Let Older Add-Ons Work With Firefox 3.0

mask.of.sanity informs us of a hack that allows old add-ons to work with Firefox 3.0. Short form: in about:config, create a new boolean and set extensions.checkCompatibility to false. "The fix, which requires a little boolean creativity, great for anyone not afraid of taking risks. The idea is to stop Firefox checking its version history, allowing defunct extensions to work... [Those who do] get the fix working will have to remove the code from the prefs.js file once the stable Firefox comes out, but will enjoy their [favorite extensions] in the meantime."

Comments

Do not do this

[amake]

Not only is this not news, but it's a bad idea. Straight from the horse's mouth:

You can not make your extensions compatible by changing a Firefox preference. So don't do it unless you're fully prepared to deal with major breakage!

Re:Do not do this

[DuncanE]

While it may cause breakage its a great way for users of the beta and RC version of Firefox 3 to get some fairly major extensions work.

I need IEtab to get certain work pages to work and I really love stumbleupon... So when Firefox 3 upgraded automatically to RC1 and these broke it was quite annoying so i disabled the check.

An example of an extension this wont fix is Google Browser Sync. You will need to disable this in Firefox 3 otherwise you WILL see some major breakage if you disable the check.

Re:Do not do this

[BZ]

I would fully expect IETab to crash, in general, unless you're using it with the exact version of Gecko it was compiled against (or one completely binary-compatible with it, like the security releases are).

Re:Do not do this

[Myen]

If I remember correctly, one of the top crashes for Firefox 3 betas was... people whole force-enabled Google Toolbar.

Yes, top crash.

This preference is generally not useful unless you know how to deal with the fallout (including figuring out what problems are due to extensions and which ones are not, and possibly fixing things locally).

Re:Do not do this

[__aabvlw4075]

This isn't about making extensions compatible, it's about forcing Firefox to allow you to use extensions that claim not to be compatible, but very well might be. Major breakage certainly could occur, but I find it worth the risk. Many extensions that I was using with beta5 claimed not to work in rc1. Forcing them to load anyway has been very helpful, and they have all worked perfectly without causing any problems (as far as I can tell).

Re:Do not do this

[Chrisq]

Exactly. It is there as an aid to extension developers and testers. If you enable it and have problems with Firefox 3, don't blame FF3.

Re:Do not do this

[bloodninja]

Not only is this not news, but it's a bad idea. Straight from the horse's mouth: All the about:config preferences are detailed here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_entries

Re:Do not do this

[Keeper Of Keys]

I did this; basically don't want to live without Google Toolbar. But the current version makes FF3 unstartable. I had to manually rip it out my extensions folder.

In any case, there' no need to hacking around in about:config; just use the Nightly Tester Toolds.

Re:Do not do this

[Anonymous Coward]

I love that title in your link "Ho To Make Firefox 3 Crash A Lot". Because you know those hos have viruses from all that promiscuity.

Re:Do not do this

[GigaplexNZ]

Odd, IE Tab is working fine here on FF 3 RC 1 without any modifications. That said, I find a safer way to get your favourite extensions working is to edit the version number in install.rdf which is inside the .xpi file (xpi is just a renamed zip file). That way when the extension updates normally, the hack doesn't stick around ready to break something later.

Re:Do not do this

[Anonymous Coward]

I need IEtab to get certain work pages to work and I really love stumbleupon... Stumbleupon is already compatible :D

Re:Do not do this

[DuncanE]

Yes IEtab and stumble are compatible NOW, but werent for several days...

If you know what you are doing then disable the compat check for a couple of days...

And yes I know you can edit the extensions directly, but either they are going to get upgraded (like stumble) or they arnt (like Better Gmail2).

Re:Do not do this

[ta bu shi da yu]

While it is fine to disable the compatibility checking, my concern is that if enough people disable it they might start expecting the Mozilla devs to actually implement workarounds to 2.0 compat problems in v3. That way leads to many, many problems. Just ask Microsoft.

Re:Do not do this

[Anonymous Coward]

... because if mozillazine said it then it MUST be true.

I've been been doing this 'hack' for over a year with no problems. Not for the novice, but if you know what you are doing then do it. Most old extentions are just abandoned and need a version bump. This solves the problem.

Re:Do not do this

[nmg196]

Why? IETab doesn't use Gecko, it uses IE. That's the entire point of it.

Re:Do not do this

[compro01]

what does gecko have to do with anything? IETab pulls in trident (IE's renderer), which is what allows it to render IE-ified pages.

Re:Do not do this

[compro01]

yes, though there are several that really are incompatible and will really screw things up if forced, like the google toolbar for instance, which i use very frequently for the spellcheck, as the built-in one can't seem to cope with my spelling and gives oddball results where the google one figures out what i mean.

Re:Do not do this

[toleraen]

Did you uncheck the "Warn me if this will disable any of my add-ons" box that is on by default? Because FF shouldn't have installed the update if it saw that your version of IEtab was incompatible with RC1 without asking you to ignore the incompatibilities. Might want to submit a bug report if that's the case.

Re:Do not do this

[The MAZZTer]

You DO realize safe-mode exists so you can uninstall and disable extensions without having them running, so they can't crash Firefox.

Re:Do not do this

[scipiodog]

I saw the same thing - IE Tab was working immediately I updated to RC 1 yesterday.

However I also noticed, after the update, that the old memory leak seems to be back - Beta 4 and 5 were SO much better than FF 2.0x, in terms of memory.

Now, with RC 1, I've got 3 tabs open, after 15 minutes, with no extensions except IE Tab and Web Developer, and already at 140MB used.

Has anyone else noticed memory usage expand again with this RC?

Re:Do not do this

[jamstar7]

Wanna have some serious stoopid fun? Edit a 2.0 theme and bump the version up to 3.*. I did that, tried using the theme, & got a totally unreadable FF screen. I was not thrilled. Fix for that was to erase my .mozilla directory and use the backup. (You DO back that stuff up, right????)

Re:Do not do this

[Myen]

It's a NPAPI plugin with XPCOM interfaces to expose it to the UI. That is, it's tied to both sets of APIs. Notice how the back button actually seems to work?

Re:Do not do this

[BZ]

It hooks into the binary parts of Gecko to actually show the content Trident renders.

Re:Do not do this

[BZ]

IETab has to hook into binary Gecko internals to show the Trident-rendered content.

Re:Do not do this

[billcopc]

Really ? I thought it was merely an embedded COM object, so says the HTML source on any IETab...

