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Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#2

Post by danShumway »

> In the absence of a true standard for browser extensions, maintaining compatibility with Chrome is important for Firefox developers and users.

About as close as Mozilla can come to outright saying, "Chrome is big enough and we're small enough that what they do _is_ the standard."

Still, it's encouraging to see that they're not removing the blocking API for now. I kind of hope this does push a few adblocker extensions to abandon Chrome.

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#4

Post by zzzcpan »

danShumway wrote: post #2

> In the absence of a true standard for browser extensions, maintaining compatibility with Chrome is important for Firefox developers and users. About as close as Mozilla can come to outright saying, "Chrome is big enough and we're small enough that what they do _is_ the standard." Still, it's encouraging to see that they're not removing the blocking API for now. I kind of hope this does push a few adblocker extensio…

I find it rather discouraging to hear they are not removing the blocking API for now. It's basically an empty statement, not reassurance. They still may or may not remove the API, they don't want to promise anything or show any commitment to users' needs and priorities.

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#5

Post by Ygg2 »

danShumway wrote: post #2

> In the absence of a true standard for browser extensions, maintaining compatibility with Chrome is important for Firefox developers and users. About as close as Mozilla can come to outright saying, "Chrome is big enough and we're small enough that what they do _is_ the standard." Still, it's encouraging to see that they're not removing the blocking API for now. I kind of hope this does push a few adblocker extensio…

> adblocker extensions to abandon Chrome.

Ha. As if that will ever happen. They'll probably just pivot to something else.

The reason Chrome can try to ditch ad blockers is that they are big enough, that your only choice is Chrome or GTFO.

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#6

Post by badsectoracula »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #3

This points to the disturbing truth of how incredibly complete Google's monopoly is: Even browsers not based on Chrome are strongly pushed to implement Chrome's platform changes anyways.

Mozilla abandoning their much more powerful XUL-based extension system for Chrome's inferior WebExtensions wasn't already an indicator towards that?

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#7

Post by Ygg2 »

badsectoracula wrote: post #6
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #3

This points to the disturbing truth of how incredibly complete Google's monopoly is: Even browsers not based on Chrome are strongly pushed to implement Chrome's platform changes anyways.

Mozilla abandoning their much more powerful XUL-based extension system for Chrome's inferior WebExtensions wasn't already an indicator towards that?

> more powerful XUL-based

At the time of conception, it was pretty great. However, that much customizability came at two expenses.

1) Web devs can't use XUL, because it's its own little cosmos, you as Web dev couldn't mod Firefox UI

2) The XUL was legacy software and super hard to optimize.

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#8

Post by sp332 »

badsectoracula wrote: post #6
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #3

This points to the disturbing truth of how incredibly complete Google's monopoly is: Even browsers not based on Chrome are strongly pushed to implement Chrome's platform changes anyways.

Mozilla abandoning their much more powerful XUL-based extension system for Chrome's inferior WebExtensions wasn't already an indicator towards that?

Firefox is faster and more secure now that they don't have to maintain compatibility with a bunch of old extensions that touch a bunch of internal stuff. Firefox's WebExtension API goes well beyond Chrome's at this point and is still adding features.

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#9

Post by wtallis »

zzzcpan wrote: post #4
danShumway wrote: post #2

> In the absence of a true standard for browser extensions, maintaining compatibility with Chrome is important for Firefox developers and users. About as close as Mozilla can come to outright saying, "Chrome is big enough and we're small enough that what they do _is_ the standard." Still, it's encouraging to see that they're not removing the blocking API for now. I kind of hope this does push a few adblocker extensio…

I find it rather discouraging to hear they are not removing the blocking API for now . It's basically an empty statement, not reassurance. They still may or may not remove the API, they don't want to promise anything or show any commitment to users' needs and priorities.

It's basically the same as what happened two months ago with Firefox for Android being EOL'd pending a major re-write that may or may not support extensions. Mozilla is not willing to publicly commit to keeping their key features alive, and they keep hinting at the possibility that they will be leaving users behind in an attempt to be more like Chrome.
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