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AskSlashdot: How Do You See Your Life After Firefox 52 ESR? (mozilla.org)
Artem Tashkinov writes: Soon to be released Firefox 56 says that out of 35+ add-ons that I have installed only a single one is a proper WebExtension which means that Firefox 57 will disable over 95% of my add-ons many of which I just cannot live without and for most of them there are simply no alternatives. This number of add-ons sound like an overkill, but actually they are all pretty neat and improve your browsing abilities. That's the reason why I'm using Firefox 52 ESR, which still fully supports XUL add-ons, however after June 2018, it will stop being supported.
Let's list the most famous ones:
Let's list the most famous ones:
- DownThemAll is still largely irreplaceable since you can download from many parts of the internet much faster if you split the downloaded files in chunks and download them simultaneously;
- GreaseMonkey allows you to fix or extend your favourite websites using JavaScript;Lazarus: Form Recovery has saved my time and life numerous times; it regularly backups the contents of web forms and allows to restore them after browser restart or accidental page refresh;
- NoScript: allows you to whitelist JS execution only for websites that you really trust; JS has been used as an attack and tracking tool since its inception;
- Status-4-Ever and Classic Theme Restorer return Firefox to the time when it was a powerful tool with its own identity and looks, and not a Chrome clone;
- UnMHT add-on allows you to save complete web pages as a single MHT file;
So what will you do less than a year from now?
Sadly, it looks like I will be using less firefox. On the plus side I will get some of that missing memory back.
Believe nothing -- Buddha
I now know what a slashvertisement for Firefox 56 looks like
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
The Mozilla codebase has proven difficult to maintain - see Pale Moon. So just forking it is problematic.
The Google and Apple submissions are under corporate control and therefore are anti-user and more importantly, can't be forked.
Opera just has never been very good.
Konqueror or Links2 perhaps?
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I run seamonkey so hopefully the Firefox team won't break the base code so badly that Seamonkey can't be built.
But since they're trying to actively kill the plugin development community, it's possible there just won't be much to install in Seamonkey.
We need to keep track of who is in charge at Firefox so we can make sure they never get our business again, no matter what project they migrate to like locusts when FF is dead.
And probably a plugin that lets me fake my browser's info to sites that ask.
Did that for FF 31 for a very long time, didn't really ever have functionality problems either. IMHO this current versioning system is complete and utter garbage as it no longer has any meaning. Used to be that the ones-digit meant a milestone. Tenths decimal was a major revision, possibly with additonal features ,but the look-and-feel remained largely the same and the user experience was similar enough that training documentation was generally valid. Hundredths decimal was minor, minor tweaks only, usually bugfixes.
most of what I see coming out of FF now is hundredths-decimal changes. Sometimes it's tenths. I'm not even sure when it's ones/units anymore. Maybe FF 57 would count. In short though, I don't really care anymore and I only use FF because I used Netscape and then Mozilla and then FF, so if FF gets too dissimilar to what I'm used to or too similar to other offerings then I probably have no reason to bother keeping with it anymore.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I suppose it'll be something else. There are other options and I'm going to start exploring them now. Maybe FF will get their sh*t together in the meantime.
Honestly, the primary add-on that kept me in Firefox was TabGroups, which at least for FF57 won't be possible with WebExtensions. They finally came to an agreement on an API in early August that would re-enable extensions like TabGroups to work under WebExtensions, but before that work is completed it won't even be possible.
So yeah - once they announced the move to WebExtensions from XUL I started looking at Chrome since it was clear that Mozilla didn't really care about their users or why people actually used Firefox to start with. I may reconsider once TabGroups is available in Firefox again, but the ship may have already sailed on the future viability of Firefox now that they're killing all their XUL extensions.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
FireFox stopped allowing key add-ons I use already, because the authors have not created signed versions. So I had to reinstall version 47, where I could at least tell it to accept the fact that they add-on wasn't signed.
If Mozilla doesn't come up with a way of keeping the extensions we have grown to love firefox for, I guess I won't be using FireFox. It is strange that Mozilla would not have taken this into account. I've been playing with Vivaldi and I'm a fan of the browser (as well as his music) Have Vivaldi with Umatrix installed, which is like "NoScript" on steroids. So for me Vivaldi is a good alternative to Firefox.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
NoScript
Because NoScript is migrating to WebExtensions API. I believe that Classic Theme Restorer has already proclaimed that they won't. Don't know about the rest.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
My list, updated from the list I posted to another story. Every add-on is marked "Legacy" in Firefox version 55.0.3 64-bits.
"This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017."
"This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017 and Mozilla drops support for XUL / XPCOM / legacy add-ons. It should still work on Firefox 52 ESR until ESR moves to Firefox 59 ESR in 2018 (~Q2)".
"There is no 'please port it' or 'please add support for it' this time, because the entire add-on eco system changes and the technology behind this kind of add-on gets dropped without replacement."
USE THIS: ghostery-5.4.10-sm+an+fx.xpi Link: Version 5.4.10
Ghostery sells data it collects. (Business Insider, Jun 18, 2013)
Ghostery web site
It's been about a year, and Firefox hasn't given me a single reason to come back.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I'll probably switch to Pale Moon. Even has the old school UI that I like.
Current plugins installed:
NoScript *INDISPENSABLE*
GreaseMonkey
Nuke Anything
DownThemAll
VideoDownloadHelper
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Pale Moon and Waterfox are useful, but we need to get developers to coup Mozilla and force them to keep the tried and trusted extension APIs and fix the user inteface which is getting flat and clippyfied. Firefox is necessary to stop a Chrome only or IE/Edge only web, that's why we used Firefox in the first place. We can do it. X.org took over from XFree86, EGCS and GCC merged, Devuan stopped SystemD in Debian and Bitcoin Cash saved Bitcoin. Now we need to launch operation FreedomFox.
More Chrome or Chromium profiles until some of the add-ins catch up. Without AdBlock Plus, NoScript, and HTTPS Everywhere the web is nearly unusable. Without TabMixPlus and Xmarks, it's a lot less convenient.
-- "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." - R.A.H.
This list is ridiculous because Greasemonkey and Lazarus already have Webextension versions (i.e. they already exist for Chrome) and Noscript has one in the works. There's half the list.
There are certainly a few extensions I'm going to miss but this really did need to happen. Current Firefox performance is awful compared to Chrome. The nightly builds of F57 already have enormous performance gains over the stable build from yanking out huge amounts of legacy code. Webextensions will definitely be less capable than the old system but Mozilla is actively working with extension developers to enable at least some stuff that's impossible in Chrome (i.e. Noscript).
After updating to Firefox I-don't-support-your-plugins-anymore version, and suffer the loss of O(200) tabs in tab mix plus, I finally switched to Chrome...
Fuck you Firefox. Fuck you.
To Chromium for Windows: https://chromium.woolyss.com/
I already switched to Palemoon. I have 19 extensions (including many of the ones you mentioned) and they all worked with Palemoon. A few of them even had native Palemoon versions.
But right now, it's looking like I'll be switching to Pale Moon.
Using Pale Moon instead.
How Do You See Your Life After Firefox 52 ESR?
If my life was significantly different after a new release of any software, I think I'd see my life as re-evaluating whatever life choices made that software such a significant part of my life.
Track poor managers: Quoted from the parent comment: "We need to keep track of who is in charge at Firefox so we can make sure they never get our business again, no matter what project they migrate to like locusts when FF is dead."
I used Netscape Communicator 4.7 way longer than I should have. Keep the installer bundle and run until she dies or you find a replacement.
Or find a fork.
Yes, Firefox seem to be adept at shooting itself in the foot, but this time Mozilla will lose a very significant segment of their user base: There is a large user base who depend on the Add-On's which make Firefox so useful. The real showstopper for me is AdBlock Plus. Best we can do now is NOT update and keep checking on "Legacy" items in our Add-On's to which vendors have re-coded. Likely most will not within a decent time frame so I'll probably be jumping ship along with the other heavy Add-On users.
I have already switched to Pale Moon for Windows. I also did the same for my Mac, even though Pale Moon is still experimental on macOS and I needed to do a long search for its latest version. (If you are interested, it is here.
--- Andy West http://andywest.org
https://servo.org/ Browsers engines are hugely complicated, and forking then will always be hard, very hard.
Mozilla Firefox is and will remain the best option... with the work being put into servo and features being ported over to firefox we're seeing dramatic performance improvements coming up...
Extensions breaking is always sad, but there is finally a WebExtensions spec, so breakage can be prevented in the future. The reason extensions are breaking is because they historically have been tied to semi-internal APIs; and have been holding back development... In fact the power previously given to extensions could be considered dangerous.
The developers seem to be taking Firefox in a direction that results in a second-class clone of google's Chrome. If I had wanted to use Chrome, I'd be using Chrome. So it looks like, for me at least, the answer to the question is - I'll be looking for something to replace Firefox if what I need stops working. It's really a simple decision. I use software to help me solve problems, not to create more problems.
I've been putting it off because the APIs aren't completely settled and I don't much relish the thought of doing it twice (my app's a tricky beast thanks to some quirks of Windows pathing among other things). I think that's the biggest problem. Firefox is making all these changes but they haven't really settled them, meanwhile they're rolling them out to production. I'm guessing that since they just don't have the money they used to they haven't got a lot of other options besides what's basically an all inclusive beta program.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Depends on the addon. The new API is much less powerful than the old, and some things that plugins can do right now won't be possible after 56. Classic Theme Restorer, for example, is impossible to replicate (according to Mozilla).
Some people like cross platform browsers because they, you know, use more than one platform.
There's a lot of FUD in this post.
Of the extensions OP listed, several either have WebExtensions ports or are in the progress of them.
