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Inside Mozilla's Fight To Make Firefox Relevant Again (cnet.com)
News outlet CNET has a big profile on Firefox today, for which it has spoken with several Mozilla executives. Mozilla hopes to fight back Chrome, which owns more than half of the desktop market share, with Firefox 57, a massive overhaul due November 14. From the report: "It's going to add up to be a big bang," Mozilla Chief Executive Chris Beard promises, speaking at the company's Mountain View, California, headquarters. "We're going to win back a lot of people." "Some of the stuff they're doing from a technology perspective is amazing," says Andreas Gal, who became CEO of startup Silk Labs after leaving the Mozilla chief technology officer job in 2015. "I just don't think it makes a difference." [...] You may not care which browser you use, but the popularity of Firefox has helped keep browsers competitive and build the web into a foundation for online innovations over the last decade. Are you a fan of Google Maps, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube? That's partly thanks to Firefox. Mozilla's mission is to keep the web vibrant enough for the next big innovation even as companies offer mobile apps instead of websites, dump privacy-invading ads on you or try to confine your activity to their own walled gardens. [...] To Mozilla, each tap or click on a webpage in Firefox is more than you browsing the internet. It's a statement that you'd prefer a more open future where online services can start up on their own. The alternative, as Mozilla sees it, is a future where everyone kowtows to Apple's app store, Google's search results, Facebook's news feed or Amazon's Prime video streaming. That's why Mozilla bought billboard ads saying "Browse against the machine" and "Big browser is watching you," a jab at Google. [...] Improvements within a project called Quantum are responsible for much of the difference. One part, Stylo, accelerates formatting operations. Quantum Flow squashes dozens of small slowdown bugs. Quantum Compositor speeds website display. And Firefox 57 also will lay the groundwork for WebRender, which uses a computing device's graphics chip to draw webpages on the screen faster. "You can do user interface and animation and interactive content that you simply can't do in any other browser," says Firefox chief Mayo, speaking from his office in Toronto -- over video chat technology Firefox helped make possible. It all adds up to a very different engine at the core of Firefox. That kind of speedup can really excite web developers -- an influential community key to Firefox's success in taking on IE back in 2004.
Maybe a simple name change and lots of unfulfilled promises of great, great things would suffice.
Turns out, fucking with the technicians (breaking https, because *mozilla* feels i dont need to access my devices until they have a mozilla-approved certificate) was the wrong approach. Good luck getting them back. The non-tech-crowd is gone for good anyway ("Hey Chrome is just there on my PC, why would i install that Firefoggs?")...
I ditched it when they pulled a Canonical and decided "F the user, it's our product our way".
Technically true, but that's a great way to render yourself irrelevant and dry up your market share.
Firefox is the Ubuntu of web browsers.
When Firefox kill legacy addons and destroy the best of Firefox forever.
They are trying to hide this. Most of addon community is warning the core developers. Drop the capabilities of legacy addons while they say that webextension will replace it while it has not the same functionality will broke most addons FOREVER.
Turn Firefox webextension into a Chrome clone... Bullshit.
There's surely some people who can name technical, usability reasons, etc. But I bet the majority use it because:
So, if these are in fact most people's reasons it doesn't matter much what Mozilla do since Google have a much greater advertising power.
Also, that speedup would have to be huge for Joe User to notice and care.
Also 2, Isn't 57 the version where they remove support for classic extensions? The huge number and variety and power of Fx's extensions are one of the main reasons for choosing Firefox. They're gonna remove it and they think they'll gain tons of users. They're just bonkers. I predict lots of people will leave Firefox when 57 is out.
I'd use Firefox all the time if it supported Netflix on Linux and if Signal had some non-Chrome support
I've been sticking with Firefox over Chrome or Chromium because I like what Mozilla stands for.
But I have to use Chrome for work, and no matter how well Firefox did in some Tom's Hardware browser shootouts in 2012 or so, and no matter what numbers they show on arewefastyet.com and so forth, Firefox consistently felt painfully slow next to Chrome. That finally changed for me with 56 nightly. I'm not sure if it's as fast as Chrome, but for the first time ever it feels close enough that the difference is not an annoyance.
The article also mentions Firefox OS. I think in 2025, when WebAssembly is a mature technology, when $25 smart phones have 4GB of RAM, and when Firefox on mobile is substantially more efficient than Firefox 56 or 57 now... then Firefox OS might be practical. In 2013, it was a great idea not ready.
