Slashdot Mirror

We are seeing technology companies that are shockingly badly managed. Why is that happening? Are we experiencing a general social breakdown?

One small but indicative example: On the Mozilla Foundation Download Firefox in your language web page the 32-bit and 64-bit versions have the same file name!

The browser situation is very, very ugly. Firefox is now, basically, owned by Microsoft, who is apparently trying to destroy it. In the past, Google paid Mozilla Foundation $300 million each year (December 22, 2011) to make Google search the default search engine in Firefox. Google apparently didn't cause problems in the design of Firefox, even though it paid a shocking amount.

Now, I understand, Mozilla Foundation gets most of its money from Microsoft: Microsoft pays Yahoo. Yahoo pays Mozilla Foundation to make "Yahoo search" (actually mostly Microsoft Bing search) (April 16, 2015) the default search engine in Firefox.

The Thunderbird and SeaMonkey Composer GUIs have been damaged, apparently deliberately. File saves in the newer versions of both ask for a new file name, and don't suggest the last one chosen. The damage was reported several months ago, but has not been fixed.

Is that another example of Microsoft's Embrace, Extend, Extinguish? People who feel forced away from Thunderbird may choose Microsoft software to replace it. Is that something Microsoft is trying to accomplish?

In my opinion, dishonest people should not be employed in management. In my opinion, the managers and members of the board of directors of both Microsoft and Mozilla Foundation who approved the dishonesty of sneakily re-configuring Mozilla Foundation products should be immediately fired, and not allowed to have management positions in the future.

Mozilla Foundation may be desperate now that it has lost the incredible amount of money paid by Google.

Third-party cookies can still be blocked in vanilla Firefox. The instructions for Firefox 57 are as follows:
1) open menu on the far right
2) select "Preferences"
3) select "Privacy & Security"
4) select "custom settings" for history
5) set "accept third-party cookies" to "never"
That's all. Third-party cookies are now effectively blocked.

As for dropping the NPAPI, well, the transition won't be painless. But I'm confident that the benefits will be worth it. Less security holes, better performance, much more streamlined technology, etc. All that's needed now is a rewrite of or a decent replacement for some plugins that haven't been ported over to WebExtensions yet. In fact, Mozilla has extended a hand to those in need of help with porting.

As far as I can tell, Pale Moon and Firefox handle third-party cookies identically - you can disable them in both via fairly straightforward settings.

In Firefox, Options/Privacy/History/Use Custom Settings (to enable the combo boxes), then set Accept Third Party Cookies to "Never".

It looks like the difference in Pale Moon is that Options is still a dialog box, not a tab (although that might just be an old copy of Pale Moon - I don't use it).

What does taking a screenshot have to do with rendering Web pages?

Among other things, screenshots of HTML documents are a means of helping a website operator or web browser developer troubleshoot HTML documents that your machine misrenders. Right now, Mozilla's document about creating screenshots of rendering problems has to explain it five times, once for each operating system supported by either Firefox (X11/Linux, macOS, Windows, Android) or Safari-reskinned-as-Firefox (iOS).

As I write this I have two separate addons installed (currently disabled) that I've had for several years, both of which support taking screenshots of the browser, with slightly different features that made them better in particular circumstances.

(They are Abduction and FireShot if anyone is interested. It's possible I disabled them because they don't support multiprocess but I can't remember; they work fine for screenshots though.)

I don't know how the one they're talking about works but I suspect it's not going to be as feature complete as these. I find it hard to believe this is a hugely requested feature but who knows.

Incidentally, my latest Firefox problem is a simple version upgrade issue. I got the notice that v55 was available. As I usually do I dismissed it - I wait a day or two before upgrades unless there's major security implications.

When I went back to try to upgrade, the update dialog told me there's no update available. Searching for this reveals a zillion people having this problem going back over a decade so it's almost pointless trying to find what is causing it.

I asked them on Twitter & was impressed that I got a reply immediately - turns out there was a significant bug in v55 for users with an apostrophe in their (Windows) profile path. They sent me this pastebin as evidence.

During this time the website still says v55 is the latest version. I couldn't find public notice about this issue. I spent an hour or two trying to diagnose & figure it out so I find it annoying that they didn't make some other obvious public statement that v55 had been "pulled" from the updater while they fixed this bug.

making it impossible to have extensions more powerful than Chrome.

