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Extensions in Firefox 59

blog.mozilla.org

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181–190 of 243 posts

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#181

Post by kuschku »

imtringued wrote: post #180
kuschku wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I follow Stallman’s school of thought that software should never restrict the user in ability. A user should not be protected from themselves, if a user wants to install an addon to intercept paypal:// requests for whatever reason, that should be their choice. And it should not require the user to do custom changes to the system.

The software is less restrictive than the last version.

The software is more restrictive than it was several versions ago.

I’ll also refer to AviD's rule of security: Security at the expense of usability comes at the expense of security.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#182

Post by xg15 »

calcifer wrote: post #118
xg15 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, it seems that the current API couldn't really support that use-case if tabs with active audio or video can't be hidden. At least there will be some random tabs hanging around that don't belong to your group.

> if tabs with active audio or video can't be hidden That's for a good reason. I don't want a tab I can't see to record audio or video. Why would you want to?

But the main use-case for this API seems to be organizing things - and it's strange that I would want certain tabs not take part in my organisation scheme.

If I had virtual desktop support, but certain windows are nevertheless shown on all desktops, that would feel broken, too.

Of course notifying users of audio/video recording is important, but this could be done with a separate notification - with options to stop recording or activate and un-hide the tab.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#184

Post by xg15 »

nicklaf wrote: post #115
xg15 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, it seems that the current API couldn't really support that use-case if tabs with active audio or video can't be hidden. At least there will be some random tabs hanging around that don't belong to your group.

I don't know if this is the case, but the API ought to also let you kill any active video or audio streams playing in a tab. Then you'd be able to go ahead with hiding them. If this is not possible or planned, it feels kind of broken in my view.

Looks like it's only for recording streams, not playing them. I misunderstood that. Apologies.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#185

Post by Feniks »

pjc50 wrote: post #130
kuschku wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I follow Stallman’s school of thought that software should never restrict the user in ability. A user should not be protected from themselves, if a user wants to install an addon to intercept paypal:// requests for whatever reason, that should be their choice. And it should not require the user to do custom changes to the system.

Regardless of what RMS thinks, users should be protected from code downloaded from the Internet. There have been too many problems with malicious extensions not to do this.

I hate this, its my system let me do what I want.

Besides there's already a browser for the mainstream audience and its called Chrome.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#186

Post by cstdr »

gkgicccj wrote: post #160

I'm still annoyed by some fx changes that are purely out of chrome jealousy. The address bar suggestions used to be 2-lines and were so readable until someone just blindly copied the unreadable version of chrome.

You mean like this " rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/6ZXAchD.png>? You can get the old look back via userChrome.css. Relevant styles from mine:

  #PopupAutoCompleteRichResult .ac-separator {
    page-break-before: always;
    width: 47px;
  }

  #PopupAutoCompleteRichResult .ac-separator-text {
    display: none !important;
  }

  #PopupAutoCompleteRichResult richlistitem {
    display: flex;
    flex-wrap: wrap;
    align-items: center;
    height: auto;
    padding-bottom: 5px;
  }

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#187

Post by abdias »

soapdog wrote: post #80
npongratz wrote: post #3

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://)

Hey! I made that patch! :-D so basically the explanation is simple. There is a whitelist of protocols you can have your WebExtension take over. If the protocol you want to control is not on that whitelist such as an hypothetical "catgifs:" protocol, you need to prefix it like: "web+catgifs" or "ext+catgifs" depending if it will be used from the Add-on or by redirection to another Web page. This makes it inconvenient…

Is there a chance we could get MAFF: (and MHT:) protocols as well and let our web-extension handle those (single-file archived web pages if anyone wondered)?

This would allow us to (again) associate the Firefox browser with for example .maf files and have them displayed in the browser via the extension. (I'm sure there must be thousands of archived pages out there that currently are a hassle to view - it would be great to get support for those).

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#188

Post by cesnja »

wkalt wrote: post #134
kibwen wrote: post #4

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…

I discovered tridactyl ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tridactyl-vim... ) a couple months ago. While it doesn't have total parity with vimperator, it's much closer than vimium and vimFX, and unlike for those projects, parity seems to be the actual goal. YMMV, but as someone who was stuck on ESR for a long time for this reason I am now completely satisfied on 57.

It's decent, but there are some major shortcomings caused by the WebExtensions API. For example if you somehow get caught in address bar, you can only leave it by pressing Enter or reaching for the mouse and clicking somewhere else. Another inconvenient feature is the time it takes for the extension to be loaded. On bloated and slow pages, I have to wait for a second or two while pressing the shortcuts to switch to another tab or anything. Basically the whole extension-driven keyboard UI locks up waiting for the page to finally load. And this is not because these extensions are slow, but because they get initialized only some time after the webpage has already begun loading.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#189

Post by always_good »

kuschku wrote: post #135
pjc50 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of what RMS thinks, users should be protected from code downloaded from the Internet. There have been too many problems with malicious extensions not to do this.

Restricting what users can do for their own "safety" is what gives us walled gardens such as iOS. I use Firefox precisely because I can (or, rather, could) override basically all browser functionality with addons, without having to set up a custom build server and apt repo myself.

Power users can hack and compile their own build. But you just want to complain on the internet.

So I don't see why the rest of us should have to endure your specific, less secure world view on software.

For example, your pitch certainly doesn't entice me yet you act like its necessity is self-evident. Maybe it's just time for you to find a browser that suits you instead of replying to every post that disagrees with you.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#190

Post by twic »

gs7 wrote: post #75
swang wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

don't bother to link to jwz from hn since he redirects you to (what i guess is) a nsfw image

Off topic, but for anyone curious what that image is without clicking: it's a hairy testicle in an egg cup. The title reads "Hacker News" and the caption is "A DDoS made of finance-obsessed man-children and brogrammers".

I find that description inaccurate. Users here aren't all obsessed with finance.
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