You know, the browser that focused on rendering web pages fast and securely but left all the fancy schmancy UI and features where they belong: extensions.
Browsers are already gigantic and bloated as it is (all of them). You want to win me back as a customer? Start there. You want to fix the pulseaudio/alsa debacle? Make the sound server an extension so people can write a better one without having to fork all of Firefox. People get pissed off at your stupid UI decisions? Extension. People moved to Firefox because they were starved for choices, stop taking those away and you'll be relevant again. If we wanted a clone of Chrome, we'd use Chrome.
Mind the frickin' laser...
Computing these days is about the ecosystem. That's the reason for the dominance of app stores and Chrome.
Chrome = integrates with everything else that I use, yes including Google slurping my data. That's *why* I use Chrome. To get my data slurped, so that other Google services that I use (say, Google Now and Maps) work better. Shares bookmarks, sessions, and cache data across devices. A bunch of apps that I use can go back and forth between in-browser version and in-window (as a Chrome app) version, with the same interface. Is the native OS on my Chromebook.
Firefox... is just a standalone app. When they release a smartphone OS that integrates with Firefox and competing services to Google Now, Maps, Gmail, etc. that are *better* than Google Now, Maps, Gmail, etc. then I'll consider Firefox again. Until then, it's just another web browser in an age in which the web browsers are obsolete and have been replaced by operating-eco-systems.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
There are many reasons why Mozilla still has a chance to become the dominant browser. Google is nowhere near as security-conscious as Mozilla. They will not allow master passwords to protect saved password databases; Google doesn't allow plugins that support downloading of YouTube videos and a host of other things. If Mozilla can improve their performance issues, they are the best choice for a default browser due to Google's sacrificing of user security and flexibility in order to maintain their corporate control.
Does not permit auto-play videos.
Has per-tab audio muting (and is muted by default).
Does not permit cross-site content by default
Supports ad blocking (esp. pop-ups and -unders), script blocking, tracker blocking, and includes anti-fingerprinting obfuscation.
Does not hide the cache files from me.
Has a download manager that will auto-resume on failure.
And while I have the bandwidth to handle it... I don't want my browser downloading videos and animations until I decide I want them. Don't waste my bits!
Right now, Firefox does most of that 99% of the time for me with a few select add ons installed. The only reason I have Chrome installed is that occasionally I like to use Google Maps 3D, and my kids' school uses Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides for homework.
The Firefox extended support versions still support XP and Vista, and will for a while.
Yea, this is an example of where Google sacrifices people's security and flexibility in order to push everybody's data into the cloud. That's bullshit.
Another issue I had was a master password to lock the saved password database. Chrome doesn't support this. You have to install a clunky plugin that is easily bypassed.
Obviously Google doesn't like javascript whitelisting - it undermines their tracking systems. One of the many reasons why Chrome is not an acceptable browser.
The Firefox extended support versions still support XP and Vista, and will for a while.
But, alas, not PPC macs. I'd rather use a PPC mac than an XP box any day, and I fucking hate Apple.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Thunderbird could have been the key to make Mozilla relevant. Browsers we have many. And while I personally still use Firefox for a few options I like, it could disappear tomorrow and I would barely miss a step.
But to this day, secure, *private* communication and messaging remains a challenge. Thunderbird has had the solution for years, and all it would have needed was a bit of clever marketing / positioning for people and organization to take full advantage of it. Mozilla instead wasted all their political capital trying (and failing) to change the standard everyone uses for video, even though the die had already been cast in embedded chips.
Uh oh.
Pretty much every one of the adjectives he used there are red-flag words to me. Particularly "sleek" and "modern". (At least he didn't say "minimalist", although that's implied).
In the past few years, every time I've seen software proclaim those things, the UI for that software has sucked.
I need to re-write mine but they haven't sorted out how plugins like mine will work. I'm still stuck using shims that are going to go away at some point. I'd rather not have to re-write it twice...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Make a stripped-down, fast browser for browsing only. Call it something like "Phoenix" or perhaps "Firebird".
(I remember using Netscape 4.72 on Linux around 1999. Then as the new Mozilla engine was being developed, there were third-party browser projects using that engine for browsing only, such as Galeon. Phoenix was basically Mozilla's implementation of such ideas, and initially worse than the other projects. However, it soon became the only way to stay up-to-date with the Mozilla engine development.)