Maybe you should read what the maintainer of uBlock Origin thinks of the difference between Chrome and Firefox when it comes to extensions. To quote him: "It baffles me that some people think Firefox is becoming a 'Chrome clone', it’s just not the case, it’s just plain silly to make such statement."

which is basically Chrome's extension model but for Firefox.

Maybe you should read what the uBlock Origin maintainer thinks of the difference between the Chrome and Firefox implementations of WebExtensions. To quote him: "It baffles me that some people think Firefox is becoming a 'Chrome clone', it’s just not the case, it’s just plain silly to make such statement."

So who am I going to believe? An actual extension developer or some anonymous coward on Slashdot? I think I'll go with the developer.

Firefox's CURRENT extensions are susceptible. The threat is that someone takes over a developer account and then uploads a malicious version of the current extension to the extension update service. There's no reason to believe that such a thing wouldn't be possible with Firefox. Just like Chrome, you need an account with Firefox for them to host your extension in their addon store ... repository ... thing.

The only thing that makes it unlikely that anyone would bother attacking Firefox extension developers is who cares about infecting all five people that still use Firefox?

So lately Firefox has been adding support for WebExtensions extensions, which is basically Chrome's extension model but for Firefox. As that page says, "Much of the specifics of the new API are similar to the Blink extension API". It's yet another case of Firefox's developers essentially cloning what Chrome did, even if Firefox's users don't want that at all.

Now we're hearing that Firefox 57 will only support support WebExtensions extensions. That will likely mean that a lot of extensions will break for a lot of Firefox users come this November.

It's bad enough that when these existing extensions break, many Firefox users will probably just move to Chrome instead. After all, if they need to start using Chrome-compatible browser extensions, why not just use Chrome directly? It's faster than Firefox. It uses less memory than Firefox. Its UI is a lot like Firefox's, due to Firefox's devs changing Firefox's UI to be similar to Chrome's. Firefox's privacy isn't even really better, since its privacy policy states that Firefox's geolocation support can use a Google service, thus sending some information to Google even if the user is using Firefox. So as of Firefox 57, Firefox users might as well just use Chrome (or one of the other browsers using the Blink engine) directly, instead of using Firefox.

If Chrome's extensions can be compromised in this way, then are Firefox's new WebExtensions extensions also susceptible? Is Mozilla doing anything to protect Firefox users from such a threat?

So lately Firefox has been adding support for WebExtensions extensions, which is basically Chrome's extension model but for Firefox. As that page says, "Much of the specifics of the new API are similar to the Blink extension API". It's yet another case of Firefox's developers essentially cloning what Chrome did, even if Firefox's users don't want that at all.

Now we're hearing that Firefox 57 will only support support WebExtensions extensions. That will likely mean that a lot of extensions will break for a lot of Firefox users come this November.

It's bad enough that when these existing extensions break, many Firefox users will probably just move to Chrome instead. After all, if they need to start using Chrome-compatible browser extensions, why not just use Chrome directly? It's faster than Firefox. It uses less memory than Firefox. Its UI is a lot like Firefox's, due to Firefox's devs changing Firefox's UI to be similar to Chrome's. Firefox's privacy isn't even really better, since its privacy policy states that Firefox's geolocation support can use a Google service, thus sending some information to Google even if the user is using Firefox. So as of Firefox 57, Firefox users might as well just use Chrome (or one of the other browsers using the Blink engine) directly, instead of using Firefox.

If Chrome's extensions can be compromised in this way, then are Firefox's new WebExtensions extensions also susceptible? Is Mozilla doing anything to protect Firefox users from such a threat?

Or press the top left icon on the window bar (the one with the two overlapping squares),

BTW, in that mode you can also Cmd-F to search in the tab titles. How do you do that in other browsers again?

Firefox: type "% searchterm" in the address bar – there are several other useful operators as well.

Problems with the favicons in Safari do seem really really minor when compared to something like the Mozilla Information Trust Initiative.

In their words:

Mozilla is developing products, research, and communities to battle information pollution and so-called ‘fake news’ online.

It scares the hell out of me to think that a browser developer is getting involved with what sounds to me like an attempt to control, and maybe even censor, content online. It's even worst that this is apparently being done in the name of "openness".

For those of us who like to keep a lot of tabs open there is Tree Style Tab: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-...

Never looked back. Whenever I try to use someone else's browser I cringe at the terrible idea of putting the tabs at the top.

To make matters worse, moz://a has recently announced the Mozilla Information Trust Initiative.

In their words:

Mozilla is developing products, research, and communities to battle information pollution and so-called ‘fake news’ online.

