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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."
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".
This addon lets you selectively override addons' compatibility, among other things.
There's a beta version of Foxmarks for Firefox 3 that's now been opened.
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.
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.
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
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.
There is a beta (1.1) on the Firebug page which works just fine in FF3.
Recovery is to delete the plugin, something like this: .mozilla | grep toolbar
..
.mozilla/firefox/zy8uo2wh.default/extensions/\{3112ca9c-de6d-4884-a869-9855de68056c\}
egrep -ri google
.. ( see where it lives )
rm -rf
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
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.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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:
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.
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.
Calvin:Do you believe in the devil? Hobbes:I'm not sure man needs the help.
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.