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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."
If Mozilla wants their browser share to increase, deprecate the god damned single-threaded engine!!!!
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
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.
Actually the main reason I use Firefox (alongside Chrome) is that it has some extensions that Chrome does not, and AFAIK that is exactly due to the more permissive add-on API. Otherwise, on fast modern systems it is rather sluggish compared to Chrome, I don't see why I wouldn't use Chrome all the time. I get it that it would be safer and easier to use the Chrome model, but what would the selling point be then? Is "not made by Google" enough?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Maybe it's just me, but every time I see the current Mozilla make a decision, I'm so grateful they immediately ousted Brendan Eich (with his "proven technical and leadership background" bullshit) and appointed the former head of marketing as CEO instead.
Fuck Mozilla.
The extension ecosystem is the number one reason many people are still using Firefox. Amid all the "user experience" bullshit, the deprecated-then-removed features, and the asshats steering Mozilla, it was extensions that kept the browser usable.
And they're dumping them -- giving a giant "fuck you" to the thousands of developers who have kept their browser afloat. Some of the most popular extensions have been actively developed for the better part of a decade, such as NoScript (over 8 years) and Adblock Plus (over 9 years). And why? So we can have Chrome extensions which can't even do simple things like completely block Javascript or advertising. Gee, I wonder who likes that idea?
This was the last vestige of the Firefox that we knew and loved being ripped out and tossed aside. In 2-3 years Firefox will be nothing more than another shitty Chrome clone. I can only hope this absurd move leads to a serious fork of the browser that focuses on getting back to the original goals of Firefox.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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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.
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
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.
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.