Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Mozilla Will Deprecate XUL Add-ons Before the End of 2017

Posted by msmash on from the roadmap-2017 dept.

Artem Tashkinov writes: Mozilla has published a plan of add-ons deprecation in future Firefox releases. Firefox 53 will run in multi process mode by default for all users with some exceptions. Most add ons will continue to function, however certain add ons have already ceased to function because they don't expect multi user mode under the hood. Firefox 54-56 will introduce even more changes which will ultimately break even more addons. Firefox 57, which will be preliminarily released on the 28th of Novermber, 2017, will only run WebExtensions: which means no XUL (overlay) add ons, no bootstrapped extensions, no SDK extensions and no Embedded WebExtensions. In other words by this date the chromification of Firefox will have been completed. If you depend on XUL add ons your only choice past this date will be Pale Moon.

32 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Great. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why bother using this bloated browser when it drops support for the incredible addon library it's accumulated over the years? Without customization, what exactly does Firefox offer over Chrome?

    1. Re:Great. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly. "If it's successful and it works, remove the feature" seems to be rather popular these days.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:Great. by skids · · Score: 2

      At some point the technical battle against meta-surveillance must simply be declared lost unless you want to go full Tor, dress up in an airtight jumpsuit, and learn how to navigate the sewer systems.

      It can only be fought on a legal and economic front... also it's really the integrity, ethics, motivations, and cultural longevity of the institutions doing it that matter more than the act itself. On the bright side, maybe once the consequences of individualized attention by self-interested corporations and governments both foreign and domestic starts to sting the general public a bit more, that will increase the market/political value of integrity and ethics, above what seems to right now be pretty much nil.

      --
      Someone had to do it.
    3. Re:Great. by higuita · · Score: 5, Informative

      Because current add-on design do not work with multi-process!!

      They are not ending the add-on, they must be migrated to the new API. Sadly many add-on are abandoned and will not be migrated. Others will not be allowed to do some functions, almost all of then must be rewritten. But the current add-on have fatal flaws and are doomed sooner or later.

      There are several problems with the current^WOLD add-on layer
      1- Old add-on have too much access to the firefox internals (security, memory leaks and performance problems)
      2- Old add-ons do not know how to work with multi-process and mozilla had to simulate a pool+lock for then to work (big lock, performance problems)
      3- Migrating code from Servo to Geko would break many add-on unless there are many compatibility layers (performance and code maintenance problems)

      Solutions:
      1-They could swap unsafe parts slowly and break many add-on on each release, forcing a slow and never ending add-on update cycle. It is much easier to just swap the API and warn that everyone must rewrite.
      2-Add-ons need to be fixed or else the browser will not really use the multi-process well and worse, may be even slower because of the big lock. If they remove the compatilbity layer, add-on stop working, but postponing the removal will keep the browser slower too and the add-on may never be updated (multi-process is already a several years project and all add-ons where flagged to be updated, but many are just abandoned). So wait more is not a solution, they need to be rewrite
      3-No one wants layers over layers, it is a maintenance hell, specially because the add-on have access to almost everything. Migrating to a simpler API make mozilla job much easier, firefox safer. Add-on will have to be rebuild and developers need to learn a new API. They will also be unable to do some things they can right now, but on the good side, it will much easier to port add-on between chrome and firefox and the add-on can be run in separated process, so bad add-on will be easier to stop and control.

      Yes, i too would like to keep all the add-ons, but between a fast browser with fewer add-ons and a slow one with many outdated add-ons, i prefer the first one. You can not complain about firefox being slow and also complain about keeping old add-ons. To fix one, you need to fix the other too! and you can not delay this, market share is shrinking due firefox being slower.

