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Mozilla to Remove Legacy Firefox Add-Ons From Add-On Portal in Early October (bleepingcomputer.com)
Mozilla announced today plans to remove all Firefox legacy add-ons from the official Mozilla add-ons portal in early October. From a report: The move comes after Mozilla updated the Firefox core to use a new add-ons system based on the Chrome-compatible WebExtensions API. This new add-ons API replaced Firefox's old XUL-based add-ons API in November 2017, with the release of Firefox 57. All Firefox legacy add-ons stopped working in Firefox 57, but Mozilla continued to support them in the Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) 52 branch. Support for Firefox ESR 52 will end on September 5, in two weeks, meaning there won't be any official Firefox version that supports legacy add-ons anymore.
I still use version 56, because no one has a substitute for DownThemAll. Now Mozilla won't even give anybody DownThemAll anymore.
At this point they are just hammering additional nails into Firefox's coffin.
Just use Vivaldi
Joking aside, is it REALLY that much a of a problem to keep Legacy extensions, sorry, "Add-Ons" on a different "space" of the website??? Are they afraid people will get "confused" and try to install them on the new version? Mozilla is losing out on the ability to see WHAT is popular and WHY it is popular. If they were smart they would provide alternative URLs for extensions that work in the new version. Too bad this "telemetry" data doesn't have any value for them.
I get it that they want to push everyone onto the latest shiny. Unfortunately, the harder they push, the more backlash there will be and people just go "Fuck it. I'll just use Pale Moon, etc." where their extensions continue to work.
Guess it is just another sign of Mozilla continuing to jump the shark / nuke the fridge / etc. on slowly becoming irrelevant and losing touch with what people want in a browser.
WaterFox and PaleMoon are FF alternatives that support the old add-ons. I wonder if the add-ons will be available somewhere else?
Thank you Mozilla.
The gold rush is now on to create clones of the Add-on website.
Who will we trust now that Mozilla is abandoning the legacy users?
PaleMoon?
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
That's odd that they'd even want to do that.
Is there any other place those will remain available?
I don't plan on ever using any version of Firefox after the 52 ESR, largely because of the lost functionality of the newer add-ons.
What's the point of Firefox if you can't properly customize it?
Seem really odd to me.
Ryan Fenton
FF is barely at 5% market share and have been steadily falling since they killed the old addons. They will be completely irrelevant in a year or 2.
Could it be, the switch is one of Google's condition for financing Mozilla? To make it easier for users to switch to Chrome?
The demotion of Thunderbird may be similarly explained by Google's influence, because the application competes with GMail's web-interface.
But, at least, they no longer have a homophobe running the show so they have that going for them, which is nice.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
They need to purge all the forum, help, blog, bug, etc. posts related to pre-v.57 as well. Can't count how many times I searched for some info only to find it was about the pre v.57 version so it was completely irrelevant. Out-of-date/inaccurate information is worse than no information at all.
If they kill of Live Bookmarks I will die.
Those, plus:
Classic Theme Restorer
LiveHTTPHeaders
Session Manager
Tab Mix Plus
Plus versions of NoScript, AdBlock+, Greasemonkey and Stylus (Stylish) with functionality and UI that's not hamstrung by WebExtensions limitations.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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Those numbers include Mobile and Tablets. Firefox does not have a presence on phones or tablets. Firefox has 11% market share on the Desktop. It does have a declining market share but it is not as bad as that 5% number.
Stylish
There's an active fork, it supports all the forked XUL browsers.
https://addons.palemoon.org/ad...
Does Waterfox support ALSA without pulseaudio? I cannot seem to find an answer to that on the Waterfox site. Pale Moon works perfectly with ALSA on the lennart-freed Devuan and Heads systems I support.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Not some fork project like basilisk/pale moon, we the users must force Mozilla to stop fucking up. The 52 ESR was an escape lane for the Quantum madness, and a lifeboat for those forced to use Windows XP (it has a lot of market share in China still). At the very least I say we have a Firefox classic set up, similar in vein to Seamonkey was a continuation of the classic Mozilla suite. If classilla and tenfourfox keeps old macs going, then there should at least be something for XP and XUL.
They get to define what is "clear need".
And there is no "clear need" for anything that is missing in the new implementation.
Well some of these can be reimplemented in WebExtensions, but it requires a lot of work. A lot of the original plugin developers just don't have the time; or they may have started on them and are still actively working on replacements; but it could be several more months or a year till they're done.
Is it possible for Mozilla to remotely disable the add-ons in Firefox ESR 52 after they have been removed from the add-on website ?
For example, can Mozilla disable them by adding them to a blacklist which causes Firefox to disable them ?
Yes, to some extent, but as far as I know it is only a soft-block and you can always choose to re-enable the addon. This functionality is controlled by the extensions.blocklist configuration entries, including extensions.blocklist.enabled which can be used to disable the feature altogether.
For Firefox 56 at least, you can see the list at https://blocked.cdn.mozilla.net. Not sure about newer versions.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Stylish
There's an active fork, it supports all the forked XUL browsers.
https://addons.palemoon.org/ad...
B O Y C O T T P A L E M O O N !! They actively block NoScript.
Check the Palemoon forums. By the admissions of Palemoon's own developers they admit to actively blocking NoScript because they whine about getting too many complaints that Palemoon+NoScript does not render webpages correctly and the Palemoon developers don't want to deal with the issues.
yet have no clue what it means to me. Can one of you web monkeys tell us embedded systems types WTF all that means?
I suspect 99% of developers are sick of Mozilla breaking their extensions ans simply won't bother.
Only the really famous ones will be updated. Anything new will simply be coin-miners disguised as youtube downloaders.
