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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."
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Or are the Chrome extensions also buggy?
And for all the right wingers that cry for Eich, saying he wasn't ousted for "not being progressive"? I hate to burst your bubble but he was fired for refusing to do his job simple as that. What IS the job of a CEO? Well a very large part of it is to be "the face of the company" and to deal with the press and issues in the press that are affecting your company's image...what did Eich do? Say "I don't want to talk about it" like a little spineless coward and hid while the opposition could say anything they wanted and build up steam for the boycott because he refused to do his job and fight back! If he would have said "these are my beliefs, this is what I support and what I do not and why" and actually started a dialog? He probably could have diffused the entire thing, remember he had an entire PR team at Moz to help him craft his side, while the other side simply were speaking their minds, so he had a pretty big advantage.
Nope, I don't buy that. Firing him from a company with Mozilla's tech cred for failing to carry out the PR mission sounds like lame after-the-fact justification. I suppose it could be argued that the company's primary focus had already changed by that point--the new marketing CEO and strange decisions since then do seem to point that way--but that makes the situation worse rather than excusing it.
/. post announcing the new CEO:
Eich had already created javacript, founded Mozilla, served as the browser's chief architect and the company's chief tech officer for years and years. It's tough (maybe impossible) to think of anyone more in tune with Mozilla's mission, or qualified to carry it out.
And as we've seen in the last year, "the opposition" has unreal influence over the tech news media (including Slashdot), often right down to user forums/comment policy, including the willingness and ability to spin a one-sided narrative completely disconnected from reality and/or popular opinion.
From the
http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...
We did not "stand by and watch". Many Mozilla staff made public statements supporting Brendan as CEO, including (courageously) many LGBT Mozilla staff. Many more publicly supported Brendan than publicly opposed him. The media of course focused on his opponents because "Mozilla employees call for CEO to step down" gets more clicks than "Mozilla employees support CEO".
http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...
It's absolutely true. There were a bunch of blog posts by Mozilla employees supporting Brendan as CEO (even though many disagreed with his position on Prop 8), all completely ignored by the media. Looking at the relevant date range on http://planet.mozilla.org/ should find them...
Did you ever see any of these viewpoints reported on at tech news sites? I think the Eich fiasco might have ended differently if it happened today, now we're more savvy to the disengenuousness and bigoted (and collusive) nature of those who perpetrate outrage culture.
It's not just a marketing spend. Once word spread around that IE on the desktop was toxic, people sought out an alternative. That same message has not happened (or really been necessary) on mobile. Chrome is the default on Android, and it's a fine enough browser that looking for an alternative isn't necessary for most people. Google has made it easy to sync across platforms, so Chrome has become the new alternative on the desktop as well (for Windows machines only, obviously).
The Firefox situation isn't so much Mozilla's fault for screwing it up as it is Microsoft making real gains in browser quality recently, combined with Google and Safari making for a simpler cross-platform experience. FF is not the default on any major platform, so it doesn't get to use that momentum to press into other platforms. All its major competitors do get that advantage.
Even if this is a dupe, it's still well worth discussing again and again.
It can be addressed once and be solved, unless you are trying to twist facts. This beating over the heads with a rubber mallet can take a while, which is what you are doing. You actually are using the same arguments for "which is better" as Microsoft dummies like to use. "market share" This is skewed way to determine which is "better" since by including an app on a device by default you get a headcount advantage. Many users are just too stupid or lazy to grab something better if what their device/pc comes with has "something" already on it.
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.
You literally tried too hard here. It's as if you are trying to exorcise demons from Mozilla devs you are demonizing so hard. You tacked my bullshit meter full blast already.
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.
Here you lie. You straight out of your ass go full hypocrite. You could have focused on Firefox but you wanted to salt your soup up real nice. You may have fooled idiots but not all people are stupid. What is the point of fooling idiots? They already have enough challenges. Dick move here.
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 [caniuse.com], 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.
Here's the market share argument. You cited nothing relevant. I have installs of each browser in several operating systems right now. What is my market share percentage? In fact, I have installs and I have portable versions. Can you cite a site that counts downloads and installs or are you pulling data out of your ass completely? How many are recorded as sold on a device? You can tell how many Android devices are out there, sort of, but what does that tell you? Not shit son.
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.
Now you appeal to emotion using presumption as the cause. Aww poor Firefox, it wasn't necessary awww. Then WOOT Firefox [used to be] GREAT! Emphasis on used to be. This is a hit piece bitch stop lying. The first sentence in your comment told you what it was when you said again and again, and here you proved your intention. You leave readers to guess your motivation. Fine. Still bullshit though.
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 Austra
The Gecko engine's current extension mechanism is not really compatible with the forthcoming change to multiple processes. (BTW: Multiple processes, not multiple threads, for proper isolation.) This move is in fact _necessary_ for what you want them to do.
Another problem with the current extension mechanism is that any extension can do basically anything to the browser, or any component of it. (Hence the need to deprecate unsigned extensions.) The permission system is a single bit: XUL/XBL chrome (including extensions) can do anything, non-chrome is restricted per HTML5. The new WebExtensions API has fine-grained permissions, among many other good things. See https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebEx... for details.