Greasemoney has a WebExtensions alpha and is aiming for a full release in in 4.0.
Lazarus is being forked to be ported over.
NoScript already works with WebExtensions.
UnMHT has been broken since e10s, forget even WebExtensions.
DownThemAll is working off of an incorrect premise. (Chunk downloading hasn't been actually faster for a while.)
I used to use opera because it had tabs when others didn't, handled pop ups better, and it was so much faster than any other browser. Now it's just like chrome and safari for speed and everyone has tabs, pop up, and ad blockers now.
I'll just keep using Chrome.
No source code, not even a github or bitbucket link? Really?
You expect me to use a browser from 4chan (the retched hive of scum and villainy of the internet)? Does it include any extra features, like BackOrifice or some similar remote access software?
Umm, No. Just No.
Konqueror has had several revamps. In order, they were called Safari, Chrome, and Vivaldi.
With the old version of FF entering the warning track - I've decided that I'll take the time to upgrade everything.
Getting rid of my flip phone and moving to Windows Phone.
Upgrading from Windows XP to Ubuntu Satanic.
FF ESR to Opera !!
there. now I'll be current and fashionable.
sorry for poking fun at the OP. But this is why companies (like major air traffic control systems) still run on XP. It was as good as it ever got - and too many reasons to stay behind. Adapt or get run over by the wheel progress.
If you don't get the euphemism, don't comment. "Life After" is not how it affects your life, it means how things change after an event. It can be significant (life after cancer), or something simple (life after Twinkies).
While agree with the gist of your comment, this little gem leads me to believe the poster is leaning more towards "life after cancer". Or maybe "life after death". Firefox 57 will disable over 95% of my add-ons many of which I just cannot live without [emphasis added].
I abandoned Firefox after using it almost the entire time of it's existence when they decided to start adding 3rd party widgets (Pocket; Hello). Look at Chrome/Opera/Safari, whatever floats your boat. Chrome has made some decisions lately that, while good for the "world" are somewhat hostile to the individual/business trying to use Chrome to deliver antiquated, craptastic enterprise software, but was still my choice at the end.
Not because the addon is a security risk, but because Moonchild thinks the threat of losing revenue is more important than freedom of choice. Use a browser that respects your freedoms
Not exactly what the post said, but close. I mostly agree with his assessment of the plugin, and I don't see a problem with tweaking a config option to re-enable it. Heck, I wouldn't have a problem recompiling Pale Moon sans the block list if it's that big of a deal. To me, it isn't.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Respectfully, I disagree. The headline title is intentionally provocative, and the parent makes a funny and relevant point. As a point of reference, I remember my cousin's GF being all sorts of bewildered that my wife and I hadn't yet jumped on the smartphone bandwagon when Apple had released their smartphone. She said, "Oh my god you need one of these. It will change your life." Ehh, maybe it changed her life, but mine is pretty much the same after getting around to buying said device. Personally I bailed on Firefox a long time ago in favor of Chrome. It had a negligible impact on the way I work, but not what I would call a life-altering experience...
As an old timer grey beard, I can honestly say I have said "I cannot live without" some tech that was great and is now gone without a replacement. I can also confirm, I lived.
I try not to be so hyperbolic about tech I can or cannot live without. "Yeah, it sucks" is my normal reaction these days.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
So basically there'll be a new version that supports only a different sort of browser add-on using a different API, and not that it won't suport ANY add-ons? Wha'ts the big deal? I'll just keep using what I have until such a time that the new-and-shiny version that supports add-ons using the new API has all the add-ons that I want, then I'll worry about switching over. Why is this even a big deal? What am I missing, that someone else is getting all anxious over it?
uBlock Origin is working fine for me right now on FireFox 57 nightly.
I really don't want to use a python interpreter in my web browser.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
It seemed every other release would break most of my add-ons and I'd have to wait for the devs to update their stuff. Now that they will intentionally kill them all, I certainly have no reason to go back.
ESR and Developer Edition allow disabling signature checks. But I thought Mozilla already signed all extensions distributed through addons.mozilla.org. Therefore, I can only assume that the extensions were distributed outside addons.mozilla.org. Have you contacted the authors to request a signed version, or if not, to see if you could become the new maintainer? If so, what was the reply?
Opera lost me for being the browser that decided it didn't need to use all the same keyboard shortcuts as any Mosaic-derived (Netscape, Spyglass, IE..) software and for being the only browser for a long, long time that thought it did something worthy of making it non-free commercial software. In my experience, Opera-Classic was also by far the crashiest browser I used over its life. It had fantastic crash recovery, but holy god did it need it.
Opera was also very late in getting addons and customization. It's nice that it kinda-sorta had some power user features, but nothing it ever did was as compelling the Mozilla feature set at any point in its history, up to and including today.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
The main reason that I stick with Firefox is the NoScript extension. If that stops being available for Firefox, I will stop using Firefox.
