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Firefox Will Run Chrome Extensions
An anonymous reader writes: Today Mozilla announced some big changes to its extension support. Their new addon API, WebExtensions, is mostly compatible with the extension model used by Chrome and Opera. In short, this means we'll soon see cross-platform browser extensions. They say, "For some time we've heard from add-on developers that our APIs could be better documented and easier to use. In addition, we've noticed that many Firefox add-on developers also maintain a Chrome, Safari, or Opera extension with similar functionality. We would like add-on development to be more like Web development: the same code should run in multiple browsers according to behavior set by standards, with comprehensive documentation available from multiple vendors."
Wow, a whole year. Sorry, where's the good news?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
FF is a perfect example of a project going completely off the rails. I don't hear anyone saying good things about it anymore.
It doesn't spy on you.
Seriously, there was a time a few years back when many people (including me) switched away from Firefox because it had memory leaks, and didn't work very well. Now, it's a fine browser, and I don't understand why anyone would use Chrome over Firefox. Forget that spyware.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Mozilla, for the love of god, stop breaking APIs, you morons.
That is the goal. The reason the 'API' kept breaking is because there wasn't an API at all: extensions were able to access the internal firefox code. Every time an internal function changed, it caused problems for extensions. Obviously that is bad, there needs to be a clear interface (like a wall) between the outside and the inside.
Firefox here is finally making a good interface. Their plan is to extend the Chrome API so it contains all the functionality needed for current Firefox add-ons.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."