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Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

discourse.mozilla.org

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Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#81

Post by causi »

yoasif_ wrote: post #72
causi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The really galling thing is they lied right to our damn faces about how "the new faster systems breaks the old add-on system" while they were still using XUL behind the scenes. In fact an HN reader compiled versions of Firefox 57 and above with user-installed XUL enabled and they work perfectly well.

Nothing is really stopping people from keeping those extensions compatible. Unsupported doesn't mean impossible - it just means you need to do some tweaks: https://webextensions-experiments.readthedocs.io

I'm not understanding how that relates to the fact that the only thing stopping users from installing their XUL extensions on FF57 was a software switch they weren't allowed to touch without editing and compiling from source.

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#82

Post by branon »

lfksodjsn wrote: post #75
jonkoops wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This pretty much feels to me what is happening to Mozilla as an organization from an outsider perspective. Engineering is no longer as important as the evangelism and management is making strange decisions that lack focus on what the target audience really is.

Quoted post unavailable.

Conservative comments are not removed, bad-faith discourse probably gets flagged. I've said some pretty spicy things here and never noticed an issue. Check yourself maybe?

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#83

Post by itvision »

TrianguloY wrote: post #22

Fenix is basically a whole new browser, and that means that all features need to be implemented again (which takes a lot of time, and I don't think Firefox developers have much of it). Lots of Fennec features are still missing (view source code, save as pdf, install general addons, the whole about:config...). Why they changed is a mystery, maybe the old browser had a core privacy bug or something that couldn't be fix…

> Fenix is basically a whole new browser

The web (HTML/CSS/JS/JIT/WebAssembly/Audio/WebGL/WebRTC/etc) engine is exactly the same, the rendering engine (WebRender) is the same, synchronization is the same.

The UI is completely new - that's it.

This is not a wholly new browser, this is a wholly new UI.

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#84

Post by yoasif_ »

causi wrote: post #81
yoasif_ wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is really stopping people from keeping those extensions compatible. Unsupported doesn't mean impossible - it just means you need to do some tweaks: https://webextensions-experiments.readthedocs.io

I'm not understanding how that relates to the fact that the only thing stopping users from installing their XUL extensions on FF57 was a software switch they weren't allowed to touch without editing and compiling from source.

No editing or compilation needed. You just needed to disable signature checks (xpinstall.signatures.required) and enable extension experiments (extensions.experiments.enabled) in a developer edition version (or nightly) version of the browser.

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#85

Post by akira2501 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #77
ropeladder wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the whitelist has a purpose" doesn't really capture what's going on, though. It's more like they whitelisted some of the most popular extensions and then just stopped completely with no intention of continuing. With the much more limited plugin API (and simple html plug-in config pages) of the new browsers you'd think it would be easier to build and vet secure, cross platform add-ons.

Somewhere in a parallel universe, Mozilla just let all the plugins claim compatability, and vaguely fascist users who dont like their politics are complaining that the instability of Mozilla on Android is the reason they hate them. And further along, in a universe where they poured a lot of time energy and money into fixing the whole plugin ecosystem and succeeded, they're complaining about something that didn't get…

So, Mozilla makes decisions to win over vaguely fascist users, or at least prevent them from having something negative to say? Or because in other universes there aren't perfect solutions?

Do they have any desire to just.. make a good browser that fulfills peoples needs?

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#86

Post by Santosh83 »

freemint wrote: post #41
dblohm7 wrote: post #29

(Former Mozilla developer here, who worked on GeckoView[1], the modern way to embed Gecko into Android apps, including all currently shipped Mozilla browsers on Android) From an engineering perspective, the sad thing about this is that the work to finish extensions in GeckoView was essentially completed in the months after the initial Fenix release. When GeckoView was still being rolled out into release, we understan…

Can you elaborate how engineering on an open source product is prevented from doing the right thing™ by management?

Because the vast majority of engineers working on the code base are employed by the management. They can't just do their own thing & remain employees. Plus the FF code is controlled by Mozilla corp. You have full freedom (as an outside contributor) only in the sense you can always fork, not that you can somehow force Mozilla to accept your patches. Same as Android and all other major OSS controlled de facto by corporations. True community led OSS is quite rare, especially among the market leading software among their category.

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#87

Post by pcwalton »

lfksodjsn wrote: post #75
jonkoops wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This pretty much feels to me what is happening to Mozilla as an organization from an outsider perspective. Engineering is no longer as important as the evangelism and management is making strange decisions that lack focus on what the target audience really is.

Quoted post unavailable.

The reason you're getting downvoted has nothing to do with the "progressive narrative" and everything to do with the fact that your posts are off-topic. Political complaints about Mozilla from a left perspective would be equally irrelevant. Availability of browser add-ons is obviously not a political issue.

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#89

Post by zaik »

moonshinefe wrote: post #42

I like using Firefox on Android because uBlock origin makes mobile browsing at least tolerable and it lets me use the "desktop mode" view on certain sites so e.g. I can listen to youtube playlists even if the phone is locked without paying for a premium service (for what I consider basic functionality). Surprised to hear literally the sole reason I use it on mobile is also neglected. Do they think they're going to ou…

> so e.g. I can listen to youtube playlists even if the phone is locked

NewPipe on F-Droid is a killer app.

Re: Add-on support in new Firefox for Android (2021)

#90

Post by robonerd »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #77
ropeladder wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the whitelist has a purpose" doesn't really capture what's going on, though. It's more like they whitelisted some of the most popular extensions and then just stopped completely with no intention of continuing. With the much more limited plugin API (and simple html plug-in config pages) of the new browsers you'd think it would be easier to build and vet secure, cross platform add-ons.

Somewhere in a parallel universe, Mozilla just let all the plugins claim compatability, and vaguely fascist users who dont like their politics are complaining that the instability of Mozilla on Android is the reason they hate them. And further along, in a universe where they poured a lot of time energy and money into fixing the whole plugin ecosystem and succeeded, they're complaining about something that didn't get…

> vaguely fascist users

I've seen this one before, a GNOME apologist insinuating that anybody who wants thumbnails in the GTK filepicker is probably a 4chan user. Is this the new trendy way to dismiss criticism of software? Insinuate that anybody making specific concrete complaints about software has invalid political beliefs completely tangential to the feature/bug being criticized? What fun!

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