I frankly don't care, as long as it works. It's a handy little tool, especially considering every single one of my beloved users runs either IE6/7 or (god forbid) some bastard AOL browser - all of which have terrible CSS support.

Re:Do not do this

[Scaba]

It may be the Web Developer extension. After I went to FF3, I had major problems with slowness, CPU maxing, crashes, etc. I removed Web Developer and these things went away. I currently have 27 tabs open and 16 extensions installed, including IETab, and am only using 360MB according to Process Explorer. Try FireBug if you need a good web dev extension.

Re:Do not do this

[bwchato]

i have got to used to the add ons.i installed the beta version to see what add ons don't work.when i saw what they were i uninstalled it and went back to the older version.

Re:Do not do this

[pugugly]

Yes IEtab and stumble are compatible NOW, but werent for several days...

If you know what you are doing then disable the compat check for a couple of days...

And yes I know you can edit the extensions directly, but either they are going to get upgraded (like stumble) or they arnt (like Better Gmail2). Interestingly enough I took you at your word, but Beta 5 *still* listed ietab as incompatible, no updates available when I updated.

Works fine though, never killed it, never updated it further.

Weird - Pug

Re:Do not do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Ptah. I have a measly 16 addons. It claims 6 of them are not compatible. When actually, if I enable them manually, only 1 doesn't work (FireFTP).

If they'd spent the time on making things that really matter compatible, like add an option to configure awesomebar to work like 2.0, then we'd be getting somewhere.

Re:Do not do this

[Anonymous Coward]

... because if mozillazine said it then it MUST be true. Look a little closer. It was not stated by mozillazine but by Asa Dotzler, Director of Community Development, Mozilla Corp. Not that it means it MUST be true, but you can probably trust that Asa knows what he's talking about.

Re:Do not do this

[Myen]

Umm, yeah... Gecko doesn't do (MS) COM. It's a NPAPI (as in, old Netscape plugin, np*.dll) plugin to Gecko, which hosts the Trident COM control.

Is this a good idea?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

If FF3 is being used before a v1 release, it ought to be used in order to find bugs so that the development team can fix them for the release version. By breaking a specific part of the product in order to install unsupported addons, users are adding unecessary unknowns to the equation and negating their contributions to the product test cycle.

I'd say hold off on FF3 until it is released if you can't live without your plugins.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[DigitalisAkujin]

Personally, I've been using the betas of Firefox 3 as main because I couldn't stand Firefox 2. This RC1 release is heaven. You guys think this release is buggy when really there's just a few bugs to fix and most of them on foreign versions or very specific cases equally in windows, linux, and mac based on the ratio of installs.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[cmunic8r99]

If FF3 is being used before a v1 release, it ought to be used in order to find bugs so that the development team can fix them for the release version. /quote This is what baffles me about the 8.04 release of *buntu. Why they would include the beta of FF3 is beyond me. If you do a dist-upgrade, it's going to break more than you want pretty much every time.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[bloodninja]

I'd say hold off on FF3 until it is released if you can't live without your plugins. While I planned on waiting until Firefox 3 is released before switching, I found it preinstalled in Ubuntu 8.04. So I'm using it. I do think that Ubuntu made a bad decision by including a beta web browser, I understand why they did that. The problem is not that the Firefox betas and RCs are buggy. The problem is that misuse of the term beta has led people to expect no less from a beta than from a full release. Gmail has been in beta for years, and it is [arguably] the most complete, feature-rich webmail available. How long was ethereal beta? 10 years? It was pretty stable for at least the past five years, at least, no less than any other full release software. Beta has become a marketing term for "new".

Re:Is this a good idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the same vein, shouldn't extension developers follow the Fx beta stages so that users will actually switch to 3.0 once it is released, instead of having to wait for months until their plugins have left beta stage?

I use about 10 plugins since Fx 1.0, and have yet to encounter a single crash due to an extension (the only plugins that crash my browser are GCJ and Flash). Disabling compatibility checking has been a blessing for me, because it means I can use the latest version of Firefox and still use all extension that I don't want to browse without.

(Before I knew of this option, I used to manually edit the extensions manifest file to fake compatibility with newer versions)

Re:Is this a good idea?

[kylehase]

Someone mod this A/C up.

He/she hits an important point that the parent missed. Pre-releases, while important for FF developer feedback, are also very important for FF add-on developer feedback as well.

FF owes much of it's success to the powerful add-ons. I for one am not switching to FF3 on my main PC until all my add-ons are fully functional.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[nfk]

Your point is only valid if people are not only negating their contributions but actually hindering the product test cycle, by using this trick. If they hold off on FF3 until it is released, they are negating their contributions just as much.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pray tell, what's a foreign version?

Re:Is this a good idea?

[RiotingPacifist]

But if you find a bug you can simply start firefox in safe mode without extensions, or better yet a blank profile, to recreate the bug.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

US English, obviously ~

Re:Is this a good idea?

[slaingod]

Full page zoom negates all arguments. It is a freaking godsend and worth any instability to be able to use it.

That said, I do miss my Clear Cache, and my Compact Menu (which sadly left me without a menu when I upgraded until I found another Addon to unhide it). Grab and Drag I miss too. Perma Tabs too, but TreeStyle Tabs is rockin.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

If FF3 is being used before a v1 release, it ought to be used in order to find bugs so that the development team can fix them for the release version.

Certain user behavior is so pervasive and so foolish that it rises to the level of a bug. The Firefox devs need to know what impact setting this flag has on popular extensions so they don't waste their time having to track it down when the final release comes out. Then they can tell users to uninstall the extension and wait until a new version comes out.

In this way, not only do they discover the bugs that occur as a result of normal usage, but they also discover the wacky bugs that nobody thought could happen because a certain code path was impossible.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

While I planned on waiting until Firefox 3 is released before switching, I found it preinstalled in Ubuntu 8.04. So I'm using it. I do think that Ubuntu made a bad decision by including a beta web browser, I understand why they did that. I tried it for about two weeks with Ubuntu before it pissed me off enough to revert to 2.x. At least Ubuntu makes this easy. Install these two packages: "firefox-2" and "firefox-2-gnome-support". Once those are installed, remove "firefox-3.0" and "firefox-3.0-gnome-support".

I'll switch to FF3 when it's officially released and when my extensions work.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[ceejayoz]

No way in Hell am I going back to the JavaScript performance - or lack thereof - in Firefox 2.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[smussman]

I really don't know

Re:Is this a good idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can install both at the same time.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[wampus]

That beta web browser is the most stable part of Ubuntu 8.04. I think Ubuntu made a bad decision by releasing that steaming hunk of shit. But hey, it was on time, right?

