Firefox 68.0 • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox 68.0

#261

Post by feanaro » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 9:11 AM UTC

callahad wrote: post #221

feanaro wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, it seems a bit weird to say that, on the one hand, you've made a statement to mostly that effect but then in another comment say that Mozilla can't commit to anything. Plainly speaking, is it a possibility that Firefox on Android will lose extension support for some time in the future?

Support for add-ons will not be removed from Firefox for Android ("Fennec"). However, Fennec will eventually get discontinued (but not in the next year), because its code is honestly a mess. So the question is whether or not Fennec's replacement will support add-ons when Fennec finally hits End of Life. And I know this sucks as an answer, but we're not yet ready to make public commitments on that front. That's not be…

Thank you for the additional info. What this tells me is that Mozilla does not see add-ons for Firefox as essential as I do, which is indeed troubling for me.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#262

Post by feanaro » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 9:22 AM UTC

iamnotacrook wrote: post #218

jraph wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What good would going back to Chrome do to you?

If you can't have plugins on the browser (for Android) then you might as well use chrome (which is not planned for EOL and is faster and secure). My "grrr I hate google" tendencies are satisfied by not logging into any google stuff on chrome and using duckduckgo whilst on chrome. I accept that chrome is - privacy issues notwithstanding - faster and better (supported) than firefox, and I put up with firefox because of…

> ... is faster and secure).

This sounds a bit like FUD since Firefox on Android is faster than Chrome for me. Your wording also implies it's insecure, which I don't think is a correct evaluation.

That said, I do find Mozilla's behaviour on this quite saddening.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#264

Post by Ygg2 » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 10:08 AM UTC

catacombs wrote: post #220

Ygg2 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at Mozilla IRC at the time, the reason wasn't bribery, but something way more basic. Did you ever support an old SOAP server made in '90, that had a lot of bugs, that was slow as hell made of molasses, and was vulnerable to several security exploits? Now imagine you have millions of users demanding, speed, security and those XML add-ons , I mean servers. Basically Mozilla decided to ditching the old system in…

> Looking at Mozilla IRC at the time, the reason wasn't bribery, but something way more basic. I wasn't saying bribery. I'm talking about bullying through other means.

Either way, the results were linked to Firefox overall performance, rather than caused by outside agent.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#265

Post by maxnoe » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 10:16 AM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #5

> Local files can no longer access other files in the same directory. What impact will this have on web development without a web server? It sounds like you won't be able to load CSS or JS.

python -m http.server

Re: Firefox 68.0

#266

Post by reeves23423 » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 10:55 AM UTC

Not exaggerating. IE is a one time downloade'r for firefox

Re: Firefox 68.0

#267

Post by Aissen » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 11:43 AM UTC

mook wrote: post #251

callahad wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi. I work for Mozilla. Firefox for Android is not dead. You are free to continue using it. It will continue to support add-ons, and it will receive regular security updates and bugfixes for at least the next year. We are focusing all new feature development in Firefox Preview, but we're continuing to support Firefox for Android as an Extended Support Release while we build Preview. And, for what it's worth, we do un…

Unfortunately, Firefox for Android _beta_ is dead (it makes no sense to do ESR for beta), and the profiles are not shared, so I'll be stuck with an old Firefox. My bad for trying to help I guess.

Oh no, I'm in the same boat :-(. Are we sure about that though ? There won't be more betas for the ESR ?

Otherwise it's no big deal for me, I'll just go back to Brave :-/

Re: Firefox 68.0

#268

Post by Certhas » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 11:50 AM UTC

darkpuma wrote: post #243

mncolinlee wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most users will only use an ad blocker that is built-in. You should consider how elitist it is to confine ad blockers to users who know and trust certain extensions vetted by their community, but not the remaining extensions which have been a minefield. Having a built-in ad blocker doesn't hinder an app from also accepting extensions which block ads.

Not wanting my workflow broken and replaced with inferior software is "elitist"? I don't think so. I hope your attitude isn't prevalent inside of Mozilla. You can say that breaking existing extensions isn't necessary, yet that's exactly what has already happened once and seems like it will happen again.

Yeah, a lot of it is elitist. In other parts of this thread people are complaining about Vimperator being broken by the switch to WebExtensions.

The switch to WebExtensions allowed all the excellent performance improvements we have been seeing in Firefox over the last year. So it improved the performance for everyone, and broke a feature that a small minority used. That minority is a highly specialized, highly trained, bunch.

If you think that features that benefit a small elite group of users should trump improvements for all, then I think that is an elitist attitude.

Also, here there is absolutely no talk about changing extension APIs. So I don't see why extensions that work now shouldn't continue working in FF Preview once Extension support is added. The situation is pretty unlike the WebExtension situation.

So yeah, hold their feet to the fire to make sure that things don't regress without need. But also look at what they are trying to do with merging the FF Focus stuff in, and getting a built-in adblocker. They are doubling down on privacy for all. This should be commended.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#269

Post by krp » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 12:33 PM UTC

callahad wrote: post #142

kevin_b_er wrote: post #47

This marks the last Android release with extensions/add-on support. There will not be a 69 release of this edition of Firefox for Android ("Fennec"). The new remake of the mobile browser ("Fenix") does not have extensions support and it is on an indefinite and easily ignorable backlog. It is explicitly not being worked on this quarter. At the end of this quarter is the scheduled release of Firefox 69. Unless there's…

Hi. I work for Mozilla. Firefox for Android is not dead. You are free to continue using it. It will continue to support add-ons, and it will receive regular security updates and bugfixes for at least the next year. We are focusing all new feature development in Firefox Preview, but we're continuing to support Firefox for Android as an Extended Support Release while we build Preview. And, for what it's worth, we do un…

I just lurk and rarely feel the need to comment, but I felt compelled to login to write this.

Without extensions you're going to lose power users, and in my opinion (as one), power users are also the biggest advocates of Firefox.

This would be a mistake.

Re: Firefox 68.0

#270

Post by Fnoord » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 3:08 PM UTC

If I add a certificate on Android (for example for WPA2-Enterprise), do I need to disable security.certerrors.mitm.auto_enable_enterprise_roots if I don't want those with access to the private key to be able to MITM me?