No sig today...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/http-header-live/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/user/onemen/ (tab mix option)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-session-manager
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/session-resurrection
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabboo-session-manager
None are perfect, but it is a start
Waterfox the developer mentioned somewhere that he made a backup of the addons.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
Tobin treats Tor users like garbage, no thanks.
Waterfox it is.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
The Mozilla people promised they would match the old functionality wherever there was a clear need. Were they lying or have they just not finished yet?
There seems to be little evidence that they made any serious attempt at this at all, beyond the top N very high visibility extensions.
The main advantage of using Firefox, other than not using Google's browser with its questionable privacy implications, was how customisable it was. There have been five major releases with WebExtensions now, and after the first two, not a single thing I missed from before has been fixed. Being able to save files directly to places outside the downloads directory, customising parts of the UI like the bookmark dropdown so they're bigger than postage stamps, disabling things like JS or animated GIFs without reloading the whole page... I'm still waiting for a tab tree extension that actually works properly.
To add insult to injury, my previously 100% stable for years Firefox probably crashes out on startup every third or fourth time I load it, then does some half-baked restore of the tabs from the previous session that apparently closed down properly, then needs restarting again. Either Firefox itself is quite badly broken for the past couple of versions, or one of the much more limited number of extensions I now have installed is destabilising it, but wasn't the point of the new architecture that crippled all those extensions that at least they would be fast and reliable now?
Firefox is no longer my default browser for everyday use as a direct result of this farce, but since I still have to use all the major browsers professionally, it would be nice if they could at least undo some of the damage.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
When I left Firefox, I tried Palemoon. Ran into issues.
Escaped to Waterfox. Works wonderfully.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Bloc...
Yes but this is rarely updated, and only for the really awful addons that coinmine or scrape user data in the background without permission or are virus-like.
.... Works fine for me
Oh dear God Mozilla, why don't you just put a gun to your head and pull the trigger instead of putting everyone through this years-long, agonising death spiral.
Not to mention that, with it's down-in-the-noise-level-and-still-falling market share, why would you bother devoting time and energy to it as a developer?
Same here, there were old bugs in Palemoon that I hadn't seen in Firefox for years. Waterfox is quite nice.
Yes, that is the applicable definition of "offline". And, yes, Thunderbird has offline mode. Which makes it superior to any "webmail" interface for anyone with an intermittent network connectivity. And it offers a compelling set of features even for those with a steady connection.
Which makes it a solid competitor to even the best of webmail offerings, including GMail.
"Phasing it out" would help Google gain market share — just as I said. Whether they deliberately pursue that policy or not — I would not know.
A conspiracy-minded person may suspect that. And he might further suspect, that Brendan Eich's refusal to play along is the real reason he was suddenly outed as a "homophobe".
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Yay for me! I was too lazy to learn what the hell XUL was and how to program in it. Now it's dead. I saved myself from wasting time on a transient technology.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
People seem to be developing a comprehensive archive of Mozilla legacy extensions for continued use in Waterfox. Preserving comments and ratings is still important. Will people at Internet Archive and Software Heritage give their part of the larger task appropriate effort?
Waterfox, Its Legacy and Looking to the Future
Legacy Extensions Database #303
Waterfox the developer mentioned somewhere that he made a backup of the addons.
Can someone please specify what limitations exactly (preferably with a link to an unsolved Firefox bug if available)? The Mozilla people promised they would match the old functionality wherever there was a clear need. Were they lying or have they just not finished yet?
Depends on the extension.
In the case of NoScript : all the necessary functionality has been successfully replicated (though, it took a few days, it wasn't available from day 1 of the XUL-less firefox). The web extension has the exact same capability as the XUL extension.
The thing is, its author took the opportunity to also overhaul the interface and rewrite everything in the new style used by most web-extensions (HTML kind of side bars) instead of OS-like dialog boxes and windows.
Most of the complains nowadays are people who would complain when then the new version isn't a pixel-pefect of the old one.
(there's ongoing details about the UI rework on the author's blog).
FoxyProxy:
Old XUL extension could possibly hook anything in the browser.
For filtering purpose, most modern web extensions can normally filter domains only. For privacy reasons they can't see the full URLs.
Thus some RegEx patterns that you might have used in the older version won't work any more (basically you won't be able to redirect different sub paths of websites to different proxies).
Also, during the initial time, it wasn't possible to transfer the settings from the XUL extension to the WebExt one.
Also here again the author took opportunity to redesign the UI - probably that's where the remaining criticism is nowaday.
Image Zoom :
WebExtensions aren't allowed to hijack direct mouse button clicks. So instead of rightclick, you need to use alt+rightclick to do the wheel zoom thing.
uBlock, FSF's Privacy Badger, HTTPS everywhere, and countless others :
work as-is. Some have been webextension for a long time, some are even available on Chrome, too.
Session Manager :
need full access to the whole session of a tab to save it/re-load it.
Again, most web extensions are isolated from the full state of a tab.
You can't do Session Manager using the API offered by Web Extensions, and the author wasn't motivated to work with Mozilla to add API extensions to make Session Manager possible.
Luckily for me, the build-in session managing of Firefox fills most my needs.
(I strongly suspect that Tab Mix and LiveHTTPHeaders hit the same kind of limitation - like needing access to the raw stream of connection - which aren't available to the API)
But mainly :
old extensions written for XUL 10 years ago that the author hasn't touched since and has completely forgotten about, and which miraculously survived the multiple recent versions bump, won't automagically get converted to Webextensions.
So, lots of people end up with things the worked for them, and suddenly won't work anymore.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I'm writing browser APIs, catch me if you can. I dare you develop a plugin. It will be obsolete by tomorrow.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
As long as no one in mozilla has a clear need for it, they don't have a to care.