Between current versions of Firefox and Chromium, I can only think of one thing that FF does better: middle-button pasting of URLs into any "blank" area. Chromium is better in so many other ways.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
If people want to browse facebook.com and google.com and be logged into their accounts with Firefox, Mozilla should damn well let them. This sounds like some ideological crusade that sounds more like RMS in a suit than a company trying to deliver a good product. I'm more and more convinced that the only reason Firefox beat IE was that it was an ancient piece of crap Microsoft preferred that didn't work well so they'd stall web apps for as long as possible. It's like fighting a beat-up old boxer that's dancing the ropes trying to go all the rounds but not even trying to put up a real fight. Makes me wonder if Google didn't really start Chrome because WTF we give you all this money and this is what you do with it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Wait, people still use bookmarks? I just keep ~100 tabs open at any given time.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Firefox can't come back - this is a battle they cannot win. Let's take a look at why Firefox became a success in the first place. A monopoly (Microsoft) won the first browser war by bundling IE into their OS, and by pushing IE into the corporate setting. IE became the most widely used browser, and business intranets were forced to be IE compatible. IE stagnated and became a festering piece of crap because MS became lazy when they dominated the market. They wanted stuff like ActiveX (which is really just a windows program embedded into a web page) to succeed because it forced web pages to be dependent on the Windows OS. They began to bastardize and cause many issues with HTML in the way IE interpreted things - HTML was defined by the way IE interpreted it.
It was into this environment that Firefox (or Firebird) came to be a success. The technically proficient (aka you and I) began using it, then we began installing it on friends' and relatives' computers. We taught them if a website didn't work in Firefox then to try it in IE, otherwise always use Firefox first. And so it came to be that Firefox became popular due to a grassroots kind of movement begun by people who recognized the technical insufficiency of IE.
So a monopoly was broken up, and healthy competition ensued. HTML once again became a standard that was not defined by a single web browser and how it decided to interpret it. Firefox succeeded in its goal, which in my opinion was to create a healthy browser competition and make HTML browser agnostic.
Now, we still have a healthy (or as healthy as we can hope something like HTML can be) web browser environment, with multiple players backed by huge corporate entities, who not only have the resources to spend on pushing browser technology, but they can literally push millions of people into using their browser - Microsoft (Edge), Google (Chrome / Android / Chromebook), and Apple (Safari / Mobile Safari). These companies produce browser tech as a side process, because they have millions of users that will by default use their browser, so it makes sense to have more control over that environment.
Mozilla really has nothing more than Firefox (specifically, the do not control hardware, operating systems, or markets containing millions of users), so they cannot leverage people into their browser. Chrome, Safari, and yes, even Edge, are now more than "good enough" as web browsers, so the technical of us have no real incentive to push people away from them to Firefox.
So congratulations Firefox, and we thank you profusely for single handedly reshaping the HTML and browser market for the better. You did your job.
Better known as 318230.
Chrome is such a big privacy grab. You have to use add-ons to make it behave and to trust Alphabet/Google at that. Firefox makes privacy easy and I think most of us like that.
I agree with pretty much everybody else on here that if Mozilla wants Firefox to succeed, they should stop trying to give us more doodads in the browser. Hello! We want LESS. That was the whole reason for the existence of Firefox, if you remember. Strip out all that stuff that nobody uses and concentrate on making it lean and extensible.
I honestly don't see much performance difference between Firefox and Chrome these days. Firefox's lone remaining advantage is that Chrome is butt ugly. As a UI guy, I find the Chrome UI to be jagged, clumsy, and just atrocious. I want a menu bar. I want an app that looks like it was designed and not just thrown together by coders with zero design sensibility.
Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
Start by making the javascript engine not freeze while using Facebook.
These days Chrome is coasting on a bit of momentum and heavily pushing itself by bundling itself with adobe
Adobe what? Flash Player? Adobe and Google have jointly announced plans to remove Flash Player at the end of 2020, leaving digital restrictions management for streaming video as the only significant non-free component of Google Chrome.
Then you may want to consider TenFourFox compiled for specific PPC flavors.
I do have it on my ppc imac (last model.) But when I installed it, they were missing features. Looks like they are claiming feature parity now.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Maybe they should just have practiced a bit less stupidity over the last few years? Anyways, that battle is over. The code-base may make a comeback in a few years, but not with the people currently in charge at Mozilla.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Also Mozilla needs to keep supporting Windows XP as it still has 6 percent market share over twice that of Linux.