So it sounds to me like Mozilla wants to perhaps control what content is available online, or at the very least be the one who deems what is "correct" and what isn't.

How they hope to accomplish any of that with a browser that has only 5% of the market now, and is also likely losing users, is a mystery to me, however!

This makes the Firefox 57 release not seem so bad now. With the switch to WebExtensions, it's expected that many existing extensions will no longer work. This will likely drive away even more of its few remaining users, rendering it even less relevant. If Mozilla wants to be policing online content in any way, then I think we're better off having fewer people using Firefox!

As a long time Firefox user, I'm scared about the upcoming Firefox 57 release. According to that Mozilla blog post, as of Firefox 57 "Firefox will only run WebExtensions." So that could mean a lot of existing extensions will no longer work.

Fun Fact: on OSX, there is no true full screen mode in Firefox. The full screen mode still leaves a couple interface elements visible, it's not just the page view. There are a couple extensions that can accomplish full screen mode -- but they wont work on Firefox 57+, and judging by the bug, Mozilla doesn't care.

As a long time Firefox user, I'm scared about the upcoming Firefox 57 release. According to that Mozilla blog post, as of Firefox 57 "Firefox will only run WebExtensions." So that could mean a lot of existing extensions will no longer work.

Fun Fact: on OSX, there is no true full screen mode in Firefox. The full screen mode still leaves a couple interface elements visible, it's not just the page view. There are a couple extensions that can accomplish full screen mode -- but they wont work on Firefox 57+, and judging by the bug, Mozilla doesn't care.

As a long time Firefox user, I'm scared about the upcoming Firefox 57 release.

I'm very nervous about it as well. My approach is going to be to put off upgrading for a good while until I hear the experiences of others about it. Then I'll decide.

It appears that is against the rules.

Aaaaand if they don't follow those rules they will get entirely b&.

It appears that is against the rules.

Aaaaand if they don't follow those rules they will get entirely b&.

One good add-on that no longer works is the Self-destructing cookies add-on.

1. Adblock Latitude For Pale Moon browser only. Blocks display of ads. "Adblock Latitude is a direct fork of Adblock Plus made specifically for the Pale Moon browser."
2. BetterPrivacy Deletes Local Shared Objects, LSOs. LSOs are files placed on your computer by the Adobe Systems Flash plug-in. Use of Adobe Flash allows web sites to track you, permanently even though your browser is configured to delete the files known as "Cookies" after each re-starting of your operating system.
3. CanvasBiocker Prevents websites from using the Javascript <canvas> API to fingerprint them.
4. Classic Theme Restorer Quoting 3 paragraphs:
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017."
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017 and Mozilla drops support for XUL / XPCOM / legacy add-ons. It should still work on Firefox 52 ESR until ESR moves to Firefox 59 ESR in 2018 (~Q2).
   
   "There is no 'please port it' or 'please add support for it' this time, because the entire add-on eco system changes and the technology behind this kind of add-on gets dropped without replacement."
   
   
5. Cookies Manager+
6. Disconnect
7. Facebook Blocker Prevents Facebook from following you everywhere there are Facebook "Like" buttons.
8. Firebug "Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page..."
9. Ghostery DON'T UPDATE. New versions don't allow sufficient user control.
   USE THIS: ghostery-5.4.10-sm+an+fx.xpi Link: Version 5.4.10
   Ghostery sells data it collects. (Business Insider, Jun 18, 2013)
   Ghostery web site
10. MozArchiver For Pale Moon browser only. Like Mozilla Archive Format that is used with Firefox. Saves web pages.
11. Mozilla Archive Format For Firefox only. Saves web page

1. Adblock Latitude For Pale Moon browser only. Blocks display of ads. "Adblock Latitude is a direct fork of Adblock Plus made specifically for the Pale Moon browser."
2. BetterPrivacy Deletes Local Shared Objects, LSOs. LSOs are files placed on your computer by the Adobe Systems Flash plug-in. Use of Adobe Flash allows web sites to track you, permanently even though your browser is configured to delete the files known as "Cookies" after each re-starting of your operating system.
3. CanvasBiocker Prevents websites from using the Javascript <canvas> API to fingerprint them.
4. Classic Theme Restorer Quoting 3 paragraphs:
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017."
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017 and Mozilla drops support for XUL / XPCOM / legacy add-ons. It should still work on Firefox 52 ESR until ESR moves to Firefox 59 ESR in 2018 (~Q2).
   