Re:Is this a good idea?

[risk one]

This doesn't really hold up, because for any bugreport, you're told to reproduce the bug in a clean minefield install (the nightly build) first. Since you're using another version without plugins to reproduce the bug anyway, it doesn't matter if the bug that the browser originally occurred in has weird settings. Besides, I don't really run the beta for the benefit of the product (although I will gladly report anything I see), I run it because it's better and faster, and I don't mind a slim chance of a crash.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel the same way; though I wish the major addons like Adblock Plus, Fasterfox, Slashdotter... would get on the bandwagon with the latest 3 release. I think it's to their advantage.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[The MAZZTer]

I assume he means non-en-us language version.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[Myen]

Yes. Minus the bit where it keeps breaking because... well, the browser isn't done yet. Playing perpetual catch-up instead of doing stuff that's actually fun gets boring pretty fast. (RC1 should be close enough to release, though.)

Re:Is this a good idea?

[moderatorrater]

A version that's been localized to a lesser used language that isn't the primary development language of the organization. As much as people enjoy telling the US and English speakers that they're not the center of the world, the point of the matter is the for these projects (and, also, this site), English is the primary language of the people who run it and the primary language of those who use it the most. This shouldn't mean that other languages are second class citizens or anything like that, but getting worked up that a place which is predominantly english refers to other languages as "foreign" is just dumb.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[juancnuno]

I do think that Ubuntu made a bad decision by including a beta web browser, I understand why they did that.

Once a version of Ubuntu goes out, the only updates it gets are bug fix and security ones. No feature updates. So if they stuck with Firefox 2, the "Why did you include a beta browser?!" complaints would have turned into "Why am I stuck with an old version of Firefox?!" complaints. Those folks would have to wait until August for the new Ubuntu. Or install the new Firefox themselves.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[GoodbyeBlueSky1]

And here I just ran out of mod points. Well said.

Re:Is this a good idea?

[bloodninja]

You can install both at the same time. What good will that do? End users need _a_ web browser, no more. Why leave the beta on disk?

Re:Is this a good idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're inferring things from the grandparent that aren't there. Asking for clarification about the use of "foreign version" isn't a ridiculous request, and it's not some attempt to enforce political correctness. "Foreign version" is downright ambiguous, and the great-grandparent would have done well to attribute the delay by describing them as "localizations," which has a distinct meaning in this regard.

A bit less strict disabling rules, please

[Rah'Dick]

I always wondered why some extensions got disabled from one minor bugfix release to the next. Has the underlying API been changed so much, that the extension really isn't going to work anymore or is the extension's author just being a bit restrictive with the "max. version allowed" setting?

Re:A bit less strict disabling rules, please

[rubah]

Both. Things like forecast fox don't depend so much on the browser so long as they can sit happily in the statusbar (at least how I use it it's happy), but things like firebug get honest-to-gosh broken. As in you can open it and use it to edit css to show in a page, but it will not call the stylesheets or outline an element you hover over. So it's still kinda useful but heavily limited.

for a given of 'small bugfix' anyways.

Re:A bit less strict disabling rules, please

[Keeper Of Keys]

There is a beta (1.1) on the Firebug page which works just fine in FF3.

Re:A bit less strict disabling rules, please

[WK2]

Each extension has a "max-version". Some extensions devs will compare their extension with the current version of Firefox, say 2.0.0.14, make sure it works, and publish an extension with the max-version set to 2.0.0.14. This is what they are "supposed to" do. When 2.0.0.15 comes out, these extensions won't work any more, until the devs test them with the current version of Firefox, and upload a new version.

Some devs "break the rules", and if the current version is 2.0.0.14, they will set the max-version of their extension to 2.0.0.99, or something like that. These extensions probably won't break between upgrades, but are only tested by the devs after the fact, if at all.

Re:A bit less strict disabling rules, please

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. I always thought this was a procedural problem with the way Firefox handles extensions - virtually all extensions will be written to be compatible with the latest version of the browser, so "maximum version" is a pretty useless field. Either you fill it in honestly you'll have to update your extension every couple of weeks when Mozilla fixes the latest browser address spoofing bug, but setting it to a higher number is complete guesswork.

Re:A bit less strict disabling rules, please

[Anonymous Coward]

Some extensions devs will compare their extension with the current version of Firefox, say 2.0.0.14, make sure it works, and publish an extension with the max-version set to 2.0.0.14. This is what they are "supposed to" do. Wrong. Firefox's versioning policy is that changes in the fourth component don't break compatibility (or at least shouldn't, but if it happens it's a bug). That's the reason they have four components in the first place: the third is there in case they need to do a security fix that breaks extensions, but doesn't have any/enough user-visible improvements to justify bumping the first two.

Some devs "break the rules", and if the current version is 2.0.0.14, they will set the max-version of their extension to 2.0.0.99, or something like that. IIRC it accepts wildcards, but otherwise that's entirely the right thing to do.

Re:A bit less strict disabling rules, please

[RiotingPacifist]

Bug fixes on the stable version you normally get 1-2 months between release (doing the maths actually give you an average of 6 weeks between (non-bug fix fix) releases), if you cant be bothered to check if your extension still works every 4-6 weeks perhaps its time to let it go.

While you do have a point that granular versioning (is that the right term) would be nice so that security fixes dont mean you have to bump your bookmark extension, I think it would do more to confuse developers than help them.

Re:A bit less strict disabling rules, please

[Patik]

They're just playing it safe. Since each new release (beta or not) contains some changes, there's always a chance that one of those changes will negatively affect a particular extension. All the extension author needs to do is check that it's working and increment the version number. I realize this is inconvenient (especially when new releases come out every few weeks at this point in the cycle), but it's the only way to be sure that things work. If you don't care about being sure (as I don't), go ahead and use this hack.

At least they allow authors to use future version numbers once Firefox is stable -- an extension can be ready for 2.0.0.* so that every little security fix that Mozilla issues (which is not supposed to change the API or features) won't break the extension.

Re:A bit less strict disabling rules, please

[maxume]

There is a goal inside of Mozilla not to break extension compatibility for minor releases, and the documentation on their website suggests using maxVersion of the form 2.0.0.* for Firefox 2:

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Updating_extensions_for_Firefox_2#Step_1:_Update_the_install_manifest

For Firefox 3, they suggest moving to the form 3.0.*:

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Updating_extensions_for_Firefox_3#Step_1:_Update_the_install_manifest

So no, devs aren't breaking any rules when they mark their extension as being forward compatible.

