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Big Changes From Mozilla Mean Firefox Will Get Chrome Extensions
Mozilla announced yesterday a few high-level changes to the way Firefox and Firefox extensions will be developed; among them, the introduction of "a new extension API, called WebExtensions—largely compatible with the model used by Chrome and Opera—to make it easier to develop extensions across multiple browsers." (Liliputing has a nice breakdown of the changes.)
ZDNet reports that at the same time, "Mozilla will be deprecating XPCOM and XUL, the foundations of its extension system, and many Firefox developers are ticked off at these moves."
For me there is only one important thing: Whether the browser allows developers to implement the most aggressive ad blockers possible. I want everything blocked, images removed, content rerendered, flash rewritten, etc. -- whatever it takes to remove ad, remove ad blocker warnings, skip screens, and so on. Everywhere.
So is the change good or bad? Does it allow ad blockers to be further improved or not? If yes, I'll continue using firefox. If no, I'll use another browser.
There are two lingering bad tastes from decisions the Mozilla Foundation made that still bother me. The first was the addition of the 'Awesome Bar', and the removal of the settings to disable it; and the second was the removal of Brandon Eich because he held a non-progressive belief.
Both are indicators of a fouled decision-making process, and it's clear that they were precursors of other, similar, mistakes.
(And I still use Firefox, to a degree, because Chrome has other problems.)
Even if this is a dupe, it's still well worth discussing again and again.
Here we have Mozilla, which was once one of the most respected and trusted open source organizations, right up there with the FSF and the ASF, making yet another set of dumb moves. This isn't the first idiocy we've seen from them. It's just the latest in a long line of really obviously dumb moves.
Let's ignore the utter fuckup that's Firefox OS, the abandoning of Thunderbird, the pathetic ouster of Mr. Eich, the Rust debacle, and the other such failures. Let's focus solely on Firefox.
Just a few years ago, Firefox used to have over 30% of the browser market. Firefox was a major player, which made Mozilla a major player. These days, Firefox is likely under 10% of the market, and we keep seeing its use drop and drop. We see single versions of competing browsers, like IE 11 and iOS Safari 8.4, alone nearly exceeding the market share of all Firefox versions, on both desktops and mobile devices. Chrome for Android is well beyond Firefox's total market share. Soon enough, we may even see minor browsers like Opera Mini having a greater market share than all versions of Firefox, on all platforms.
This drop was not necessary. People liked what Firefox used to offer. That's why people switched to it in the first place! Yes, Chrome did provide some competition to Firefox. But instead of facing this competition head-on, all Mozilla did was trash Firefox, for some inexplicable reason. From the very beginning, people were saying that they liked Chrome because it was fast, even if they didn't like the privacy implications of using it, nor its user interface.
Yet instead of listening to what Firefox users said they liked about Chrome, and using feedback that to improve Firefox, Mozilla did the complete opposite. People liked the Firefox UI, yet Mozilla turned around and imitated Chrome, reaching an almost identical state with the release of Australis, despite the protests of so many Firefox users. People didn't like the privacy implications of using a browser provided by a major player in the ad industry, so what did Mozilla do? They stuck ads in recent versions of Firefox, along with forcing integration wtih some third-party services that most Firefox users have no intention of ever using! And when it comes to Firefox's performance, we've seen next to no positive progress. Electrolysis, for example, actually feels slower than single-threaded Firefox!
Mozilla has systematically driven away a big chunk of Firefox's existing users by doing all of these stupid, unwanted things. Maybe this strategy would work if these changes brought in new users, but the evidence is that they aren't doing that at all. In fact, they've driven away the very users who were instrumental in getting others to use Firefox in the first place!
While we do often see organizations falter against external obstacles, it's rare to see an organization like Mozilla which appears to be doing everything in its power to destroy itself! It isn't Chrome or IE or any other browser that's drawing users away from Firefox. The problem is that Mozilla is changing Firefox in every way possible that will maximize the number of users who move to an alternative browser. These changes appear to be just another set that will drive away users. These users aren't stupid. They know that if they use Firefox, they're going to get an inferior Chrome-like UI, but without the performance benefits of Chrome. So although they don't want to use Chrome, and they'd rather use Firefox (at least as it once was), they do the only rational thing and use Chrome. At least then they get a less-inferior Chrome experience, plus they get to use a fast and light browser, too.
I truly though that when Mozilla hit only 20% of the market, they'd realize that something was wrong, and start making the sorts of changes that Firefox users actually wanted. But we didn't see that happen, obviously! Now we're seeing Firefox most likely under 10% of the m
From TFA:
And yet, for the past 4 years or so, beginning with Firefox 4.0, they have been on a steady campaign to rip out all the customizability that made Firefox popular and desirable in the first place. One of the most common comments I see from people, over and over, is "If I want a browser that looks and works like Chrome, I'LL USE FUCKING CHROME."
Meanwhile, complaints from users are met with little more than a thinly veiled FUCK YOU from Firefox developers.
In your rush to complain, you missed a couple essential points. 1) They're extending Chrome's system, not simply cloning it. 2) They're working with developers to ensure they have all the essential API features necessary.
So we can have Chrome extensions which can't even do simple things like completely block Javascript or advertising.
Here's where the first point would have saved you some angst. They're extending Chrome's plugin API significantly.
Some of the most popular extensions have been actively developed for the better part of a decade, such as NoScript (over 8 years)
You'll be happy to discover that Mozilla are already working with NoScript's author to ensure his plugin will work long before legacy support is pulled.
Now that you're properly informed, do you have any legitimate complaints? I hope not, as this is an excellent move. No longer will plugin authors have to deal with an ever shifting API. They'll have a stable API to develop against, designed in part by other plugin authors. Chrome plugin developers will also have an easier time porting their plugins to FireFox. It's a pretty huge win all-around.
Required reading for internet skeptics
It use to be as a C level employee your political views outside your business goals, didn't matter.
That's false. Even 40 years ago no one would have accepted a KKK member as CEO of any major american corp. CEOs get paid boatloads of money precisely because they do represent the company. Nobody cares about the politics of the janitor because he's not paid for that, CEOs are.
For another, Mozilla's "business goals" are explicitly political, that's why they have a manifesto rather than a charter.
As I said in the dupe thread, I'll say it again:
I want Firefox to be compatible with Firefox extensions. Not to dump their own superior extensions because Chrome.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Tailoring the new API to specific (popular) extensions is a clear sign that:
- the new API will *not* have all the features of the old model
- the devs at mozilla have no idea how to cover that gap right now, so they are cherrypicking to avoid the worst of a shitfest.
Yeah, everyone should be celebrating this. *snicker*