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Extensions in Firefox 59

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#211

Post by inlined »

classichasclass wrote: post #71
kodablah wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it require a whitelist? If I make my own, do I have to contact Mozilla or is the user prompted when first access is attempted?

The protocol handler support is restricted to a whitelist to prevent an addon from taking over, say, " http://" (or other protocols which could be used to insinuate unsafe content).

It still seems safe though to set up rules where domain ownership could automatically grant ownership for a protocol. E.g. Facebook.com:// or just Facebook:// if .coms were allowed to be dropped.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#212

Post by lillesvin »

I recently tried to switch back to Firefox from Chrome because I was missing how Vimperator was able to hide all of the UI and just give me a small statusbar at the bottom like in Vim. However, I found that's no longer possible with WebExtensions, so now I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions if I want a browser with absolutely minimal UI and Vim controls?

Seems like we're getting closer with this version though. I might just have to be patient.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#213

Post by baby »

oblio wrote: post #200
baby wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm waiting for them to include something like tree-style tabs by default in a future version :o

That'll never happen. Some casual users are confused by tab bars. And casual users understand trees even less.

I’m confident that it will happen. It’s actually easier to understand tabs on the side for new users. And it makes more sense in general.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#214

Post by oblio »

baby wrote: post #213
oblio wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'll never happen. Some casual users are confused by tab bars. And casual users understand trees even less.

I’m confident that it will happen. It’s actually easier to understand tabs on the side for new users. And it makes more sense in general.

None of the other browsere seems to support it, so there's that.

On the other hand, "never say never", right? :)

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#215

Post by xg15 »

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…

Thank you very much for the contribution. The decentralized web projects sound really exciting and it's awesome to see support from Mozilla.

However, I find the concept of the scheme whitelist pretty strange in context of WebExtensions.

Of course it makes sense that http:, https:, data:, blob:, etc should be off-limits for extensions. But on the other hand, I'd think that the primary use-case of registering protocol handlers in extensions is to handle existing links - something that the ext+/web+ rule seems to be particularly designed to disallow.

Apparently, the actual handler whitelist for WebExtensions can be found at [1]. It looks pretty... arbitrary?

For example, it's amazing to see that magnet: irc:, ssh: and gopher: are on there, but then why not ftp:, ws: or even steam:? There could be some useful extensions intercepting those as well.

Likewise, while the inclusion of scuttlebutt, ipfs etc is very good news, what makes them eligible now that didn't make them earlier?

Generally, I'd like to know by what process is that whitelist managed and what are the criteria to get on there.

(I understand it's derived from the official HTML5 whitelist [2]. To be honest, that one looks even more arbitrary - but of course has different security considerations, as it defines an API for the open web. The two lists also seem to have some differences, as e.g. gopher: isn't on the HTML5 whitelist while openpgp4fpr: is not on the extensions list.)

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/ma...

[2] https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/system-state.html#cus...

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#216

Post by staltz »

fiatjaf wrote: post #193
soapdog wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Secure Scuttlebutt, check it out at http://scuttlebutt.nz

My question was actually: who's using Secure Scuttlebutt?

I'm using, daily. Also about ~2300 other people, but that's just how much my own local installation holds, they may be more that I'm not aware of.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#217

Post by nickik »

virtualwhys wrote: post #109

Was hoping to see Web SQL make its way back into Firefox. Yes, it's been deprecated for years, but that hasn't stopped the browser makers with majority of market share (Google > Chrome, Apple > Safari) from continuing to ship it along with the strictly worse alternative (IndexedDb). Now that pretty much every language compiles to Javascript it's a shame to lose SQL functionality on the client. Shared model, shared va…

This would be way better then either: https://github.com/mozilla/mentat

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#218

Post by floatboth »

naringas wrote: post #53
scrollaway wrote: post #27

Anyone working on this reading the thread? Can we ever expect an extension that will allow the far better tab management that Chrome has? Namely: Being able to scroll between tabs with the scroll wheel, and being able to select multiple tabs with shift/ctrl to drag them/merge them/close them/etc. It's crazy to me that Firefox's original selling point was tab management, and today Chrome's is so much better.

there is (was?) a firefox extension called Tab Wheel Scroll which is broken since WebExtensions The main reason I won't upgrade firefox. https://github.com/mthamil/Tab-Wheel-Scroll/issues/19 edit: there's hope!! https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1285812

Scrolling in the tab bar works out of the box though?!

Is that extension about changing the tabs with the wheel?

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#220

Post by floatboth »

seanwilson wrote: post #34

If you have an existing Chrome extension that relies on just the WebRequest API, how much effort is it to port to Firefox? Do things generally work without significant modifications? Are there lots of gotchas and small differences?

Yes, most Chrome extensions work as is. There's even an extension for downloading extensions from the Chrome store: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-...
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