Javascript is the vector for 99% of the attacks on the Internet. There is no substitute for an extension that shows you what scripts a page wants to run and allows you to selective enable those sources - either temporarily or permanently.
As an old timer grey beard, I can honestly say I have said "I cannot live without" some tech that was great and is now gone without a replacement. I can also confirm, I lived.
I try not to be so hyperbolic about tech I can or cannot live without. "Yeah, it sucks" is my normal reaction these days.
Same here. Of course, there definitely is tech that some people literally cannot live without - pacemakers and dialysis machines come to mind; I'm sure there are many others.
So.. guess who won't be updating.
"The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
Wow oh wow how Firefox the favorite of old slashdot and geeks had mighty fallen.
Oddly Firefox 10 years ago is what Chrome was today. A new leaner faster browser without the bloat and was an experimental patch of Mozilla. Today Firefox is like IE. Old, insecure, and breaks between releases.
Firefox can not have sandboxing with %appdata to lowrights catching it up with IE 8 and Chrome 1.0 (2009 era security) so congrats. My last sentence was not meant to be flamebait but I have seen too many infections with Firefox as an ad can watch passwords being entered in from anotehr tab. Chrome and IE 8+ have procceses and kernel level sandboxing in Windows to avoid this and can run on more than 1 core to boot!
The other last sentence again was not flamebait but highlights why I and others have left. It got slow and couldn't take advantage of modern hardware until just a few months ago.
I think it would have been best if Mozilla made a new -webkit or electron based browser as this is what all the kids are doing today from scratch or at least redesign their own engine and make a do over? This is why Google used Webkit as the emails noticed Chrome OS/Browser was based on Gecko before they trashed it as too inflexible They kind of did which is why 95% of all the extensions closed but in 2017 we use apps to do these things and not run everything in a browser.
It astounds me as I can not image myself writing such drivel in 2007! But like RealNetworks, Netscape, WinAMP, Wordperfect, and the graveyard before it that times do change.
http://saveie6.com/
Use Pocket. It's called progress.
I am aware that Pocket allows archiving HTML documents within Pocket's private storage for later reading. But can Pocket export an archived document as it appeared on a given date? Does Pocket let you preserve a document version across multiple machines and share that version with other users who aren't also Pocket members? Or does it instead re-fetch the latest version of the document when you sync your list to a new Firefox installation, and allow sharing only the URL?
I gave up on Firefox a long time ago, after far too many crashes. XUL is pretty badly designed as an extension API. Many had asked firefox devs, nevertheless, about the possibility of maintaining backwards compatability with existing plugins, only requring the new API for new plugins. They said that such major changes were planned to browser internals that the amount of porting it would take for plugin developers just to keep up would mean a major rewrite of plugins anyway.
XUL and friends is a very low level interface, and is extremely unsafe since it exposes so much of the browser internals. This is a serious security problem. It is infeasible for the browser maintainers to verify the safety of these extensions. WebExtensions will improve security greatly. Really, Ive always thought the way Firefox does extensions is foolish for this reason and just asking for trouble.
WebExtensions does have an advantage, its compatable with Google Chrome, so if you do port, your extensions become available to many more people.
yes, it would be nice if there was a way to keep XUL for existing extensions only, and only require Web Extensions for new extensions. But really, XUL is pretty bad from the security standpoint.
OK.
I'll check back in with FF in 5 years, then.
Just installed WaterFox, and it imported my profile and all addons automatically, and away I go. Am going to have to retrain NoBlock, but this is great.
Ha, I like how they've changed the "LEGACY" flag to "FULL ADD-ON". From the patch notes -
So, I've found my FireFox replacement.. Thanks anonymous!
"The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
Well, nevermind, this solves all my problems. https://ask.slashdot.org/comme...
"The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
however after June 2018, it will stop being supported... So what will you do less than a year from now?
Well, since the release calendar shows ESR 59.0 available on March 5, 2018, I'll probably be using that. Seems a safe bet that by then most extensions will work with it. Is there more to this question, or was this just so you could list some of your favorite extensions? (And how could you not list Adblock Plus?)
It's like Firefox before Mozilla started sucking.
All of the Firefox add-ons I use (17 of them) are either already compliant or will be by the deadline... Thus, I see it as a non-issue...
Has anyone tried Otter Browser?
I just stumbled across it the other day in the Centos NUX repository and it looks like it might be interesting, though I haven't installed it to play with yet.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Also, right now we are in hybrid add-on, many already deploy webextension support, but keep compatibility with old add-on too. This hybrid add-ons are still marked as legacy, but relly are not.
Higuita
Others?
Finding God in a Dog
you do not need that much time, but until the end of the year you should get a huge amount of add-on migrated... that percentage of the current add-on is that is unknown
But anyway, what are you going to use instead? chrome with all the tracking, huge memory requirements and also lack of most good add-ons? even without add-on, firefox is still better
Higuita
why don't you list all the options the bring NoScript to other browsers then because NoScript doesn't just stop foreign script it stops sites other than the one you are browsing to track you.... Google will never implement this nor microsoft and if you can't go with a resource like FireFox that has a large base then you end up with some shit browser that never has any security testing.. I don't just find it offensive i find it indefensible that there is no option for NoScript on other browsers or that Firefox will do away with it.