   "There is no 'please port it' or 'please add support for it' this time, because the entire add-on eco system changes and the technology behind this kind of add-on gets dropped without replacement."
   
   
5. Cookies Manager+
6. Disconnect
7. Facebook Blocker Prevents Facebook from following you everywhere there are Facebook "Like" buttons.
8. Firebug "Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page..."
9. Ghostery DON'T UPDATE. New versions don't allow sufficient user control.
   USE THIS: ghostery-5.4.10-sm+an+fx.xpi Link: Version 5.4.10
   Ghostery sells data it collects. (Business Insider, Jun 18, 2013)
   Ghostery web site
10. MozArchiver For Pale Moon browser only. Like Mozilla Archive Format that is used with Firefox. Saves web pages.
11. Mozilla Archive Format For Firefox only. Saves web page

1. Adblock Latitude For Pale Moon browser only. Blocks display of ads. "Adblock Latitude is a direct fork of Adblock Plus made specifically for the Pale Moon browser."
2. BetterPrivacy Deletes Local Shared Objects, LSOs. LSOs are files placed on your computer by the Adobe Systems Flash plug-in. Use of Adobe Flash allows web sites to track you, permanently even though your browser is configured to delete the files known as "Cookies" after each re-starting of your operating system.
3. CanvasBiocker Prevents websites from using the Javascript <canvas> API to fingerprint them.
4. Classic Theme Restorer Quoting 3 paragraphs:
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017."
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017 and Mozilla drops support for XUL / XPCOM / legacy add-ons. It should still work on Firefox 52 ESR until ESR moves to Firefox 59 ESR in 2018 (~Q2).
   
   "There is no 'please port it' or 'please add support for it' this time, because the entire add-on eco system changes and the technology behind this kind of add-on gets dropped without replacement."
   
   
5. Cookies Manager+
6. Disconnect
7. Facebook Blocker Prevents Facebook from following you everywhere there are Facebook "Like" buttons.
8. Firebug "Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page..."
9. Ghostery DON'T UPDATE. New versions don't allow sufficient user control.
   USE THIS: ghostery-5.4.10-sm+an+fx.xpi Link: Version 5.4.10
   Ghostery sells data it collects. (Business Insider, Jun 18, 2013)
   Ghostery web site
10. MozArchiver For Pale Moon browser only. Like Mozilla Archive Format that is used with Firefox. Saves web pages.
11. Mozilla Archive Format For Firefox only. Saves web page

1. Adblock Latitude For Pale Moon browser only. Blocks display of ads. "Adblock Latitude is a direct fork of Adblock Plus made specifically for the Pale Moon browser."
2. BetterPrivacy Deletes Local Shared Objects, LSOs. LSOs are files placed on your computer by the Adobe Systems Flash plug-in. Use of Adobe Flash allows web sites to track you, permanently even though your browser is configured to delete the files known as "Cookies" after each re-starting of your operating system.
3. CanvasBiocker Prevents websites from using the Javascript <canvas> API to fingerprint them.
4. Classic Theme Restorer Quoting 3 paragraphs:
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017."
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017 and Mozilla drops support for XUL / XPCOM / legacy add-ons. It should still work on Firefox 52 ESR until ESR moves to Firefox 59 ESR in 2018 (~Q2).
   
   "There is no 'please port it' or 'please add support for it' this time, because the entire add-on eco system changes and the technology behind this kind of add-on gets dropped without replacement."
   
   
5. Cookies Manager+
6. Disconnect
7. Facebook Blocker Prevents Facebook from following you everywhere there are Facebook "Like" buttons.
8. Firebug "Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page..."
9. Ghostery DON'T UPDATE. New versions don't allow sufficient user control.
   USE THIS: ghostery-5.4.10-sm+an+fx.xpi Link: Version 5.4.10
   Ghostery sells data it collects. (Business Insider, Jun 18, 2013)
   Ghostery web site
10. MozArchiver For Pale Moon browser only. Like Mozilla Archive Format that is used with Firefox. Saves web pages.
11. Mozilla Archive Format For Firefox only. Saves web page

1. Adblock Latitude For Pale Moon browser only. Blocks display of ads. "Adblock Latitude is a direct fork of Adblock Plus made specifically for the Pale Moon browser."
2. BetterPrivacy Deletes Local Shared Objects, LSOs. LSOs are files placed on your computer by the Adobe Systems Flash plug-in. Use of Adobe Flash allows web sites to track you, permanently even though your browser is configured to delete the files known as "Cookies" after each re-starting of your operating system.
3. CanvasBiocker Prevents websites from using the Javascript <canvas> API to fingerprint them.
4. Classic Theme Restorer Quoting 3 paragraphs:
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017."
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017 and Mozilla drops support for XUL / XPCOM / legacy add-ons. It should still work on Firefox 52 ESR until ESR moves to Firefox 59 ESR in 2018 (~Q2).
   