Re:A bit less strict disabling rules, please

[magus_melchior]

It might be akin to preventing prescription drug interaction, only this time it's extensions possibly operating on the same module.

Re:A bit less strict disabling rules, please

[Myen]

Actually, for Firefox 3 you want Firebug 1.2 (not done yet).

Re:A bit less strict disabling rules, please

[Keeper Of Keys]

I'm running 1.1.0b12, which is considered a stable release, on FF3 RC1.

What is this?

[Zouden]

What is this, the 'tips n tricks' column of a newspaper's IT section?

The fix, which requires a little boolean creativity, great for anyone not afraid of taking risks.

Not afraid of taking risks? It's about:config, not instructions for making a Linux-powered flamethrower, which I think would be a much better article for Slashdot.

Re:What is this?

[JavaBasedOS]

I'd advise against the Linux-powered flamethrower, as I almost melted my face off trying to recompile its kernel.

Re:What is this?

[Chrisq]

I'm sure I'll be safe with the Microsoft powered flame thrower.

Re:What is this?

[Hal_Porter]

Fire wants to be free.

Re:What is this?

[Alwin Henseler]

Afraid of taking risks Read: anyone who just wants their system to work, that is, not crash. Like your average user, sysadmin or company IT department. As for severity of crashes: even if it would just crash your browser, that's equivalent to a system crash if things get stuck bad enough that a reboot is the easiest way out. Not something you want to happen while you're on the phone talking to a customer, for instance.

Re:What is this?

[mk_is_here]

Ah yes, the Blue Flame of Death!

Re:What is this?

[bloodninja]

Not afraid of taking risks? It's about:config, not instructions for making a Linux-powered flamethrower, which I think would be a much better article for Slashdot. Have you seen the "I'll be careful, I promise" disclaimer that Firefox 3 now throws when you first type about:config? Instead of the lean, quick browser that was developed as Phoenix, Firefox is becoming bloated, hiding options, and assumes that the user is making bad decisions as default behavior. I still like the browser, but the philosophy behind it has changed completely.

Re:What is this?

[bloodninja]

I'd advise against the Linux-powered flamethrower, as I almost melted my face off trying to recompile its kernel. I am an ice cube, you insensitive clod! I have melted my face off!

Re:What is this?

[rvw]

Man, are you crazy? Never heard of the Blue Flame of Death?

Re:What is this?

[Eighty7]

It would be their first cool product.

Re:What is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but does it run L-- oh, wait. :-)

Re:What is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bloated, sure, except it uses less resources than any other browser.

Idiot proofing software is a natural process when you get a few million people using it: you tend to get a bit wary of them changing some stupid option they know nothing about which can explode things.

I've been using FF since before 1.0, in fact, since early nutscrape days - and I'm happiest with FF3.0.

Stop being so cynical.

Re:What is this?

[Hel Toupee]

Sir, I would be interested in purchasing your Linux-powered flame-throwing death-machine.

Re:What is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seen Firefox 4 desktop integration & weave? The old Mozilla dev team has jumped to the Firefox dev team and we're getting to Mozilla-level bloat already.

This is from someone who's been using firefox before it was firefox.

Re:What is this?

[pbhj]

firefox was super-crispy on my one, tastes like bacon too

Re:What is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooh, this post is flamebait if I've ever seen one.

Re:What is this?

[jamstar7]

Firefox is becoming bloated, hiding options, and assumes that the user is making bad decisions as default behavior.

That's because when you make things foolproof, all you do is generate a stronger class of fool. Darwinian selection at its finest.

Re:What is this?

[HeroreV]

/. mods have always done a terrible job. Nothing new there.

Backwards compatibility

[Lord Lode]

It's a loss if old plugins don't work, some plugins are nice but unmaintained. An example was PrefBar which also suddenly didn't work anymore in FireFox 2.0, until much later. It's a shame that no backwards compatibility is provided out of the box. Not saying I'm for the above idea though.

Re:Backwards compatibility

[dvice_null]

There is already a browser for backwards compatibility. It didn't work out that well, that is why we have Firefox.

os dependency

[genican1]

I hope that soon they'll disable the creation of OS dependent add-ons. Man, I really want my browser to match aqua. so what if I don't have osx?

Re:os dependency

[DJProtoss]

Well, if that addon requires something that is only availiable on OSX then banning OS-dependant addons will either mean:
a. those addons will break other installs or
b. those addons will go away, denying the people who are capable of using it from doing so.
Neither is particularily good.

Takes a long time to filter

[IBBoard]

Obviously tips like this take a long time to filter through to Slashdot, for some reason. I saw that tip when first using Firefox 3 betas, and according to the Mozillazine knowledgebase it has been there since Firefox 2! It also covers an extra bit that the summary doesn't that might still stop extensions working in Firefox 3.

And after all that, I originally used the Nightly Tester Tools to check the compatibility of some extensions. Some of the simpler ones worked, but AdBlock Plus couldn't just have the FF2 version enabled (it wouldn't auto-fill the filter address, but they have an update) and neither could the Web Dev toolbar (the edit CSS tab wouldn't close, amongst other things). Both of them have now been updated for the RC.

I think this one is definitely tagged right - "!news". Now all it needs is "badidea".

Re:Takes a long time to filter

[Cyvros]

Another way apart from Nightly Tester Tools is to just download and open up the extension XPI (or theme JAR) in an archive manager, open install.rdf and then, under , change the number to 3.0.* - it'll see you through the rest of Firefox 3.

Re:Takes a long time to filter

[IBBoard]

I've done that for themes, but the Nightly Tester Tools were more official and a bit less work (rather than trying to track down extensions by GUID). All of my extensions seem to have been made compatible by the developer now, though :)

Use Nightly Tester Tools

[Fallen Andy]

See here. I've been using it with no problems for B4,B5 and RC1. The only problem I have here with RC1 is with AVG 8's safesearch.

Right now the only thing that (was, is?) giving me grief on RC1 is the blasted urlclassifier bug which thrashes the hell out of the hard disk (but that seems to be better now I've had RC1 a few days).

Andy

Nightly Tester Tools

[DemonThing]

This addon lets you selectively override addons' compatibility, among other things.

This extension adds a few extras useful to those that regularly test nightly builds of Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird and Toolkit Seamonkey (Suiterunner).

The following is a brief list of the extension's features, for the full set of features please visit the extension home page.