I don't think I ever remember opera crashing on me except on pages with malicious content browser high jackers, pop unders, full screen pop ups, and the like turning scripting off was easy and took care of that though it didn't have an exception list it was just a checkbox on a menu that you could switch off and on.
The new opera may as well be chrome.
I've looked at vivaldi and am waiting for it to get a little more mature now that it has a fairly standard set of features I'm hoping it will get faster and more stable and that it does something that will differentiate it from the rest.
I can't wait to see how awful the web has become. :(
While NoScript is getting ported to WebExtensions, and GreaseMonkey is trying to port to WebExtensions, other useful extensions like Self-Destructing Cookies are giving up entirely [This add-on is no longer maintained. It is incompatible with Firefox 55+ and this will never change. Also, it will not be rewritten as a WebExtension.].
The site Are we WebExtensions Yet? lists some of Firefox's most popular extensions and their porting status to WebExtensions.
OK, so some Firefox extensions go west. Nobody seems to have mentioned that Brendan Eich has left Mozilla and has his own browser now. What's the state of extensions in Brave? Is it just me who sees an opportunity here?
I still haven't completed my assessment of the options, but right now, Pale Moon is looking most likely. If your prediction is correct, I may not have to change browsers. We'll see, but things are looking pretty grim.
I consider Classic Theme Restorer mandatory, and Mozilla says that something like that is simply impossible under the new scheme. If they make the UI configurable enough, I wouldn't need something like that. However, the entire direction of Firefox over the past couple of years has been away from allowing that amount of configurability, so it seems exceedingly unlikely that they'll have a change of heart this late in the game.
It's annoying when things are in different places.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm the same. TabGroups is very hard for me to live without.
Did you find anything usable for Chrome? I'm trying out TabsFolder currently, but the inability to move tabs around between existing groups is making it barely useful for me.
I use TabGroups to context-switch between different work projects, different personal research projects, etc. It makes my work day SO MUCH easier to handle.
I'd be open to totally different approaches to my problem - how to stop using a bunch of websites, easily switch to doing something different, and easily switch back later. And move things from one group/context/session/whatever to another. It doesn't have to look or feel like TabGroups as long as I can switch contexts relatively efficiently. It doesn't necessarily have to preserve per-tab history, though that is sometimes convenient.
Unfortunately I upgraded to 55 before finding out that a downgrade is no longer possible without borking the profile, so no 52ESR for me. Grrr!
I understand that there are several options, including Pale Moon, Waterfox and Seamonkey.
How do they compare? Which one has better compatibility with old extensions?
One thing that I liked is the ability to sync bookmarks and passwords between desktop and mobile. Can any of the above do that?
type "about:config" in the address bar search for "extensions.legacy.enabled"
double-click it until it says "true"
That's it. Surely wise techies can muddle through such instructions?
Of course they can. Wise techies have also heard Mozilla when they said that config switch will not be there when 57 is actually released.
I try not to be so hyperbolic about tech I can or cannot live without. "Yeah, it sucks" is my normal reaction these days.
I'm sure I could even live without a graphical webbrowser. There are a lot of things you can live without if you must. When did such hyperbole become so fashionable? And why hasn't years of derision suppressed such hyperbole?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
"Mozilla is exceptionally bad."
Is Microsoft intentionally destroying Firefox? Mozilla Foundation is practically owned by Microsoft, through Yahoo:
When Google stopped paying Mozilla Foundation $300,000,000 each year (Dec. 22, 2011), Mozilla Foundation took money from Yahoo to sneakily "update" Firefox so that it uses "Yahoo search". Yahoo search is actually Microsoft's Bing search. A quote from Marissa:
"I'm thrilled to announce that we've entered into a five-year partnership with Mozilla to make Yahoo the default search experience on Firefox across mobile and desktop," Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer said in a blog post Wednesday. "This is the most significant partnership for Yahoo in five years."
Now, somehow, the Firefox and Thunderbird user interfaces have been degraded. Firefox no longer allows making a duplicate tab from a tab; it is necessary to right-click on a web page to make a duplicate; that doesn't work well because it is necessary to find a place on the web page that is not a link.
Thunderbird and SeaMonkey composer now have the Save-As bug.
Microsoft paid Yahoo. Yahoo paid Mozilla Foundation to trick users into using Microsoft's Bing search engine. And now Mozilla Foundation is apparently allowing the degradation of its products. Apparently Microsoft wants Firefox and Thunderbird to be degraded that so there will be more users of Microsoft's browser and email software.
The sneaky tactic is not working: American Firefox users dump Yahoo and go back to Google. (January 13, 2015)
Then: Yahoo's Incredible Shrinking Profitability In Its Core Business (Forbes, March 1, 2015).
Yahoo has been EXTREMELY badly managed:
After Terry Semel, and before Marissa Meyer, there were 5 Yahoo CEOs who stayed less than 2 years each.
Nothing has changed, apparently. Marissa Mayer's second-in-command 'leaves with $109m' on being fired from Yahoo after just 15 months. (January 16, 2014) The rapid changes in management continue, that time with a $109,000,000 loss for Yahoo. (What management arrangement allowed a poor manager, someone who was so bad he was fired, to make $7,266,666 per month?)
Maybe that explains the bad management of Mozilla Foundation. It is possible the story needs updating.
55.0.2 on Linux still runs my two can-not-live-without plugins -- NoScript and Tree Style Tabs.
Chrome, alas, has nothing like Tree Style Tabs. (Yeah, there's a plugin that does that hideous separate window thing, but that's hardly an adequate alternative.)
I'll just have to be sure and disable updates until and unless Tree Style Tabs has a WebExtension version.
Firefox has been increasingly defeatured over the past year or two. And to make matters worse, the FF developers consider that a feature.
The first big one was requiring add-ons to be signed by Mozilla, putatively to protect users (because Mozilla would inspect the code). That was sort of OK-ish at first, because there was a preference that could be set to turn that off, but they did (as promised) get rid of that option in FF 52. The stated intent was that people could be hurt by rogue extensions coming with instructions about how to turn off the signature enforcement. But it turns out that there is still a saving throw; only add-ons require signature enforcement; other types of addons (such as themes) don't, and the ones that do are listed in a file. Maybe the Mozilla people did that by intent, so that someone who wants to run unsigned extensions badly enough can do so. But yes, this means that you can't run your own extensions in your own browser, unless you submit each new version to Mozilla (not necessarily make it public), or you use the developer version.
(This was never implemented for the long-term support versions; these versions are intended for corporate use, and they know that corporations won't allow their code to be submitted for inspection.)
But the really big change, as of FF57, is to get rid of all of the old extensions altogether in favor of "WebExtensions", which use an API supposedly much more like that of Chrome, to make it easier to port addons between browsers. This strikes me as a highly self-destructive act (why use fake Chrome rather than the real thing?), but that's what they want to do. The problem is, as the OP noted, that none of the classic extensions are WebExtensions, so they're basically destroying their ecosystem overnight.
Seriously? How do I see my life after a piece of software is released? Seriously?
I tend to rant.
One of my children wrote a school report about hyperbole a number of years ago. She started it with the sentence "Hyperbole is the best thing ever."
I was very proud.
It wouldn't surprise me if some people's pacemakers are controlled by Firefox extensions. Or IE 6 ActiveX controls.
This space intentionally left blank
However, the Palemoon site only has Palemoon explicit addons/extensions. When Firefox drops support for current addons, one would expect them to delete them all from their site as well. Someone better mirror before they are gone forever.
But to do that, I'd have to use a Mac.
Yes.
With the new API, it's impossible to do obvious things you would like to do in an add-on, like creating a side-panel, or adding an extra menu item.
Also, there's no way to step through an animated image, other than doing something very shitty and complicated, like setting a timer to repeatedly render it on a canvas.
There's no way to stop animated favicons in tab titles or history menus at all ;-)
There is no way to enumerate all listeners registered on an element.
There's also no way to replace the whole data of an HTTP response, other than by redirecting it -- which is not transparent, and would fail with the very pages where such a thing would be useful.
And these are things I tried to do in my silly, ~1.2k lines, own-use extension. I can only image the pain and disgust of the people that have invested their time in writing and maintaining a real extensions, with real users.
I don't think I ever remember opera crashing on me
Crashing is primarily what I think of when I think of Opera. My experience was horrible. That was years ago, and they probably (I hope!) fixed that since then, but it was certainly something that came with Opera for me.
WebExtensions require the page to be processed twice before blocking actually works, since uBlock WebEx cannot intercept connections before they start.
The WebEx version uses more RAM and bandwidth as a result, because you're still loading the bloated assets.
For Silicon Valley and developers, it's no big deal. For everyone else it's an unacceptable use of resources.
If it keeps on, the Web as we currently know it will die as people move away from ad- and script-ridden bullshit.
NoScript is ready for the new mechanism. Check their website.
Look just because you are an Apple/Google/Microsoft shill doesn't imply that everyone else is.
Maybe you should pay more attention to history then to bitch about other people's choices who value freedom and options for the browser to work the way we want it -- even if you don't.
--
Atheist, noun, a spiritual blind man arguing with the rest of the world that color doesn't exist and everyone should all be blind like him.
Theist, noun, someone with spiritual monochromatic vision who argues that everyone else seeing in other colors is wrong.