      They were making changes slowly, as they were mostly doing the last few years, and try to not break the add-ons, but you can not postpone a big internal change forever and now it is time to drop some old features, like NPAPI plugins and the old add-on interface

      What i hope is that mozilla is now more open to some features, as some features will be blocked to add-ons, mozilla need to be more flexible on certain features. The google design model ("only allow features that at least 80% of people use") is bad for firefox, as many of the users of firefox are the 20% of excluded people in chrome

      --
      Higuita
    4. Re:Great. by 0111+1110 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Pale Moon? This would be a perfect alternative for them to snatch up the alienated Firefox users by starting a new fork of the code base from the last version to support XUL extensions. Unfortunately, they're so insistent on NOT USING AUSTRALIS that they'll never do this, despite the fact that their current code base is old enough that it doesn't support a lot of the best Firefox extensions either.

      It doesn't support the most recent versions of the best extensions,but if you go back to older versions you will probably find one that works. If you are referring to newer post-FF24 only extensions then yes that would be a problem, but... the palemoon team is probably going to end up doing exactly what you would like to see.

      The idea would be to rebase their core codebase on a more recent version and just factor out Australis. Apparently the Australis UI is not so tightly integrated as to make this not doable. From what I can see Pale Moon or whatever they end up calling the newer refork is going to be the *only* alternative to The Google Browser and its clones. Well aside from just disabling autoupdate on FF52 and living with that which is what I plan to do for the time being. That will probably work for the next 2-3 years. If I have time maybe I can help with the Pale Moon project now that FF has finally pounded a stake through its own heart. Customization is Firefox and once Mozilla kills that it really is dead and there is no reason to use it.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    5. Re: Great. by jenningsthecat · · Score: 2

      Firefox works for me just great, and on all my devices. I just dont understand the hate.

      Firefox's vast array of extensions renders it highly configurable to a user's individual tastes and needs, and it is utterly unique among browsers, so the disappearance of that flexibility understandably pisses off those of us who have come to rely on it. If Slashdot got rid of mod points, karma, thresholds, and spam ratings, and no longer permitted user-submitted stories, wouldn't you be upset? If not, then why are you here at all?

      In any case getting extensiond out of firefox internals is a good thing: it is a real security risk mitigated by a proper API.

      And if Mozilla hadn't wasted so much time, energy, and money making frivolous UI changes that pissed off most of their user base and a good few developers as well, (not to mention sinking pointless effort into diluting their brand further with a stupid new logo for a company that's hemorrhaging market share), then perhaps they could have transitioned to a more secure platform while at the same time providing a way to translate existing extensions to the new security model.

      Look at the mindless monoculture here at Slashdot.

      Look at the mindless monoculture you're advocating when you say that it's OK for Firefox to become a late-to-the-party Chrome clone. Slashdot ain't the problem here pal - you are. And if what you see here bothers you so much, go somewhere else. Please. You obviously don't 'get' Slashdot in the same way that you don't 'get' Firefox - so do us all a favour and slag off over to Reddit.

      --
      'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    6. Re:Great. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Speed is NOT the problem with Firefox. The problem is that the UI keeps getting worse.

      I have to have addons for putting a status bar back at the bottom, I have to have addons for putting the window title back at the top. I don't want the preferences in a tab, I want them in a window. I have zero interest in reading lists, whatever the fuck "Pocket" is, or any of the other new shit that keeps showing up and not used by anybody.

      It pisses me off that plugins were intentionally broken. It pisses me off that the first thing I have to do upon install is remove Yahoo as a search engine. I usually use a Mac, but when I'm having to use Windoze, before I can do anything else, I have to turn the menu bar back on - it should never be off, it shouldn't even be possible to turn it off.

      I run four extensions that are critical: Classic Theme Restorer, Status 4 Evar, Adblock Plus, and NoScript. I also typically install a video download extension, because YouTube sucks.

      If those extensions break, I'll have to drop back to a LTS release and hope somebody forks Firefox.

      Dump the new API, then you won't have layers upon layers, just the one that works.

    7. Re:Great. by 0111+1110 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, i too would like to keep all the add-ons, but between a fast browser with fewer add-ons and a slow one with many outdated add-ons, i prefer the first one.

      Doesn't a fast browser with fewer addons basically describe Google Chrome? Why don't you just switch to that if speed trumps customization for you? Do you really think the mozdevs can compete with the massive GoogleCorp at what they do best? You think they are going to outGoogle Google?

      You can not complain about firefox being slow and also complain about keeping old add-ons.

      I haven't seen a lot of people complaining about speed for any browser. I don't think speed is much of an issue for browsers. They have been fast enough for a very long time. Trying to make them faster is fixing a nonproblem. Finding a browser that will do what you want it to do if you want more than what Chrome can do otoh...that's about to be nontrivial.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    8. Re:Great. by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

      Firefox remains my primary browser for multiple reasons:

        * Handles hundreds of tabs easily, by default
        * Avoids reloading pages until needed when restarting with multiple tabs
        * Superior url suggestion algorithm keys on text in mid-url
        * The addons of course
        * Google monoculture threatens freedom and progress
        * Google hostile takeover of browser market at expense of community-owned Firefox using tactics learned from Microsoft still rankles
        * Google's advertising business conflicts with user's desire for privacy (remember Eric Schmidt's self-serving quotes

      I use Chrome too of course, but every time I do I think about how unpleasant the world will become if Google manages to exterminate all its rivals, both proprietary and open. Remember that thing about absolute power. But the more mundane reason is that Firefox just works better for me and is more pleasant to use. I am also pleased with the acceleration in development that came about when Mozilla foundation finally woke up and realized that sucking at Google's tit forever would be an existential threat.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    9. Re:Great. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      >1- Old add-on have too much access to the firefox internals

      The entire point of an "add-on" is to hack the mainline product without recompiling. Access to internals is not a "problem," it's expected behavior. It would be fine for FF to introduce a lighter, "safer" API and encourage people to move to that, but don't kill one of the primary reasons people still use it.

      >performance
      There's no performance problem. The problem is JavaScript bloat. People need to quit building full programs in a lightweight scripting language, and go back to native fat applications. Don't try to cram a cargo container into a Ferrari -- let the Ferrari be a Ferrari, and put the cargo container on a flatbed rail car or truck. Translation for the dense: mobile devices are for lightweight purposes. Heavy work should be done by native applications.

    10. Re:Great. by Dagger2 · · Score: 2

      Hopefully, WebExtensions will provide all the same functionality as the deprecated APIs

      You can hope all you like, but not doing this is explicitly one of the goals of WEs. It's thus highly likely that they won't provide the same functionality.

    11. Re:Great. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Sounds like you want Pale Moon.

      You are not typical though. Most Firefox users I know don't change any defaults. Maybe install AdBlock, that's about it.

      To most people, performance matters. As other browsers improve, Firefox must keep up. Web sites will add more JavaScript as engines get faster, and for most people NoScript = broken.

      Mass market products will always cater to the majority. You really want Pale Moon.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. In the future, they will do the same to Rust by lucasnate1 · · Score: 2

    If they were willing to deprecate what was once a flagship technology once, they will do it again.

    --
    Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
  3. I've switched to Vivaldi by Joe+Jordan · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mozilla has forgotten what made Firefox great. Vivaldi is my new default browser. There are still some things missing that I used from Firefox (Live bookmarks, the DownloadThemAll plugin), but the performance is better and they care about the power user.

    1. Re:I've switched to Vivaldi by codr4life · · Score: 2

      Mozilla did a Borland, managed to pivot themselves out of relevancy; throwing away years of hard work and experience on trying to be more hipster than the hipsters.

    2. Re:I've switched to Vivaldi by allo · · Score: 2

      yeah, but it is still "we build a whitelist". You may have a nice whitelist for the web, allowing youtube, wikipedia, maybe even slashdot. Still you wouldn't call it the free web, even when 95% of the users never encounter something not on the whitelist. Simliar you cannot speak of a full featured extension api, when you need to wait for mozilla to specifiy an API for the part of GUI you want to customize ...

  4. Pale Moon is very nice by Doke · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've been using Pale Moon for a couple years. I hated when Firefox went to the Australis, chrome clone, interface. I hated when Firefox kept deleting features, especially preferences. Pale Moon is lighter, faster, more customizable, and pays more attention to security ideas. They were the first to deal with html5 canvas fingerprinting.

    On the down side, I do occasionally find a site that won't work. I'm not entirely sure if it's Pale Moon, or my combination of script and ad blockers. It's usually a fluff entertainment site, and I don't care enough to turn them all off, or fire up chrome.

    1. Re:Pale Moon is very nice by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

      Most of the FF extensions work OOTB but they have a list of known incompatible extensions and in nearly every case they have a link to a previous version that works with Pale Moon.

      I've been using it for a couple of years now, since it was obvious Mozilla was gonna commit suicide by turning FF into a badly support Chrome-Lite, and I have to say Pale Moon is a really solid browser. All of my extensions work, my theme works, and the few sites that didn't like Pale Moon were placated easy enough by changing the UserAgent. All in all I think its a great browser and hope my fellow /. readers do as I do and ask your favorite extension devs that are being left in the cold by Moz to switch to Pale Moon, which with extension dev support could be the solid replacement to FF we've been wanting since Moz shit the bed with Australis

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  5. An obviously bad move by iampiti · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The justification they've given for removing classic extension support is that they depend too much on the internals of Firefox, for the same reason they also said they're a security risk.
    They are valid technical reasons. Most people would agree that making extensions use a stable API decoupled from the browser's internals is a good thing for stability and compatibility in the long run.
    But, and this is a very big but, that means many popular current extensions can't just be made to work with the new APIs. Also, the ones that can be adapted will probably need a good amount of work. The result is that many extension developers have said they will abandon their extensions.
    Also, since those powerful extensions are one of the reasons many people keep using Firefox that will surely suppose a big hit on their maket share and that's the last thing Firefox needs.
    Their stated mission is to fight to keep the web open, if nobody uses their browser they'll have no money and no influence and hence they can't fulfill their mission.
    I know this must've been a hard decision to make at Mozilla but I feel it's not the right one.

    1. Re:An obviously bad move by Luthair · · Score: 2

      They're moving towards a standard based on Chromes current extension API, the standard is also being used by Edge. Creating, and using an industry standard ends up reducing the burden for many extension developers, sure someone might have something tightly knit to the old Firefox API but they've now had several years advanced warning to fix it.

  6. Actual Post by gQuigs · · Score: 4, Informative

    https://blog.mozilla.org/addon...

  7. In other words... by Dracos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This year, Mozilla Will Remove the #2 reason everyone started using Firefox in the first place.

    Copying Chrome has been a bad strategy, and killing XUL is one of their worst decisions ever. I'm waiting for the announcement that Firefox will become a re-branded Chrome, like Opera. Yay for software monoculture!

  8. Ad blocking? by fishscene · · Score: 2

    How does this affect the myriad of adblockers? How I understand Chrome to handle adblocking: The ad loads, and still does its thing, but you can hide it. This isn't adblocking at all actually.

  9. Massive loss of capability. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The new WebExtensions API is capable of many things but there is going to be a lot of lost capabilities. There are some pages comparing the capabilities and you'll find WebExtensions is lacking in many areas.

    WebExtensions versus XUL/XPCOM extensions - see "Services.jsm API" table.
    WebExtensions versus Add-on SDK - see "Low-level APIs" table

    I don't know if Firefox will recover from this kind of seismic shift in APIs. Let's just hope they were rarely utilized parts of the API or that they are currently developing new replacements for the parts that people loved.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  10. Re:BEEP BOOP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If only they listened to ME they would succeed!

    If I wanted to run Chrome browser, I would have installed Chrome and not FireFox.
    The entire point of using their software was that I wanted to use their software, not something else...

    I won't tell them or make my own {software} lest I be shown that my needs aren't the needs of everyone.

    Why tell them for a hundredth and one time?
    After telling them our needs a hundred times, and their staff delete the forum post or close the ticket or ban you from their support form for asking a "After version X how do I do Y" - we pretty much got the hint that they don't WANT to hear our needs.

    Personally I ran FireFox for exactly two reasons:
    It was light on resources and faster than alternatives, and for the many thousands of addons available to handle any want or need I've ever had.

    Now firefox is more bloated than even IE let alone pretty much all other browsers in existence (except perhaps Chrome itself, as they play leap-frog in who is slightly faster every few weeks)

    And now they are basically killing addon support.

    If I needed no addon support I would be using IE, which has had the feature of no addons since the very start :P

  11. Re:What does this mean, exactly? by allo · · Score: 2

    > Your favorite add-ons will continue to work.
    No, they won't.
    The DownThemAll Developer mourned when they first announced the move, the Tabgroups developer recently said he won't be able to port his addon, mozilla ruled out many addons themselfes ...

  12. Deletion disorder is a treatable mental condition by WaffleMonster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Some people honestly believe throwing shit and features in the trash because it aligns with their narrow opinions and agendas is a constructive activity. They are incapable or unwilling to accept the possibility of a reality beyond their narrow worldview.

    From mass deletion of useful articles from Wikipedia to the bands of trolls constantly closing questions they don't understand on SO. From land of "developers" creating "API"s they constantly and willfully break and defecate (deprecate).. because why shouldn't everyone else be expected to constantly play semantic musical chairs to make *your* unorganized life marginally easier?

    All of those who think taking settings away and denying user choice constitutes a better user experience or who truly believe everyone appreciates your nonsensical unproductive abstract notions of art that make software painful and unusable...There is a cure. You can be saved.

    Avoid use of ALL computer INPUT device until end of days n ye shall be cured. ~ from Book of Krusteaz 12:10.

  13. Re:What does this mean, exactly? by epine · · Score: 2

    Ultimately, this will affect almost no one. Planning for this change has been happening for a long time now. Your favorite add-ons will continue to work.

    Trust, but keep one foot wedged in the emergency exit, and one ear cocked for a fell voice on the air:

    I cannot continue working on my add-ons anymore. I'm sorry, but it's time.

    It took me a year and a half of extensive rewriting to make my add-ons e10s/multiprocess compatible, something that is being rolled out only now, all with the prospect of a long-lasting life for them. And the WebExtensions announcement was made not two months after. "Demotivating" doesn't quite cover it ...

  14. Seamonkey ? by rossdee · · Score: 2

    How long until Seamonkey gets depreciated as well?

  15. A Painful But Necessary Transition by rsmith-mac · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I know this must've been a hard decision to make at Mozilla but I feel it's not the right one.

    You do a great job of outlining the pros and cons. That said, I do have to disagree that this isn't the right move. I would argue that it is in fact the right move; it's just that the right move is the most painful move.

    Firefox is a wonderful browser. But I fear we're losing sight of just how limited its legacy core is. Legacy Firefox offers no threading, no privilege separation, and no meaningful isolation between tabs or windows.

    The browser-as-an-OS concept is no longer a gag, but the actual reality of how browsers work. Browsers are expected to do everything from executing code (JS) to graphics (WebGL) to video (HTML5, etc). Furthermore they are being treated as a multitasking operating system - via multiple tabs - with those tabs all competing for resources. Worse, some of those tabs may be hostile to the system or to other tabs.

    This is something Legacy Firefox is ill prepared for, and in doing so it's the odd man out among the major browsers. Legacy Firefox is the MacOS Classic of browsers; a time-tested piece of software with parts going back to the earliest days of the Web. But like OSes 15 to 20 years ago, the world has moved on; it's akin to MacOS Classic going up against MacOS X/WinXP/Linux. The lack of real, preemptive multitasking and security has become a major liability, and becomes downright embarrassing when you realize that Microsoft of all companies was doing things like putting their browser in a low-privilege context a decade ago. Similarly embarrassing is the fact that a single runaway tab can take out the whole browser!

    But all is not lost. Firefox can and is being upgraded with electrolysis (e10k). e10k Firefox has taken far too long to be developed - Mozilla should have been working in earnest on this a decade ago - but at long last it's here. And it finally brings with it all of the threading and isolation features that will make the browser safer and more reliable. Or more to the point, it will make the browser competitive in these respects with Edge/Safari/Chrome.

    However just like giving up MacOS Classic meant giving up the OS's legacy applications, there is a price to pay for giving up Legacy Firefox: XUL and legacy add-ons. XUL is incredibly powerful, but the Moz devs have laid out a very good case for why it (and the rest of the legacy add-on system) can't be used with e10k Firefox. There's no concept of threading or safety; it's an API that has an unsafe level of access to the browser and can't handle being split up among threads. Its power is why we power users love it so much, but that power is dangerous. Worse, maintaining that power ultimately gets in the way of operating the browser with a safer multi-threaded environment.

    And I won't dance around the issue: losing XUL and the legacy add-on system is going to be painful. Just losing the Classic Theme Restorer alone is going to be complete and total hell for this crowd. Never mind the other add-ons that enhance privacy, block ads, and do so many other nifty things. And not all of those add-ons can be remade for e10k Firefox, since they rely on a level of power that will no longer exist.

    But you know what? It has to happen. Just like with MacOS Classic, at some point we have to stop using an archaic, unsafe environment origially designed around unitasking in order to move on to something better that can actually fulfill our needs. Even if we were to explicitly design/limit Firefox to Slashdot-level power users - and I would argue that doing so would ultimately be the end of the browser - it's still not in our interest to be using a browser that, at the end of the day, relies on cooperative multitasking. It's a crappy (if not horrific) execution paradigm for the real world. And while I admire the Pale Moon devs for what they're doing, Pale Moon just prolongs the problem. We still have to face this demon some day, if not today.

    Is it goi

  16. Re:What does this mean, exactly? by 0111+1110 · · Score: 2

    Ultimately, this will affect almost no one. Planning for this change has been happening for a long time now. Your favorite add-ons will continue to work.

    https://developer.mozilla.org/...

    Compared with XUL/XPCOM extensions, WebExtensions provide much more limited options for the add-on's UI, and a much more limited set of privileged JavaScript APIs.

    WebExtensions can only access web content by injecting separate scripts into web pages and communicating with them using a messaging API (note, though, that this is also true of XUL/XPCOM extensions that expect to work with multiprocess Firefox).

    Those are the facts. That is right from the horse's mouth. Not all extensions are going to be ported. Period. Maybe a few of the most popular, but it's basically going to be like porting your extension to Chrome. FF basically will be Chrome as far as extensions are concerned.

    --
    Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
  17. Re:Great by AntiSol · · Score: 2

    I think it's more than the tech-minded userbase is about 0.1% of the total population of web browsing users.

    This is true, but what people don't seem to realise is that tech-minded userbase is about 100% of the remaining population of firefox users. All the non-tech-minded users switched to chrome ages ago because it has the shiny and unconfigurable chrome-a-like interface they love. As an added bonus, it's it's much faster and doesn't require petabytes of RAM to open more than three tabs.

    It seems obvious to me that Mozilla has decided to go for the people who like chrome but just think it's just not slow or resource-intensive enough. Seems like a limited market to me.

    In other words, as others have said, Mozilla is deprecating Firefox. It was fun while it lasted. Sounds like it's time to check out Pale Moon.