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Developing Firefox Extensions with GNU/Linux
QT writes "Ars Technica has a lengthy but useful introduction to
developing Firefox extensions with GNU/Linux. This guide comes hot on the heels of the RC for Beta 1 of Firefox.
The article is a little more thorough than necessary, but I can't complain about anything that spurs Firefox development." From the article: "What can you do with a Firefox Extension? Firefox extensions can modify the Firefox user interface. This includes adding buttons to tool bars and menus; changing fonts, colors, and icons; capturing events in the client interface like page loads and clicks; and modifying web pages after the browser loads them and before the user sees them. All of this functionality comes with the aspect-oriented facility of overlays. Extensions also have as much access to the file system as the user running Firefox. Extensions can add protocol handlers, hooking actions to URLs like icq://, aim://, or stantz://. Extensions have UniversalXPConnect privileges, allowing them to harness any XPCOM component. Firefox comes with a rich library of XPCOM components that permit your extension to drive very low-level functionality like sockets from Javascript. You can also augment the XPCOM library with Firefox extensions by adding Javascript, linkable libraries, or XPIDL."
Where's my bittorrent:// protocol??!?!
I would love to simply do a bittorrent from firefox. I think that'd spur alot more users and make it easier to... um... *LEGAL* download torrents... (like knoppix, fedora, etc.)
Bring on the torrents!!!
Firefox extensions are are useful and powerful tools when used correctly, yet have the ability to easily become malicious and destructive if the user doesn't pay attention.
Hmmm, sounds a lot like ActiveX. While the main intent for the two is a little different (browser tweaking vs. client-side scripting & server interaction), both require users to make informed decisions. People going on about how Firefox is so much safer because it doesn't support ActiveX might need to consider dropping that argument. As Firefox's market share grows, so will the number of websites that advertise Firefox plugins, and unaware users will be just as susceptible to malware and viruses as they were with IE.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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I realize that there are some differences, such as the fact that the red carpet is only rolled out for extensions the user trusts, but... when you advertise Firefox to dummies, your trusting users will BE dummies!
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
They don't have full access to the local machine, they only have the user's access to the local machine. There's an important difference.
Simple: ActiveX was and is often used by websites to extend website functionality. For instance, Microsoft uses it to implement the functionality of its Windows Update website. Trend Micro uses it to implement the functionality of its house call anti virus service. And so on. Of course there isn't anything inherently bad about it, both examples are very useful. It would be very insecure, though, to allow untrusted sites to extend their functionality this way, and it would have been very bad if ActiveX had been a standard repertoire of web design in the way that Flash is, for example.
Firefox extensions are quite different. They typically extend the functionality of the browser, independent of the web sites you might use. I say typically because there are counterexamples, for instance extensions designed to make working with Wikipedia easier. But this is the exception, not the norm. Firefox extensions aren't "meant" to be used by a lot of different web site, and people would find it quite strange if they were required to install an extension for viewing just one web site.
So maybe the technology is similar (I wouldn't know), the way they are typically used, and were designed and meant to be used are quite different.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
When should you use a Firefox extension?
Only when you're EXTENDING FIREFOX.
If your website requires an extension (or, for that matter, ActiveX) to work, you're simply coding it incorrectly.
Possible exceptions includes Windows Update, but even then, Microsoft coded that as part of the OS in XP, so the web portal really isn't necessary.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs