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Firefox Removes Core Product Support For RSS/Atom Feeds (gijsk.com)
Starting with Firefox 64, RSS/Atom feed support will be handled via add-ons, rather than in-product. Mozilla's Gijs Kruitbosch writes: After considering the maintenance, performance and security costs of the feed preview and subscription features in Firefox, we've concluded that it is no longer sustainable to keep feed support in the core of the product. While we still believe in RSS and support the goals of open, interoperable formats on the Web, we strongly believe that the best way to meet the needs of RSS and its users is via WebExtensions.
With that in mind, we have decided to remove the built-in feed preview feature, subscription UI, and the "live bookmarks" support from the core of Firefox, now that improved replacements for those features are available via add-ons.
By virtue of being baked into the core of Firefox, these features have long had outsized maintenance and security costs relative to their usage. Making sure these features are as well-tested, modern and secure as the rest of Firefox would take a surprising amount of engineering work, and unfortunately the usage of these features does not justify such an investment: feed previews and live bookmarks are both used in around 0.01% of sessions.
With that in mind, we have decided to remove the built-in feed preview feature, subscription UI, and the "live bookmarks" support from the core of Firefox, now that improved replacements for those features are available via add-ons.
By virtue of being baked into the core of Firefox, these features have long had outsized maintenance and security costs relative to their usage. Making sure these features are as well-tested, modern and secure as the rest of Firefox would take a surprising amount of engineering work, and unfortunately the usage of these features does not justify such an investment: feed previews and live bookmarks are both used in around 0.01% of sessions.
I need RSS and use Firefox, but I have no problem with this. Live Bookmarks have been broken for me for years, and were terribly slow even before that. I have been using an extension, Brief, for that time which works well enough. If this makes it even marginally easier for Mozilla to maintain and secure Firefox, then it can only be a good thing.
Honest question from one of the 0.01%: How do you people parse news across the web? Does everybody only read aggregators? Do you visit all of your sources websites individually? How is that not driving people insane? I just don't understand.
Honest question from one of the 0.01%: How do you people parse news across the web?
I go to a handful of sites which provide most of the information I'm looking for. Some are general news sites, others are more topical or special interest. I also follow a fair number of webcomics.
Does everybody only read aggregators?
No but they are a source I use. RSS I really find constraining to be honest and for the more specific interests of mine I find it essentially useless.
Do you visit all of your sources websites individually? How is that not driving people insane? I just don't understand.
It's a handful of sites so it's genuinely not a big deal. Plus RSS isn't really making things easier for me and I find the RSS readers to be more than a little clumsy for my workflow. It doesn't organize it better or provide me more information or even reduce the number of things I click on. Plus it isn't supported by some key sources I follow. If it works for you then you be you but I don't really see much of a value proposition in it for me personally.
I also use RSS all the time (that's how I arrived at this article). While I technically don't need to use RSS in my browser, I do need a RSS application that is capable of causing web pages to be fully rendered. Whether it's viewing the rest of the article (via an http link), viewing a video, commenting on a post (like this one); access to all of the functions of a complete web browser is mandatory for how I use RSS. Compared to all the things that a modern web renderer is required to do, it seems much easier to me to integrate my RSS viewer fairly tightly to a web browser. I admit that I don't (AFAIK) use the feature being removed as I use a 3rd party extension in Firefox. As long as Firefox continues to allow the kind of integration between RSS viewing and full web browsing via extensions that they do currently, this is change is irrelevant to me. If it makes overall development of Firefox better, it even sounds like a good thing. Suggesting that RSS and web browsers shouldn't be integrated, sounds like crazy talk to me.
The pessimist in me thinks that if anything is to be learned of past history of Firefox development, the next step after removing a feature from core and into extensions is to deprecate / remove the API(s) this extension relies on to function. Or at least the APIs that enable it to work in a comfortable manner vs. UI experience.
Personally I use RSS feeds of 7 different blogs (wow, blogs still exist?) in order to easily follow when new posts are made. It's not much, but at least I don't have to manually check them out, quick browse through live bookmark menu is enough.