• Extension compatibility fixing
• Titlebar customisation
• Build ID retrieval
• Screenshots
• Breakpad information
• Restoring tabs from previous session
• Leak log analysis

Re:Nightly Tester Tools

[InvisiBill]

This addon lets you selectively override addons' compatibility, among other things.

I do use NTT, but I don't like it for addon compatibility. When you use NTT, it edits the version number listed in the addon. It spoofs the author stating that the extension is compatible. Its compatibility setting is simply changed to state that it supports the current version.

When you use the extensions.checkCompatibility option, it simply overrides the function that automatically disables old extensions. Setting the option adds a warning banner to the top of the Addons window stating that checking is disabled and that some extensions may be incompatible. Old addons are not automatically disabled, but they do show the warning exclamation icon and state that they're not compatible. If you do find an extension that causes major problems, you can manually disable it while still using this setting to allow other old addons to run.

The about:config option disables the built-in protection and lets you decide for yourself if you want to run unsupported addons. NTT hacks an addon to get around the built-in protection. I very much prefer to know that the addon is working because of a workaround, as I'll tend to look more for an upgrade or replacement, which probably has other fixes or features as well.

No Foxmarks...

[Raineer]

Latest version of Foxmarks doesn't work :( Oh well, it was worth a try!

Re:No Foxmarks...

[Cyvros]

There's a beta version of Foxmarks for Firefox 3 that's now been opened.

Re:No Foxmarks...

[Raineer]

There's a beta version of Foxmarks for Firefox 3 that's now been opened.

Thanks!!! I don't know why I never saw this anywhere else, I had actually downgraded to Firefox 2 over this one issue. Thank you so much, I installed it and it works perfect.

Test the extentions one at a time

[fairyprincess]

Every extention has an install.rdf file which contains the version numbers it works with, if you go to your profie dir and then extentions you can move the extention folders out, edit the rdf files in notepad then restart firefox - it will have no extentions, close it, then move all the extention folders back one at a time restarting firefox everytime, that way you are only adding back extentions that you know work, but just haven't been updated by their developers to install. This can also be done by renaming the .xpi files to .zip then opening editing then returning to .xpi and installing. If you are comfortable doing this i view this as safer than just allowing all addons as if something was crashing firefox you would have no idea, where as if it did you would know and you would live without one extention rather than one.

This is really, really stupid

[Idaho]

Sure you can disable the mechanism that checks whether plugins are compatible.

However, as is to be expected with major version changes, lots of API's will likely have changed, so if the plugins happen not to crash outright, they might fail in subtle ways that you don't discover until it's much too late.

This is pretty much exactly why the mechanism is there in the first place.

So if you do this, don't complain about "bugs" regarding crashes, memory leaks and pretty much any other problems you may experience with Firefox. There likely will be a lot, if you go down this road.

Re:This is really, really stupid

[Waccoon]

Not to sound terribly dumb or inexperienced, but should we really expect extensions to cause crashes, memory leaks, and pretty much any other problem we might experience with Firefox?

Don't extensions run on some kind of VM or something? People yell at Windows for all of its stability problems, and practically everything in a modern web browser behaves like it's single-threaded?

We do live in 2008, right?

Re:This is really, really stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you do this, don't complain about "bugs" regarding crashes I'm sorry, but if Fx crashes because of a plugin error, that's still a Firefox bug.

So yes, while compatibility checking is a good idea for the functioning of the plugin, there is no reason why Firefox should be allowed to crash due to a faulty plugin.

Re:This is really, really stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

there's no distinction between an extension and the application.

no they are not applets. they're just the application.

and yes, they have as much permission as the application has which is as much as you have. if you're allowed to rm -rf /, then they're allowed to do it.

firefox has some code written in js and some native code. extensions can be written in pure js, or they can include binary code. if they include binary code, then they are most certainly not sandboxed in any way.

pure js code can be protected from accidentally letting web pages run as if they're the application, but extensions can also be configured to let web pages become the application if extensions believe they're smarter than the security team and need to have direct interaction with web pages. this is kind of like users who believe they need direct access to incompatible software. the results will be bad. just how bad? well, you could have a web page that manages to steal your credentials and then logs into your bank account, and sets up a loan to someone who isn't you for a million dollars (perhaps pounds or euros), it all depends on what you're able to do.

should you expect crashes from code which is used by fewer people, and has had less reviews? yes.
should you expect problems from code which is used by many people but not read by anyone? look at this week's major news story. Someone makes a change they don't understand and everyone runs scurrying to try to recover. yes problems can definitely happen.

ie8 switched to using multiple processes, but yes firefox is a single process with most work being performed on the ui thread, with the primary exception being standard network i/o (and an extension can do sync i/o if it feels like it. ProxyAutoConfig actually does sadly).

Re:This is really, really stupid

[Tim C]

practically everything in a modern web browser behaves like it's single-threaded?

Yes it does, hence the entire browser stalls when one tab is busy for some reason.

Re:This is really, really stupid

[Waccoon]

Ah, so it's a lot like the old MacOS. You have hundreds of extensions running with full permissions, which don't all actually need full permissions to run, and if one blows up, it takes the whole OS... excuse me, browser, with it.

I've had multiple instances where if I updated Firefox, nothing happened when I tried to start it. No window, and no error message. If I opened up the Firefox folder and manually deleted extensions one at a time, I eventually found out which extension was causing the crash and could get rid of it. I recall doing that, to much frustration, on the university Macs over 10 years ago, while the people in the UNIX lab laughed. That doesn't sound like progress, considering that even Apple conceded that they couldn't write an OS and just used UNIX. When will web... excuse me, content browsers grow up? 2020?

Not like IE is any better, but for such a loud group of open source developers, I kind of expected more forethought with regards to reliability and security. Web browsers are not just document viewers, anymore. They are platforms. I'd expect them to be designed to handle flaws or security exceptions, or even API changes. Most Windows drivers are supported longer than Firefox extensions.

I'm not saying it's easy, but it is necessary, especially in an age where, at least at the consumer level, operating systems are becoming less relevant and XML is creeping its way into application UIs. Maybe if Firefox had more built-in tools for checking syntax... excuse me, reporting syntax errors, I wouldn't need so many extensions in the first place to develop web sites.

Re:This is really, really stupid

[Idaho]

So yes, while compatibility checking is a good idea for the functioning of the plugin, there is no reason why Firefox should be allowed to crash due to a faulty plugin.

