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Firefox 57.0 Released

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Re: Firefox 57.0 Released

#831

Post by Sylos »

pseudalopex wrote: post #824
Sylos wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WebExtensions were specifically announced alongside Electrolysis. This is not Mozilla's fault.

When WebExtensions was announced, Electrolysis was already on by default in Developer Edition, and Mozilla planned to begin blacklisting incompatible extensions within 3 months.[1] The author of Tab Groups had just finished rewriting his extensions for Electrolysis.[2] He only gave up 18 months later, partly because of how frustrating Mozilla made the process of getting missing functionality added to WebExtensions. […

Your link 1 is from 2015/08/21. Electrolysis was rolled out with Firefox 48 on 2016/08/02. The respective Developer Edition build was released on 2016/04/25.

Re: Firefox 57.0 Released

#832

Post by pseudalopex »

Sylos wrote: post #831
pseudalopex wrote: post #824

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When WebExtensions was announced, Electrolysis was already on by default in Developer Edition, and Mozilla planned to begin blacklisting incompatible extensions within 3 months.[1] The author of Tab Groups had just finished rewriting his extensions for Electrolysis.[2] He only gave up 18 months later, partly because of how frustrating Mozilla made the process of getting missing functionality added to WebExtensions. […

Your link 1 is from 2015/08/21. Electrolysis was rolled out with Firefox 48 on 2016/08/02. The respective Developer Edition build was released on 2016/04/25.

Electrolysis development started in 2009. It was enabled by default in Developer Edition starting with Firefox 42 (2015/08/11) and opt-in before that.

Nobody knew in August 2015 that Mozilla would delay the Electrolysis rollout, allow incompatible extensions would continue working into 2017, pick an arbitrary date to drop XUL extensions instead of tying it to WebExtensions milestones, drop the Add-on SDK at the same time, and not really support gradual porting.

Re: Firefox 57.0 Released

#833

Post by acemarke »

Figs wrote: post #567
csdreamer7 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to my knowledge, but you can use the LTS version of Firefox. Which if I remember is still compatible with older plugins. It will be a year before Mozilla refreshes with the newer branch.

It won't last that long. The current ESR version of Firefox is 52. It will be switched to 59 at the start of March 2018, and 52 will be completely discontinued in June 2018. That's a little over 3 months until it becomes annoying to get a copy of, and a little over 6 months until it's dead. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/

All prior Firefox builds are easily accessible via Mozilla's web interface to their FTP server at http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/ . For example, the latest FF52 ESR update for English Windows x64 is at http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.5.0esr/win64/... .

Re: Firefox 57.0 Released

#836

Post by qplex »

dblohm7 wrote: post #829
qplex wrote: post #749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to agree with this. If you provide an API you'd better commit to it. A lot of work is being wasted because of this. "Do not break userspace".

Legacy extensions were not an API: http://dblohm7.ca/blog/2015/08/30/on-webextensions/ Nor were they userspace: http://dblohm7.ca/blog/2017/11/16/legacy-firefox-extensions-...

Sure, to be pedantic about it, but the point of "not breaking userspace" is not a technical nitpick on browser extensions.

It's the guideline from Linus and for a good reason. It's impossible to base work on shifting sands.

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