What's the point of providing security updates for an application on an operating system that itself doesn't get security updates? Someone could compromise Firefox for Windows XP by first compromising Windows XP.
Indeed, finish adding support for at least the following:
Sounds like you are describing Chrome
I use bookmarks heavily, but I don't use the bookmarking system in browsers. I have a private bookmark server that I use instead, so that I can have easy access to my bookmarks no matter where I'm browsing from or what browser I'm using while at the same time avoiding using a cloud service.
Best post of the day.
...but how becomes the important part. Everyone just trying to copy Chrome is pointless. I'll just use Chrome, then. However, I don't want to stream everything to Google. They get enough of my data as it. I prefer Firefox, but mostly for reasons that they keep wanting to change: Plug-ins, the more classic menu system, etc. Just make it run fast and smooth, and don't 'modernize' it. (e.g. Make it look like Chrome or just follow the 'flat UI' trend.)
CyberKender
Apparently Appointed Lord Mayor of There
In all fairness, I haven't had FF crash or hang in years, either on Windows or Linux.
Again, even with Firefox 54, the current stable release, it's still very noticeably slower than Chrome. But if you download the nightly build of Firefox I think the speed improvement is fantastic.
Mozilla needs to get rid of two things to make Firefox relevant again: - the endless arrogance of the developers - the craptastic copy of the Chrome UI Get the devs some training in how to interact with people (customers) and go back to the old UI, I mean the one from version 2.x before they aped Google in any which way.
And they didn't even mention the first name was Phoenix?
Hmm, and then there was the naming controversy. Phoenix became Firebird, along with Thunderbird and Sunbird. Then, Firefox.
The naming things always kind of embodied the "close, but not quite there"-ness of FireFox. Hmm, and Thunderbird and Sunbird are dead. Just seems like a lot of work but a lot of wasted effort in places.
I use Chrome (and Chromium) because, for me, the performance is better than Firefox. I regularly try Firefox when I hear about improvements, and I will continue to do so, but so far I eventually end up back at Chrome. It's just so much faster for me. Also Chrome's automatic search-in-site feature (type "amazon", hit tab, search for a string and you search using Amazon's site search) is fantastic. Firefox has keyword searches (right click on a search box to see the option) but it requires manual setup which is kind of annoying. But I'll gladly give it up if Firefox performance is relatively close to Chrome. I would LOVE to switch back,. It's been years since I regularly used Firefox.
I got tired of the apparently incessant need to change things. Just when I would get accustomed to the "Reload" button being on the left side some 18 year old at Mozilla decides to move it to the right side. And vice-versa.
Change simply to change something just about drives me crazy. And I'm happy to stick right where I am now, a Chrome (for better or worse) user.
Caution: Contents under pressure
Restore a way to easily disable javascript WITHOUT any extension/ going though about:config
And do so on a case-by-case basis, like NoScript. That ability lets me use badly designed websites that are nonfunctional without JS without having to allow all the JS on the page to run.
Because Firefox became Chrome Junior with their interface and stopped making the browser better. Every release had some new feature that no one asked for. A paper airplane button for sharing links with friends? Until they make something faster and less bloated I'm staying with Chrome. Apparently no one at Mozilla is old enough to remember the bloat that was IE4.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Wishful Thinking
You got this Mozilla, no really you do...
We'll make great pets
It only has it's place on my android mobile devices.. uBlock Origin + Privacy Badger. If chrome would allow for that on mobile I'd only leave it installed to debug the occasional website.
Fuck Ajit Pai
Right now, I'm using Online Bookmarks http://www.frech.ch/online-boo...
It's sparse, but it works, and I haven't found anything else that will do the job. I'll probably end up having to write one someday.
be instantly relevant:
1. don't ruin extensions
2. don't ruin the UI - go back to the old UI which doesn't hide stuff
3. stop shoving crap like pocket into the browser we don't want
The point would be to reduce the attack surface. Also, it's not a given that everyone running XP are doing anything terribly risky (although most probably are). There are ways of securing XP even without security updates for it.
Firefox feels fast again and still has lighter footprint than Chrome. I use several browsers daily but mostly Chrome and Firefox. Recently (Since the process & memory changes made it into the main release.) Firefox has become my first choice again.
If you want to compete, try to be different. Bring in features with tangible usefulness, instead of pretending to look like the latest hot cake. If I want a browser that looks like Chrome, I will use Chrome. Work on things that matters to the user, not to make you feel cool or trendy.