   "There is no 'please port it' or 'please add support for it' this time, because the entire add-on eco system changes and the technology behind this kind of add-on gets dropped without replacement."
   
   
5. Cookies Manager+
6. Disconnect
7. Facebook Blocker Prevents Facebook from following you everywhere there are Facebook "Like" buttons.
8. Firebug "Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page..."
9. Ghostery DON'T UPDATE. New versions don't allow sufficient user control.
   USE THIS: ghostery-5.4.10-sm+an+fx.xpi Link: Version 5.4.10
   Ghostery sells data it collects. (Business Insider, Jun 18, 2013)
   Ghostery web site
10. MozArchiver For Pale Moon browser only. Like Mozilla Archive Format that is used with Firefox. Saves web pages.
11. Mozilla Archive Format For Firefox only. Saves web page

1. Adblock Latitude For Pale Moon browser only. Blocks display of ads. "Adblock Latitude is a direct fork of Adblock Plus made specifically for the Pale Moon browser."
2. BetterPrivacy Deletes Local Shared Objects, LSOs. LSOs are files placed on your computer by the Adobe Systems Flash plug-in. Use of Adobe Flash allows web sites to track you, permanently even though your browser is configured to delete the files known as "Cookies" after each re-starting of your operating system.
3. CanvasBiocker Prevents websites from using the Javascript <canvas> API to fingerprint them.
4. Classic Theme Restorer Quoting 3 paragraphs:
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017."
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017 and Mozilla drops support for XUL / XPCOM / legacy add-ons. It should still work on Firefox 52 ESR until ESR moves to Firefox 59 ESR in 2018 (~Q2).
   
   "There is no 'please port it' or 'please add support for it' this time, because the entire add-on eco system changes and the technology behind this kind of add-on gets dropped without replacement."
   
   
5. Cookies Manager+
6. Disconnect
7. Facebook Blocker Prevents Facebook from following you everywhere there are Facebook "Like" buttons.
8. Firebug "Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page..."
9. Ghostery DON'T UPDATE. New versions don't allow sufficient user control.
   USE THIS: ghostery-5.4.10-sm+an+fx.xpi Link: Version 5.4.10
   Ghostery sells data it collects. (Business Insider, Jun 18, 2013)
   Ghostery web site
10. MozArchiver For Pale Moon browser only. Like Mozilla Archive Format that is used with Firefox. Saves web pages.
11. Mozilla Archive Format For Firefox only. Saves web page

1. Adblock Latitude For Pale Moon browser only. Blocks display of ads. "Adblock Latitude is a direct fork of Adblock Plus made specifically for the Pale Moon browser."
2. BetterPrivacy Deletes Local Shared Objects, LSOs. LSOs are files placed on your computer by the Adobe Systems Flash plug-in. Use of Adobe Flash allows web sites to track you, permanently even though your browser is configured to delete the files known as "Cookies" after each re-starting of your operating system.
3. CanvasBiocker Prevents websites from using the Javascript <canvas> API to fingerprint them.
4. Classic Theme Restorer Quoting 3 paragraphs:
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017."
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017 and Mozilla drops support for XUL / XPCOM / legacy add-ons. It should still work on Firefox 52 ESR until ESR moves to Firefox 59 ESR in 2018 (~Q2).
   
   "There is no 'please port it' or 'please add support for it' this time, because the entire add-on eco system changes and the technology behind this kind of add-on gets dropped without replacement."
   