"if your life is affected by a browser, you need to re-evaluate your life."
it's probably because your browser provider has just sold your personal information to some hacker, who has just assumed your identity and sold your house, told your employer you are quitting your job because the company stinks, divorced and deported your wife, and sold your kids into slavery.
NSAPI is required for some of the applications I need to support at work, so in order to make everything work, I installed Firefox 51 and disabled updates. In addition to installing Firefox 51, I made sure I downloaded the complete Firefox 51 installation executable so that I could install it anytime I needed it. Firefox 52 does allow the plugins to work, but you need to do some backend configurations, so I just stop at Firefox 51. This has been a real problem since Google Chrome disabled NSAPI a little while ago and all other major browsers do not support it now. I just say get Firefox 51 and disable all updates.
The correct answer for me has been Palemoon, which continues to do all the stuff I like about Firefox, with a UI I like and all the add-ons I need. I realize that it's a lost cause in the long term since it doesn't have the developer resources to get a highly tuned JavaScript interpreter or whatever weirdo DRM video formats we might have on the horizon, but for now I think it's the best of my available options.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Moving to a standards based plug-in system that allows plug-ins to work with Firefox, Chrome and Microsoft Edge with minimal tweaking sounds like a step forward.
I hope the teacher gave her a good grade for that. It's not just funny, it's a damn good example of effectively conveying a message.
I'm the same. TabGroups is very hard for me to live without.
Did you find anything usable for Chrome? I'm trying out TabsFolder currently, but the inability to move tabs around between existing groups is making it barely useful for me.
I have not. Nothing provides the same kind of functionality. Best I found in Chrome is Chrome's native "pin" tab functionality, but then the window gets overloaded with tabs very easy and there's no easy means (like with TabGroups) to switch to a tab. TabGroup's tab manager and the fact that each group is loaded/unloaded are really the keys to the success of TabGroups. About the only way to improve TabGroups is to manage multiple windows enabling multiple groups to be loaded simultaneously.
I use TabGroups to context-switch between different work projects, different personal research projects, etc. It makes my work day SO MUCH easier to handle.
I'd be open to totally different approaches to my problem - how to stop using a bunch of websites, easily switch to doing something different, and easily switch back later. And move things from one group/context/session/whatever to another. It doesn't have to look or feel like TabGroups as long as I can switch contexts relatively efficiently. It doesn't necessarily have to preserve per-tab history, though that is sometimes convenient.
I do the same kind of thing. Each tab group is a context/activity. The same URL might be opened in a few different tab groups. Works wonders to keep me down to a single window, and keep things well organized.
Also, Firefox's native "don't load tab until clicked" is far superior to the extension in Chrome that enables the same thing.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Servo doesn't even attempt to be a good experience and probably never will. That's not the point. It's a testbed and a technology preview. It is ONLY meant to be useful to developers, as it provides the framework to be able to build and test extremely experemental code apart from Firefox before that code is turned into stable components to be used in Firefox.
Everybody watching from the outside thought the plan was to make Servo a replacement for Firefox. If you've actually followed the project, you'd know that's not how it's working - Servo is nothing more than a set of scaffolding for them. Firefox won't be replaced by servo, it will be rewritten one subsystem at a time.
Oh, and by the way, as many of those pieces have been matured in Servo, they've begun to include them in firefox and it's already produced huge performance wins, most of which are only in nightly right now. Take a look at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quant... and the presentation there, and try Nightly with the Stylo subsystem (new CSS backend) enabled and see how much faster it is :)
Because Firefox is our main productivity tool that they have decided to break or cripple over the last year leading up to putting it to death for us with Firefox 57. Since I have been going through this over the last year I am not seeing add-on's we use updated to work with newer versions of Firefox. So your post is woefully inaccurate.
Most crucial to me for years now is using the Firebug add-on along with it's numerous Firebug add-ons that many other developers provide. It is an absolutely crucial add-on for myself and my team. These Firebug add-on's are all legacy now, with no plans for an update and Firebug has discontinued it in favor of FF Developer Tools. However the FF Developer Tools UI pretty add-on is an unwieldy to a point of being complete and utter shit. Simple tasks take seconds to a minute longer using it's cumbersome UI rather than what the instantaneous Firebug and it's numerous tool shortcuts provided. So it really is not an option or point in using the developer tools in place of Firebug. So those of us that came to rely on Firebug and it's many add-on are screwed now.
So here he had for years Firefox and it's many add-on's providing an amazing product tool being completely crippled, and for what?
If your a Long time Firefox user like me. (Value your privacy.) Brave Browser is worth a look. Project is led by the co-founder of the Mozilla Project and creator of JavaScript, Brendan Eich and it is FAST. Like faster than Chrome and Firefox - has https everywhere and add blocking built in like never seen before. This thing is revolutionary keep an eye on it.
Love it! Your kids are going to do OK.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
you think that apple/safari do not spy you?!! :D
and how about missing features?
finally, unless you have a MacOS, have you tested safari in windows? it's junk!