This is not feasible, because plugins are able to change internally used structures of the browser. Given the non-(memory-)managed programming environment in which the browser runs (as far as I know), this pretty much makes it impossible to keep plugins from crashing the browser. Or, to be more precise, the interfaces between browser and plugin could be made more strict and limited, thus (in the ideal case) making it impossible to crash the browser, but this would pretty much reduce the potential for plugins to do anything really interesting very close to zero.

Re:This is really, really stupid

[Idaho]

Don't extensions run on some kind of VM or something? People yell at Windows for all of its stability problems, and practically everything in a modern web browser behaves like it's single-threaded?

I agree about the singlethreaded thing. Apart from that: no, extensions can't run in some kind of VM. If they did, they would not be able to modify the browser in interesting ways (as this in many cases needs r/w access to internal browser state; this would not be available if you run it in a "sandbox" or VM.

You can pretty much have the exact same argument about Linux kernel modules: the kernel refuses to load modules that are compiled for the wrong (=a different) kernel version. Now, you could say, modules should not be able to crash the kernel, right? Well...if you could limit the interface between kernel and modules in such a way that modules would probably run about 5x slower, needs twice the amount of code to write *and* be unable to do a lot of things that would be interesting because the strict interface does not allow this, then yes. If we don't want to make that sacrifice (and in fact we don't), the smarter way is to only allow modules to be loaded that are actually at least compiled against the correct kernel version.

We do live in 2008, right?

Last time I checked, yes. Your point being that software composition problems are just supposed to somehow magically solve themselves these days?

Re:This is really, really stupid

[Ant P.]

When will web... excuse me, content browsers grow up? 2020? Konqueror's been around for a few years, IIRC.

Re:This is really, really stupid

[toleraen]

Do you know if that has ever been acknowledged by the dev team? My google skills are failing me right now...but that is pretty much my last complaint with this browser.

This is Slashdot!

[DigitalisAkujin]

Can someone please explain to me why you people are posting saying "don't do this".

The entire essence of slashdot is to fuck around with technology. Saying "you shouldn't tinker" is the opposite of what we are about.

I say go for it! Rip apart the browser and mess with it to your hearts content - cause that's the only way you'll ever figure stuff out.

----
The following plugins are working for me now,
Adblock Plus 0.7.5.4
Firebug 1.1.0b12
Google Pagerank Status 0.9.8
StatusbarEX 0.2.11
Web Developer 1.1.6

Re:This is Slashdot!

[Tarcastil]

There's a difference between a developer tinkering and a user destabilizing a binary.

Spill Chaker

[jlindy]

Tuu bud ut dusent werk wiff thuh Guggle twel bur...Cause I rally lick thuh spill chaker.

Re:Spill Chaker

[mikeage]

Tuu bud ut dusent werk wiff thuh Guggle twel bur...Cause I rally lick thuh spill chaker.

You do realize that a spell checker would, at best, give you:

Too bud it doesn't work with the Google tool bur...Cause I rally lick the spill checker.

Even worse, the default spell checker (using the first option):

Thu bud nut enthused perk whiff huh Giggle towel bur...Cause I rally lick huh spill saker.

I think the first version was better than this...

Speaking of hacking Beta Software...

[hyperz69]

Here is another boolean hack but for Vista! Just set that boolean variable

CRASH = TRUE
and
EATALLMYDAMNRESOURCESWITHDRM = TRUE

to FALSE

I wonder if I can set OMGIGOTAGIRLFRIEND = TRUE... THE POSIBILITIES!

Re:Speaking of hacking Beta Software...

[hansamurai]

And for some fun, set:

isCancel() returns ALLOW;
isAllow() returns CANCEL;

Re:Speaking of hacking Beta Software...

[Rudisaurus]

I wonder if I can set OMGIGOTAGIRLFRIEND = TRUE... THE POSIBILITIES!

I tried that. It ate all my resources.

Re:eat my shorts slashdot !!

[Keeper Of Keys]

No thanks, they tasts kind of tangy.

Re:eat my shorts slashdot !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for that review. I was all about to eat his/her shorts until I saw your comment. Thanks again for the first hand taste review.

Instructions for a Linux-powered flamethower

[patio11]

lynx http://www.slashdot.org/

(I could say that "Netcraft confirms it" but anyone doubting that Slashdot runs Linux probably needs to accept evolution, the moon landing, and the theory of gravity before clicking on this link: http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?position=limited&host=slashdot.org .)

BUT

[Anonymous Coward]

does it work with Firefox 3?

i think i'll say this safely:

[Neuropol]

Just let FF3 work ....period.

The botched update that rolled out with the new Ubuntu is not even a functioning application. I'm not so worried about extensions, just get the browser working again. Thanks in advance.

Yes please

[Squeeze Truck]

I need my torbutton.

Plugin hell

[Kjella]

While the plugin system has many advantages, it becomes a management job in itself. Without plügins Firefox is well... daft. With plugins they stop working on certain upgrades, people claim plugins are the cause of instability and memory losses and so on. I don't want or need to micromanage my browser. I'd like Firefox and some of the core plugins as one package released together, but I guess that's why I prefer Opera. It's one install every time, it's not nearly as flexible as Firefox but it's a lot less hassle.

Google bar kills my FF3

[MadMidnightBomber]

You have been warned :)

Recovery is to delete the plugin, something like this:
egrep -ri google .mozilla | grep toolbar
.. ( see where it lives ) ..
rm -rf .mozilla/firefox/zy8uo2wh.default/extensions/\{3112ca9c-de6d-4884-a869-9855de68056c\}

Re:Google bar kills my FF3

[mstrom]

Recovery is to delete the plugin, something like this:

...

Ouch,manual removal of add-ons :(

Simpler way is to start Firefox in safe mode which has an option to disable all addons on startup, after which it can be uninstalled from within firefox safely.

firefox -safe-mode if my memory serves

Re:Google bar kills my FF3

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not merely the simpler way, it's the correct way.

How to test compatability before upgrading?

[egghat]

I'm on OS X and FF3 doesn't allow a parallel installation of two Firefoxes.

Is there a way to test all my installed extension in advance?

Sorry if this is a dumb question but I couldn't find anything with googling.

Re:How to test compatability before upgrading?

[NVP_Radical_Dreamer]

Yes OSX does allow parallel of 2 versions of firefox, unless my wifes mac is some special magical mac. The only issue is each time you launch the "other" firefox it acts as though its the first time its been launched, ie. it checks the addons etc for compatibility.

Re:How to test compatability before upgrading?

[CXI]

Is there a way to test all my installed extension in advance?