   
5. Cookies Manager+
6. Disconnect
7. Facebook Blocker Prevents Facebook from following you everywhere there are Facebook "Like" buttons.
8. Firebug "Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page..."
9. Ghostery DON'T UPDATE. New versions don't allow sufficient user control.
   USE THIS: ghostery-5.4.10-sm+an+fx.xpi Link: Version 5.4.10
   Ghostery sells data it collects. (Business Insider, Jun 18, 2013)
   Ghostery web site
10. MozArchiver For Pale Moon browser only. Like Mozilla Archive Format that is used with Firefox. Saves web pages.
11. Mozilla Archive Format For Firefox only. Saves web page

1. Adblock Latitude For Pale Moon browser only. Blocks display of ads. "Adblock Latitude is a direct fork of Adblock Plus made specifically for the Pale Moon browser."
2. BetterPrivacy Deletes Local Shared Objects, LSOs. LSOs are files placed on your computer by the Adobe Systems Flash plug-in. Use of Adobe Flash allows web sites to track you, permanently even though your browser is configured to delete the files known as "Cookies" after each re-starting of your operating system.
3. CanvasBiocker Prevents websites from using the Javascript <canvas> API to fingerprint them.
4. Classic Theme Restorer Quoting 3 paragraphs:
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017."
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017 and Mozilla drops support for XUL / XPCOM / legacy add-ons. It should still work on Firefox 52 ESR until ESR moves to Firefox 59 ESR in 2018 (~Q2).
   
   "There is no 'please port it' or 'please add support for it' this time, because the entire add-on eco system changes and the technology behind this kind of add-on gets dropped without replacement."
   
   
5. Cookies Manager+
6. Disconnect
7. Facebook Blocker Prevents Facebook from following you everywhere there are Facebook "Like" buttons.
8. Firebug "Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page..."
9. Ghostery DON'T UPDATE. New versions don't allow sufficient user control.
   USE THIS: ghostery-5.4.10-sm+an+fx.xpi Link: Version 5.4.10
   Ghostery sells data it collects. (Business Insider, Jun 18, 2013)
   Ghostery web site
10. MozArchiver For Pale Moon browser only. Like Mozilla Archive Format that is used with Firefox. Saves web pages.
11. Mozilla Archive Format For Firefox only. Saves web page

1. Adblock Latitude For Pale Moon browser only. Blocks display of ads. "Adblock Latitude is a direct fork of Adblock Plus made specifically for the Pale Moon browser."
2. BetterPrivacy Deletes Local Shared Objects, LSOs. LSOs are files placed on your computer by the Adobe Systems Flash plug-in. Use of Adobe Flash allows web sites to track you, permanently even though your browser is configured to delete the files known as "Cookies" after each re-starting of your operating system.
3. CanvasBiocker Prevents websites from using the Javascript <canvas> API to fingerprint them.
4. Classic Theme Restorer Quoting 3 paragraphs:
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017."
   
   "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017 and Mozilla drops support for XUL / XPCOM / legacy add-ons. It should still work on Firefox 52 ESR until ESR moves to Firefox 59 ESR in 2018 (~Q2).
   
   "There is no 'please port it' or 'please add support for it' this time, because the entire add-on eco system changes and the technology behind this kind of add-on gets dropped without replacement."
   
   
5. Cookies Manager+
6. Disconnect
7. Facebook Blocker Prevents Facebook from following you everywhere there are Facebook "Like" buttons.
8. Firebug "Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page..."
9. Ghostery DON'T UPDATE. New versions don't allow sufficient user control.
   USE THIS: ghostery-5.4.10-sm+an+fx.xpi Link: Version 5.4.10
   Ghostery sells data it collects. (Business Insider, Jun 18, 2013)
   Ghostery web site
10. MozArchiver For Pale Moon browser only. Like Mozilla Archive Format that is used with Firefox. Saves web pages.
11. Mozilla Archive Format For Firefox only. Saves web page

The process must be very hard to convert an add-on to the new standard. Even Mozilla's own "Add-on Compatibility Reporter" is listed as legacy.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-...

If Mozilla can't even do it then how do they expect others to do it it??

Most all my add-ins are listed as Legacy. Some are listed a compatible with Multiprocess and some are not.

As a long time Firefox user, I'm scared about the upcoming Firefox 57 release. According to that Mozilla blog post, as of Firefox 57 "Firefox will only run WebExtensions." So that could mean a lot of existing extensions will no longer work.

Firefox's market share has already fallen precipitously. The most-used release, Firefox 54, only has 3.75% of the market. The next most popular release of Firefox, Firefox 52, has only 0.52%. Firefox for Android has only 0.04% of the market. Overall, Firefox has only about 5% of the market.

5% is dangerously low. Chrome, for example, is over 50%. Safari has over 10%. UC Browser for Android has over 9%. Firefox is now in the range of Opera Mini, with its 3% of the market.

I think that Firefox 57, and this switch to WebExtensions, will be what finally eliminates Firefox as a viable web browser. Broken extensions will no doubt anger many of Firefox's few remaining users. I would not be surprised if many of them will move to some other browser. And these are users that Firefox can't afford to lose.

Firefox 57 takes away one of the few remaining strong points of Firefox: its flexible and powerful extension system.

Firefox doesn't even have privacy working in its favor any longer. Firefox's privacy policy shows that it sends a lot of information to Mozilla and others. For example, it indicates that even Firefox's geolocation capabilities can use Google's service, and this involves sending information to Google.

So Firefox will soon become an almost identical clone of Chrome, including its own imitation of Chrome's UI, Chrome's extension model, and Chrome's privacy concerns. Yet Firefox still can't match Chrome's performance, even if some Firefox fanatics claim otherwise. Firefox users have clearly indicated that they find Firefox to be too slow, too bloated, and to use too much memory.

For all intents and purposes, we should probably consider Firefox to be a "dead" browser at this point. Its market share is dropping, and could very well be under 1% by this time next year. It has dropped to such a low range that web developers no longer test with it. This will likely result in more and more web sites that don't work well with Firefox, making the Firefox user experience even worse.

Users won't waste their time with Firefox when they can just use Chrome instead, and get the same UI and privacy experience, but with much better performance and reliability.

The worst part of all of this is that it didn't have to be like this. Firefox's developers didn't need to copy Chrome. They didn't need to ruin the Firefox user experience that Firefox users had come to love. Firefox could have been its own independent browser. Yet all of this potential has been discarded, and the end result is disturbing: Firefox is, or soon will be, an unusable browser for most of its users.

As a long time Firefox user, I'm scared about the upcoming Firefox 57 release. According to that Mozilla blog post, as of Firefox 57 "Firefox will only run WebExtensions." So that could mean a lot of existing extensions will no longer work.

Firefox's market share has already fallen precipitously. The most-used release, Firefox 54, only has 3.75% of the market. The next most popular release of Firefox, Firefox 52, has only 0.52%. Firefox for Android has only 0.04% of the market. Overall, Firefox has only about 5% of the market.

5% is dangerously low. Chrome, for example, is over 50%. Safari has over 10%. UC Browser for Android has over 9%. Firefox is now in the range of Opera Mini, with its 3% of the market.

I think that Firefox 57, and this switch to WebExtensions, will be what finally eliminates Firefox as a viable web browser. Broken extensions will no doubt anger many of Firefox's few remaining users. I would not be surprised if many of them will move to some other browser. And these are users that Firefox can't afford to lose.

Firefox 57 takes away one of the few remaining strong points of Firefox: its flexible and powerful extension system.

Firefox doesn't even have privacy working in its favor any longer. Firefox's privacy policy shows that it sends a lot of information to Mozilla and others. For example, it indicates that even Firefox's geolocation capabilities can use Google's service, and this involves sending information to Google.

So Firefox will soon become an almost identical clone of Chrome, including its own imitation of Chrome's UI, Chrome's extension model, and Chrome's privacy concerns. Yet Firefox still can't match Chrome's performance, even if some Firefox fanatics claim otherwise. Firefox users have clearly indicated that they find Firefox to be too slow, too bloated, and to use too much memory.

For all intents and purposes, we should probably consider Firefox to be a "dead" browser at this point. Its market share is dropping, and could very well be under 1% by this time next year. It has dropped to such a low range that web developers no longer test with it. This will likely result in more and more web sites that don't work well with Firefox, making the Firefox user experience even worse.

Users won't waste their time with Firefox when they can just use Chrome instead, and get the same UI and privacy experience, but with much better performance and reliability.

The worst part of all of this is that it didn't have to be like this. Firefox's developers didn't need to copy Chrome. They didn't need to ruin the Firefox user experience that Firefox users had come to love. Firefox could have been its own independent browser. Yet all of this potential has been discarded, and the end result is disturbing: Firefox is, or soon will be, an unusable browser for most of its users.

You almost remember correctly. Do you happen to work for an advertising company? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-...

It seems it will support NoScript:

NoScript’s Migration to WebExtensions APIs

You had me worried for a moment... =)

but SeaMonkey and Thunderbird are still important

I hate to break it to you but Mozilla parted ways[*] with Thunderbird and SeaMonkey some time ago. The developers hired by Mozilla, mainly focus on Firefox/Rust/everything you just mentioned solely. Now that being a good thing or bad thing is, I am sure, a topic for discussion.