Two things stop me being able to recommend Firefox as the top preference,both trivial, but these are things that work in Chrome, and not Fx:
1. input type=date. Chrome has a native widget, Firefox simply doesn't do anything other than treat it as text - result, we have to embed lots of JS for this alone. Fx has had a huge debate on bugzilla about how to make the datepicker look best, and they got stuck with the debate for ages, and never implemented - I don't really care which widget set it uses, but it just needs to work.
2. the progressive web app on Chrome (Android) will run full-screen. But Firefox won't full-screen it.
Also it would be rather nice if the now 17-year-old bug with several hundred comments on "please don't let a fat-fingered ctrl-Q (when we meant ctrl-W) quit the entire browser without confirmation" could be fixed. Lastly, given that Google is clearly not Mozilla's friend, perhaps Firefox could start auto-blocking mis-features such as google-analytics tracking?
I really want Fx to do well though.
Why do they keep acting like it's a surprise! And keep asking and asking, the answers are always the same.
First, they need to know their audience! They can't compete with google/MS/Apple with the bundle and ignorant crowed. Who are they targeting? Those that know better or want something different than those.
Those that want something better don't want a clone. What do we want? A stable fast secure Web Browser, where the user is in control.
Only then, do we, the tech savvy, push FF onto our friends and family.
(I still use FF as my primary browser, and push it with some options reverted and plugins)
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
It's just the least evil, the most configurable, the most honest, and the easiest to use without worry. Go Firefox, keep kicking ass!
Mozilla lost the fight when they stopped caring what their users wanted and decided instead to try and become a Google Chrome clone.
For those uncommon features, how often do they prop up that they require you to download yet another browser?
I lack a quantitative answer to that question, but the article "Apple's Refusal To Support Progressive Web Apps is a Detriment To Future of the Web" has a qualitative one.
Firefox could make it more difficult for sites to know you're using an add blocker. The browser could download the "page they think you see" and render the page that's been filtered by your ad/script blocking plugins. Of course, users with a slow connection would need to be able to disable this feature.
As long as the whole browser doesn't freeze up every time I click a link. That's the only thing that really needed fixing. Blockheaded open source programmer obsessed with technical obscurities don't seem to get that.
I loved Firefox, but the massive memory footprint (2GB +) and constantly locking up forced me to move to Chrome.
I loved the plugins on Firefox (Ghostery, uBlock, ForecastFox...) but the browser has become so bloated with "features" no one ever uses... people use a browser for 1 thing, the more bells and whistes turns it into a different monster, how about Mozilla, you make 2 versions, i barebones one, and a fancy one... shall see what the users decide.
It's not a typo if you understood the meaning!
Exactly. What sort of cloud cuckoo-land is this guy living in where he thinks that the few remaining Firefox users, what is it now, 5%? 6%? depending on sources, are going to stick with Firefox once Mozilla kill off the sole remaining reason to stay, the extensions? It's already so bad that many sites aren't testing with Firefox any more, on Windows machines I have to go to Internet fucking Explorer to use the site because Firefox's market share is so irrelevant the site never gets tested with it. Driving the market share even lower as Mozilla is doing is a self-perpetuating death spiral.
1. Tree view in a sidebar; can open/close with a hotkey.
2. Human readable data format; if one syncs data btw. different machines, the bookmark file should be able to be synced to/from and when you open the browser, it just works without having to import/export.
3. Able to navigate the tree as well when saving new bookmarks.
4. Remember the last save-to folder.
5. A special folder for bookmarks (and folders) to appear on the (horiz.) bookmark toolbar.
6. Any other special function folders such as "recently visited," "favorites," or what have you should be able to be collapsed and not get in your face if you don't want to use them.
All of the above can (almost) be done in Firefox. Here's some ideas to make it better:
A. Make it possible to break up the description text into multiple fields; then make a column header thingy like in a file manager, so you can click the headers to automatically sort the view of the bookmarks by field, up or down. The column headers and sorting system must obey the tree hierarchy! Ie., if you can have folder "Ugh" sorted by the first field, and folder "OhNo" sorted by the second. You should also be able to move the fields on the column header bar on a folder by folder basis. This should just affect the mapping of stored fields to displayed field order. The actual fields encoded into the file remain as defined by the user.
The point of this might be: I tag some music video bookmarks with a "grade". I may want to sort them by grade today, to see my favorite ones. However, I also tag them with another thing: symbols *, #, or $ to indicate if I downloaded them already, as both .mp4&.mp3, just .mp3, or just .mp4 respectively. Tomorrow I may want to sort them by that field. See where I'm going with this? Not being able to sort by fields causes headaches, often resulting in time wasted hand editing the damn things again to try to work around the browser's limitations, to no avail.
Also, indiv. bookmarks could have a little '+' to expand/collapse the view of additional, detailed description text. This should be able to be collapsed with a hotkey and/or menu entry.
A good selection of menu options to expand/collapse all, selected folders, sub-descriptions, etc. would be killer.
B. For Pete's sake, make it possible to edit a bookmark description by simply pressing or something, instead of having to right click, "Properties". Most functionality should be reachable by using arrow keys, function keys, hotkeys, etc.
C. Be able to select groups of folders or indiv. bookmarks (as in a file manager) and selectively save just the selected ones to a file with a new name. (Some approximation to file manager style bookmark management is in Firefox, using the "Library" window. It has some very awkward and counter-intuitive behavior, however. If an additional window is needed for re-organizational tasks, then it should operate much like a file manager.
D. Don't take away the bookmark from one folder if I re-bookmark it to another!
E. The Search capabilities of Firefox for bookmarks are crappy. It throws away the tree view when a search is done. WTF? I want to know where in the tree the target is, not a list of 1000 hits with organizational context lost.
F. Finally - Some sort of SYMLINKS! E.g. I have a Shopping/Amazon/Tools and also a Mechanical/Tools. Hmm. This leads to the problem that hierarchical organization sometimes cannot adequately express the organizational relationships needed. Symlinks could greatly help this.
Some of this might seem bizarre to casual www users. But when you have 10000s of bookmarks as I do, many of which are critical sources of products and information related to real work, limitations in being able to implement sophisticated levels of organization result in more headaches.
It is the same sort of limitations that make it almost impossible for me to use Windows any more, since I simply cannot function without both the simplicity of the Linux filesystem (no unnecessary abstractions) and its sophistication (powerful symlinks).
Just some ideas. Hopefully not totally pointless to have responded to an A.C.
The old way of doing extensions does not just have big problems, it is a big problem. Firefox/Gecko is a big, complicated, messy machine with lots of moving parts, relying heavily on some technical trickery (eg., XUL, HTML entities, XBL, faking DCOM in Javascript). Old-style extensions supplant and/or replace and/or modify those parts. That lets hackers-as-in-expert-coders do great things, but also lets black-hat coders do all sorts of Bad Things. (This is why Mozilla enhanced add-ons to use digital signatures in 2015.)
Altering core browser functionality is never going to be easy, but the way Gecko is structured makes it really hard to get right, and updates for Firefox can break such extensions in hard-to-debug, hard-to-fix ways. Mozilla's response has been to avoid changing core parts of Gecko, which is part of the reason it has fallen behind newer browsers. Even extensions which just add simple features required lots of weird boilerplate (eg., "XUL overlays").
In contrast, Web Extensions are much less fragile and much easier to code and much safer in every way.
BTW, Mozilla worked with the developers of popular intrusive extensions like NoScript and Adblock Plus to enable them to port their add-ons to (or, more accurately, rewrite their extensions for) Web Extensions.
Thanks for the ideas/requirements. I too have 1000s of bookmarks. I might try to implement some of these ideas here: https://github.com/pdfernhout/...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I still use Firefox, and this site is telling me it's not "relevant".
If your particular political activity is trying to deny human rights to people - as it was in this case - that seems fair enough.
Again, even with Firefox 54, the current stable release, it's still very noticeably slower than Chrome. But if you download the nightly build of Firefox I think the speed improvement is fantastic.
There is nothing that I do in Firefox that is slow enough to be an issue. I typically only want to see information. Displaying things is usually pretty easy.
I run NoScript. Religiously. Speed is not an issue for Firefox for me.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
That's fine for you, and fine for me. But if we want Firefox to be used by more than some percentage of the browser market greater than 1%, that's not sufficient. It's best for all of us if free software browsers are the best option even for people running all of the web's bloatware. Better for freedom, for privacy, for security.
I uninstalled Firefox and switched to IceDragon after Mozilla decided that virtue signalling (firing Brendan Eich) was more important than their product.
"Some of the stuff they're doing from a technology perspective is amazing,"
So advanced technology can make it even slower and more of a resource hog?