extensions that offered this feature aren't working anymore. It's really a problem in general, there is no way to make an extension that customizes browser behavior itself (rather than page behavior), since WebExtensions can't do that.

I thought the gaining philosophy here was to make "destructive" operations easy to undo, rather than having warnings and confirmations before carrying them out?

Quitting Firefox and then starting again and restoring all tabs fits well with easy to undo.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#7

Post by shmerl »

kzrdude wrote: post #6
shmerl wrote: post #5

Mozilla should fix no exit confirmation for Ctrl+Q. It's just too easy to close the browser this way, and extensions that offered this feature aren't working anymore. It's really a problem in general, there is no way to make an extension that customizes browser behavior itself (rather than page behavior), since WebExtensions can't do that.

I thought the gaining philosophy here was to make "destructive" operations easy to undo, rather than having warnings and confirmations before carrying them out? Quitting Firefox and then starting again and restoring all tabs fits well with easy to undo.

I don't see how it can undo everything, if you'll lose data in the process. Not every open page is static and some can have user input and what not. Exiting the browser will wipe it all out, and restarting it isn't going to help.

So confirmation for Ctrl+Q is a must, there is no question about it. And if you don't want it - they can make an option that can turn it off.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#8

Post by neuland »

> ... one of the most requested features has been the ability to hide tabs with the WebExtensions API. It was a key element of some very popular legacy add-ons ...

It's weird that they are not mentioning Tree Style Tabs by name. But, at least they're listening the the user requests.

I don't use the plugin myself, but I heard that one of the gripes of the new WebExtensions version is that it still shows the normal horizontal tabs.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#9

Post by joemccall86 »

> To better support mouse gestures, browserSettings.contextMenuShowEvent() has been added in this version. This new API can be set to “mouseup” or “mousedown” by extensions to determine when context menus should be shown.

Looking forward to using FireGestures in Linux again.

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