VirtualBox. Just spin up a VM of your favorite (supported) distro and test away. You could even run in seamless mode for a while if you're inclined to think "blah, then I'd have to use the VM for a while which would mean switching windows constantly etc, etc".

Re:How to test compatability before upgrading?

[BillZeBub13]

I moved the old version of Firefox into Applications under my account, and put the new version into the global Applications folder. Or you could do it the other way around, or, really, just put them wherever you want.

Re:How to test compatability before upgrading?

[stubear]

OS X does allow for parallel installations of Firefox, you just need to rename at least one of them, I add the version number behind both, and you're good to go. I have Firefox 1.5, 2.0 and 3.0 all running on my Tiger Mac at work and Firefox 2.0 and 3.0 on my Leopard Mac at home. You can't run both simultaneously (not sure why) and Firefox will check for compatible updates to add-ons after starting a different version (for instance, start 3.0, close it then start 2.0 and Firefox will insist on looking for compatible updates - not sure why this happens either, shouldn't 3.0 be the only one looking for compatibility updates by virtue of the fact that not all add-ons work with it yet?)

Re:How to test compatability before upgrading?

[zpao]

Check out this page, which tells you to set up another profile. You can have multiple Firefoxes running, just not on the same profile... http://ejohn.org/blog/sexy-firefox-3/

Re:How to test compatability before upgrading?

[egghat]

While this seems to be the best suggestion so far, I still don't get two separate extension folders for example. When I upgrade the extension and this extension is FF3 only I will lose it for ever when I start FF2? Or do I miss something?

The solution I'm looking for is more like the portableapps kind. A completely separate FF3 that is fully self contained. Well, it's meant for USB-memory-sticks, but it would work on my harddisk as well.

Thanks for all suggestions btw.

Finding out incompatibilities in advance?

[Pahalial]

On that note, is there any -easy- way to check addon compatibility before upgrading to FF3, i.e. other than looking each addon up again? As I understand it they all have a builtin version range, why can't I just go to my addon list and see the compatibility of each addon?

Re:Finding out incompatibilities in advance?

[Mopatop]

Here here! I've been Googling this one for a few days, tricky to search for though. Let me know if you find out, please?

Re:Finding out incompatibilities in advance?

[jalefkowit]

Check the extension's listing on addons.mozilla.org. The site checks what version of FF you are using, so if you're browsing with FF3 and you look up an extension that hasn't been updated, it'll say "this add-on is for older versions of Firefox".

Where am I?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! Digg got a new layout, it looks exactly like slashdot! wait a second...

Disabled install button

[lofoforabr]

Well, I've been using this pref since the early days of Minefield. I find that most extensions I use work fine under Minefield. Here is a list of them:

• Adblock Plus
• del.icio.us
• Fasterfox
• Flashblock
• Greasemonkey
• Live PageRank
• NoScript
• Web Developer Toolbar

One thing to note, though.. I think recently the mozilla addons site has been changed, and the button to install is now disabled if you use a not-officially-compatible browser version.

To overcome this, I first install NoScript (it's compatible with Minefield), and then blacklist the mozilla addons site, so it will not run the javascript that disables the button (yes, it's javascript). Then I can install whatever I want.

Of course, I had a few problems with some extensions. Turned out they really were incompatible, but from my personal experience, most of them work just fine under Minefield.

Re:Disabled install button

[jamstar7]

There's an easy way to get around that. Click on the 'Older Versions' link, then just save to the desktop. I do it by highlighting the hard link to the extension and wget'ing it.

Then, to install it, just open up the Tools>AddOns box and drag the extension into it.

Restoring compatability

[clownface]

> [Those who do] get the fix working will have
> to remove the code from the prefs.js file once
> the stable Firefox comes out

Not true. There is highly visible UI in the Firefox 3 AddOns Window which lets you to turn compatability checking on again.

Or...

[Crimson Wing]

in about:config, create a new boolean and set extensions.checkCompatibility to false.

...or you could just go get the "MR Tech Toolkit" extension, which lets you do this simply by checking a checkbox, as well as force any that get disabled for incompatibility anyway to re-activate (with varying degrees of success).

No Google Toolbar no FF 3 for me

[Randall_Lind]

Why is it the Google funds FF 90% or so but is slow to release a updated toolbar? I looked online and read where they made one for IE 8 beta. Google should team up with Microsoft since they really love them more. I am sick of the lack of respect FF seem to be getting from Google.

Flash Tracer works

[Anonymous Coward]

At least on my Intel Mac. As a flash developer, this plugin is what kept me from using FF3.

What is this - hints and tips day?

[Zerbey]

This is a weak idea for a story, the same advice is commented on somewhere with every new Slashdot post about Firefox releases.

Better advice would be to go check the Addon's web site and see if there's a beta version that been tested with the new Firefox release. Many of these extensions are written for free and have donate buttons on the site. If you donate to the author, he may be more inclined to "fix" your favourite extension to ensure compatibility.

Far better than making your browser unstable!

And before that...

[InvisiBill]

And before adding the "version check" bool, they stored version numbers in the preferences. There were separate values for application version and extension version, allowing you to specify the previous version to extensions so that they could work without having to wait for the author to update the addon.

It's not so hard to just alter the addon yourself

[stuckinarut]

The part that is being checked for each add-on is the max version set in the install.rdf file that is part of the xpi archive.

If you want to try your addon in a later version just save the xpi file for the addon to your HD. Open it with your preferred archive tool like WinRAR.

Extract the install.rdf file, open in a text editor and look for the em:maxVersion element in the xml. Set this value to your latest version of the browser and add the file back to the archive. Open the updated xpi file normally and it will install.

This is all most addon developers need to do to allow their creations to work in a new version, unless of course they've relied on some changed element.

I've just done this to keep YSlow working in 3.0rc with the latest beta of Firebug.

Doesn't work for all plugins, there's another way

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all plug-ins work with that config flag. I'm having a brain fart and can't think of a good example except the plug-in you must install before you install the YSPeed plug-in.

Anyhow, even with that config flag set, the add-on its self does a check or something of the sort and will not install. There's a really simple way around this.

Here's a good example I just found. Foxytunes (the add-on on the main page right now) won't allow you to install it, it's for older versions. So I hit up the foxytunes website, find the file and save it to the desktop.