[*] Mozilla still proves legal advice/backing and hosting of code for the two projects. However, no Mozilla developer works on either of these projects directly (obviously there's dabbling). They are now community developed and overseen by Thunderbird Council and SeaMonkey Council respectively. Additionally, there is some leeway granted to these two projects in respect to Copyrighted material like logos and what not.

The required software to be able to run TOECDN is a authority dns server and a http cache server.

With web browsers deprecating cleartext HTTP in favor of HTTPS, how long will this remain relevant?

This is what I looked up regarding Noscript on WebExtensions

https://blog.mozilla.org/addon...
https://www.ghacks.net/2017/03...

Some skepticism is understandable, the clock might run out leaving us with no suitable Noscript release ready for Firefox 57 or 58 or 59. But uncertainty aside I'm confident enough that Noscript WILL run on new Firefox.
Specifically the extensions system is a superset of the Chrome extensions API with Noscript support as a stated goal. I have about one extension which I fear might not be remade for Firefox 58 or 59 but we'll see.

I personally feel that browsers should consider blocking all external scripts on HTTPS pages unless those scripts have a matching integrity attribute, or at least make valid integrity for foreign scripts a requirement for avoiding the Mixed Content warning.

Is Firefox developed in Rust?

It's just now starting to be. Mozilla's research browser, Servo, is written in Rust and they have started to integrate Servo components into Firefox. Components like Servo's WebRender significantly outperform other browsers.

In those situations, I use the Task Manager third-party add-on to find out the culprit. In my experience, the cause of CPU hogging is often one of the several add-ons I use with Firefox. Saving the session and restarting often cures the ailment, though I sometimes find that I have to close specific pages (weird interaction of combination of pages and add-ons).

As far as I can tell, they a note from Google's reasonably good advice on building Progressive Web Apps, and somehow feel their take on service workers and push notifications. Here's the browser support, and status of the "draft" w3c for the functionality: https://developer.mozilla.org/... ... But I guess the complaint is that startups can't get this functionality, with just a webpage: * Create an app loading screen * Use push notifications * Add offline support * Create an initial app UI to load instantly * Prompt installation to the home screen through browser-guided dialog ... So that sounds pretty cool that android will let me completely bypass their store to get those features and even distribute say, an enterprise "app" without needing Google Play or any other marketplace.

I just installed this addon and set it to pick firefox os for news.google.com. Seems to flawlessly give the old news page.

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Happy happy oh my friend.

I just installed this addon and set it to pick firefox os for news.google.com. Seems to flawlessly give the old news page.

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I struggled with destiny up on the ledge, and gasped when, defeated, he slipped off the edge.

Really? The tools are definitely there so we can't blame HTML5 for not providing the ability.

The day they end support for Flash there will be millions of vulnerable PC's with Flash installed that will never be patched.

Most vulnerabilities stop being an issue if browser+plugin developers don't allow automatic blind execution. This is a lesson that should have been learned since the MS-DOS virus days. Since flash no longer auto-executes, there's much less concern for 0-days.

If anything, it's a flaw with web browsers themselves. Web browsers tended to have vulnerabilities for much longer than what was acceptable. For example, Firefox took 10 years just to plug the alert() loop.

We should never forget that Firefox included commercial advertisements at one point, although they called them "sponsored tiles" instead of what they were: advertisements.

DANE is pretty well dead. See the Chromium and Firefox (now reopened, actually) bugs on the issue. This blog post gives a good set of arguments why supporting DANE may be a bad idea. Not sure I agree, but the browser vendors seem to.

I'm kind of astounded that everyone here is so cynical while at the same time being so ill-informed about the stuff Mozilla is/has been doing the past few years. In addition to "Quantum Flow", they wrote a C++ replacement (Rust) that's concurrency-minded and memory-safe for better performance and fewer bugs, as well as a completely new HTML/CSS rendering engine (Servo) written in said programming language, that's faster than any other rendering engine in existence at this point. All this is coming to Firefox soon. (Although IMHO they might as well just rebrand/rewrite a whole new browser at this point, seeing as Firefox extensions are disappearing and the Firefox's market share has already dwindled). Relevant links: https://www.rust-lang.org/ https://servo.org/ https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quant...

Note that it doesn't really get cluttered if you organize your tabs as a tree, since you automatically group together related tabs (e.g. a Google search as a top-level tab with search results as nested tabs), and can collapse subtrees to get an overview.

because the plugin firebug

Firebug was integrated with the built-in Firefox developer tools. As the Firebug team says, "The Firebug extension isn't being developed or maintained any longer". Here's a migration guide.