Higuita
I use DownThemAll daily and they can't upgrade as many of the OS/filesystem related functions they need simply don't exist in the new API, so I'm staying with 56 no matter what.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Like the vast majority of users, I use Chrome anyway.
...like Safari.
First and foremost: why do you begin your comment at the title? Do you like seeing that "like Safari" alone? Because that's what most people reading will see. Almost no one reads post titles.
As for actually using Safari, that requires a computer that'd require, here in Brazil, paying at a minimum 36 monthly installments of up to 15% of one's monthly wages. Besides, even on Macs most users go for Chrome because, of all reasons, favicons on tabs.
So, no.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Using ESR only delays the issue until the ESR runs out.
I have three different add-ons to allow security camera monitoring. All three developers have decided the FF market is too small to jump through hoops, so they recommend migrating to IE.
they'll be left maintaining a parallel branch that will continue to diverge as time goes by
This is my hope. As you say, the other option is to eventually rebase from 57 or later. If that happens, then there won't be any reason to use Pale Moon.
"if your life is affected by a browser, you need to re-evaluate your life."
it's probably because your browser provider has just sold your personal information to some hacker, who has just assumed your identity and sold your house, told your employer you are quitting your job because the company stinks, divorced and deported your wife, and sold your kids into slavery.
AMEN!
Anyone find a replacement for Firebug and it's many add-ons?
Most crucial to me for years now is using the Firebug add-on along with it's numerous third party Firebug add-ons that many other developers provide. It is an absolutely crucial add-on for myself and my team. These Firebug add-on's are all legacy now, with no plans for an update and Firebug has discontinued it in favor of Firefox Developer Tools.
However the Firefox Developer Tools UI pretty add-on is an unwieldy to a point of being complete and utter shit. Simple tasks take seconds to a minute longer using it's slow and cumbersome UI rather than the instantaneous shortcuts and speed that Firebug provided. Many features and add-ons we had with Firebug are no longer available with the Firefox Developer Tools. So it really is not an option or any point in using the Firefox developer tools in place of Firebug.
Those of us that came to rely on Firebug and it's many add-on are screwed now. So here we had for years Firefox and it's many add-on's providing an amazing product tool being completely crippled, and for what?
I'm sticking at 52ESR. With every update I've lost something I really missed. No more.
searching the PM plugins interface yields VideoDownloadHelper 4.9.24.1-signed, is this not what you're after?
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
why hasn't years of derision suppressed such hyperbole?
Because Slashdot was purchased by the mainstream media.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Not much choice here. I have 2 indispensable addons (Tabmix plus and ADblocl Plus) plus three more I have written myself.
QuickPasswords - for maintaining passwords and quickly accessing them using the built in password manager. includes import / export and SSO change. This one is pretty impossible to port to a web extension, plus I feel it would actually make it less secure. I don't know whether firefox is going to completely remove the ability to display modeless windows (xul based dialogs) so I don't feel very motivated to rewrite it. Chances are that some of its functionality is eventually going to be offered by Firefox itself but I am not holding my breath.
Zombie Keys - for entering Umlauts and other non English diacritics without remembering Unicode numbers this one also works neatly in Thunderbird. Works both in the pages as also in every "chrome" input box such as the search box. Probably the most likely candidate for turning into a web extension, but I do like the fact that it currently runs in browser elements (such as the search box) without having to exclusively live within the browser window
Menu On Top - just a styling thing, I like it though as it give a mini bookmark menu and a nice personalisation of all my profiles (who doesn't love LOL chibis and Pepes) which somehow overcomes the blandness of modern "minimal" UIs. Guess this is going to go the way of the dodo, just as full themes will.
Overall, not too happy about the process of having a faster better browser with much less functionality. Not going to switch to chrome, because its just the same experience anyway, just shilled out by an even larger corporation. Also entering something in the search box and then being impolitely redirected to a different GUI element somewhere else on the screen, not a good or safe user experience. I don't like the philosophy "the web is the platform", I prefer my programs running on my desktop and the web being just merely content.
uBlock Origin already works, as does HTTPS Everywhere, and Privacy Badger.
The number 1 feature of Firefox over its rivals is the availability of plugins that let you work how you like to work. When plugins stop working, there's no reason to Firefox.
What I'll be doing less than a year from now is not updating FF.
Of the couple of dozen or so add-ons installed over the years, I only use a handful on a regular basis, and one of those (probably in the minority here) is Tab Groups. The author has already stated he's not converting it to the new system, and has released the source, but the voluminous free time it would take for me to do the port is not alas in my current repertoire.
If Mozilla wants even a chance at staying relevant, they should let the program run both WebExtension or XUML as needed.
No sense completely alienating your customer base; especially when you're no longer #1.
I'm happy with downloads.iridiumbrowser.de
Casteism
Strawman. Nobody said they couldn't figure it out, you arrogant little cowcunt.
Interface guidelines exist because consistency is a good thing.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I made a note of that in my list. Thanks.