Then open the .xpi is your ZIP utility of choice. the .xpi is just a .zip file with a different extention. Find the install.rdf file, extract and open it. Look for the line
[em:maxVersion]3.0.0.*[/em:maxVersion]

This was a bad example.. foxytunes is already setup for 3.0.0.*, but most other plugins that won't work are setup for 2.0.* or 2.0.0.* In those cases you just change the 2.0.0.* to say 3.0.*.*

Add the newly edited file back into the .xpi, and install into firefox. Neither Firefox or the add-on will run into the whole "this isn't a compat version" stuff.

Dumb

[Hillgiant]

Dumb dumb dumb. Most of the popular extensions have beta and dev releases that are compatible with ff3. IMHO, it is better to monkey around with the dev release and maybe get bugs fixed than just live with a mostly broken "compatible"ized extension hoping that it will be updated by the time the official release comes out. THIS IS WHAT BETA (and RC's now, I guess) IS FOR!

The reason most extensions will work,but wont load

[Pigeon451]

Most uncomplicated extensions will work fine with the new Firefox. The reason that all will fail by default is that ALL extensions must have a string stating which versions of Firefox they are compatible with -- so when a new version of Firefox comes out, the developer must test their extension, and modify the compatibility number.

For most extensions, it's as simple as changing 2.0.+ to 3.0.+ or something similar and it will work fine.

BUT there may be minor code changes that require a partial rewrite of the extension for it to work, or worse, crash the browser -- this is why ALL extensions fail by default.

To think

[The MAZZTer]

I could have submitted this story any time in the last few years (ever since I found out about the setting in 1.5 or 2.0 betas) and gotten on the front page of Slashdot. And I thought it was common knowledge!

Firefox Portable

[EnOne]

I would recommend Firefox Portable if you want to see if FF3rc1 is right for you. No registry changes and it allows you to add your extensions without issue. I have 10 add-ons that I use with Firefox and last time I tried to do a blind upgrade with forced add on use Firefox would not even start.

4chan ftw?

[Cala]

Hell, none of the other add-ons I use (admittedly few) have updated to Firefox 3 Beta 5, but 4chan already updated theirs so it works. Now if you excuse me, I have a picture of goatse to enlarge.

don't do this - in fact, please remove this story

[zomg_blizzard]

This is a _fantastically_ bad idea. Don't do it. You will likely break the crap out of your browser by doing it.

We at Mozilla are pretty upset about posts like this because they give the impression that you can just flip a switch and everything will work fine. It won't.

Users are going to see very very strange side effects if they do this - pages not loading, scripts not working, crashes and hangs on startup. This story along with some other similar posts extolling the virtues of this magic pref make a lot of us think we'll need to rename it in later releases so that it's harder for people to disable compatibility checks. It's likely to cause more damage in the wild than anything else and add-on developers will be able to track the change.

So please stop spreading this message. It does more damage than anything else.

Bad idea, but I've done it another way too...

[seandiggity]

Not sure why this is a /. story, since these types of tweaks are possible with all kinds of apps and, as mentioned above in a ton of posts, are probably a bad idea.

If you open the .xpi archive that installs the extension, you can also edit the XML files inside to make the extension think it's compatible with any version of Firefox. I did that a few days ago to install the ffx 2 default theme in ffx 3, since I'd like to make it fully compatible. As it stands now, it only causes minor problems in Gnome (can't vouch for anything else). So, if you want to see how compatible an old plugin/extenstion/theme is and make it compatible with ffx 3, this is a good way to see how much work you'll have to do.

Location Bar

[Toonol]

I just installed Firefox 3.0 this week. I'm generally happy with it, but is there a fix for the horrible location bar auto-complete yet? My jaw dropped when I saw it pop up... what an ugly, ugly, feature. It seems like a pet change of the creators, too, so they don't have any option to turn it off in about:config.

Safer alternative

[bkaul01]

Rather than disabling version compatibility checking on Firefox for all extensions, edit the install.rdf file for the extension of interest. Find and change the value of maxVersion for the appropriate targetApplication. That way, you can force-enable extensions on a case-by-case basis without taking away the protection of checking versions in general.

rickst29

[rickst29]

Here's a few WHICH WORK in Mandriva Linux: Generated: Wed May 21 2008 13:42:38 GMT-0700 (PDT) User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008051202 Firefox/3.0 Build ID: 2008051202 Enabled Extensions: [38] * Adblock Plus 0.7.5.4 * Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper 1.0.4 * AutoFormer 0.4 * ColorfulTabs 3.0 * Connect to address 1.1.7 * Console 0.3.9.2 * Download Statusbar 0.9.6.1 * Extension Developer 0.3.0.20060726 * Extension Manager Extended 2.6.3.2 * Flashblock 1.5.6 * Forecastfox 0.9.6 * Form Saver 0.7 * Greasemonkey 0.7.20080121.0 * Html Validator 0.8.4.0 * JavaScript Debugger 0.9.87.3 * Mozilla Quality Extension 0.1.5 * MR Tech Local Install 5.3.2.6 * Nightly Tester Tools 2.0.2 * Nuke Anything Enhanced 0.68.1 * Platypus 0.66 * QuickJava 0.4.2.1 * Remove It Permanently 1.0.6.3 * RSS Validator 0.3.2 * Screen grab! 0.93 * Searchbar Autosizer 1.3.8 * Stop-or-Reload Button 0.2.2 * Tab Mix Plus 0.3.6.1.080416 * Text Complete 0.9.9.3 * Tinderstatus 0.2.8 * Toolbar Buttons 0.5.0.4 * User Agent Switcher 0.6.11 * View Dependencies 0.3.3.0 * Web Developer 1.1.5 * YesScript 1.3 I used NTT to "force compatibility" for most of them. I also use: Installed Themes: [5] * Classic Compact 3.0.7 (THIS ONE IS ACTIVE) * Default 3.0 * LittleFox 1.8.28 * Walnut for Firefox 1.8.28 Installed Plugins: (3) * Default Plugin * Java(TM) Plug-in 1.6.0_05-b13 * Shockwave Flash

Re:rickst29

[rickst29]

To be absolutely safe, back up your profile directory from OUTSIDE Firefox and 'turn on' only a few at a time. If it breaks so badly that Firefox won't even start, just restore the proofile directory from one of your "backup" copies. BTW, there's some out-of-date comments here, NTT does not force you to "make ALL compatible" at the same time anymore.

Firefox safemode

[coolsnowmen]

I think this was said earlier but:
"firefox -safe-mode"

Go in and disable any add-on you want.

I think it is better to recommend this than your hack.

Oops...

[Keeper Of Keys]

Egg-on-face.

I discovered that Googlebar Lite has been updated to work on FF3. Does everything I want from the Google Toolbar.