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posted by janrinok on Monday November 28 2016, @07:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the replacing-working-stuff-with-unfinished-technologies dept.

Martin Brinkmann reports via gHacks:

Mozilla announced a couple of days ago that it plans to make Firefox support only WebExtensions add-ons by the end of 2017.

While that seems far far away right now, it is almost certain that things won't be ready by then. What I mean by that is that WebExtensions capabilities won't match those of Firefox's current system. While popular add-ons like NoScript will likely be ported over thanks to Mozilla working with developers actively on implementing missing API features, the same cannot be said for other add-ons.

[...] A recent post by Aris, developer of Classic Theme Restorer (CTR) and several other popular add-ons such as Classic Toolbar Buttons, NewScrollbars, or GlassMyFox, suggests that Classic Theme Restorer may be dead by the end of 2017. While Aris seems to have interest in porting over his extensions to WebExtensions, he notes that this is not possible right now.

Now [it's] real. CTR as we know it (and all my other Firefox add-ons), will be discontinued by the end of 2017. We still have no way to change [the] Firefox UI using WebExtensions and all my add-ons are about UI modifications. Seems like [it's] almost time to get used to another browser.

The end of the popular browser extension would bring the Australis design of Firefox to all users who relied on Classic Theme Restorer up until that point.

This highlights one of the main concerns that the move to WebExtensions exclusivity raises: The APIs are not there yet. In fact, a whole category of add-ons--all that modify the browser UI--cannot be ported over because of missing APIs and the situation may be similar in other areas. What makes this even more problematic than it is is that [...] no one seems to know whether the capabilities that WebExtensions APIs will deliver, once they are made available, will be sufficient to port add-ons over.

[...] Mozilla could have waited with the move until APIs are ready for the most part, but the organization decided not to do so.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday November 28 2016, @07:25PM

    by jmorris (4844) on Monday November 28 2016, @07:25PM (#434158)

    Seriously, Moz Corp is farther off the rails than the systemd problem in Linux land. Fork em. Time to find out if the users really crave a browser that is locked down and hostile to addons or whether they would prefer to keep using what they have now.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @07:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @07:41PM (#434170)

    Already done, and some of us have been using it for a while.

    -- posted from my Pale Moon [palemoon.org] browser

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by jmorris on Monday November 28 2016, @07:43PM

      by jmorris (4844) on Monday November 28 2016, @07:43PM (#434172)

      Good idea, but....


      $ sudo apt-get install palemoon
      Reading package lists... Done
      Building dependency tree
      Reading state information... Done
      E: Unable to locate package palemoon

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:18PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:18PM (#434189)

        ./configure && make && make install

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:48AM

        by Magic Oddball (3847) on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:48AM (#434294) Journal

        From http://linux.palemoon.org [palemoon.org]

        Installation, uninstallation and upgrades are normally managed with the Pale Moon for Linux installer. However, you can also download Pale Moon for Linux as a bzipped tarball that can be extracted and run from any location on your system.

        You can also install one of these fully-endorsed third-party builds of Pale Moon for Linux:

                Repositories for Debian and Ubuntu -- Maintained by Steve Pusser
                Pale Moon for Linux - SSE-only build -- Maintained by Walter Dnes

        Additionally, Pale Moon is included in and can be installed directly from the default repositories of the following distros:

                Manjaro
                PCLinuxOS
                Puppy Linux
                MEPIS/MX-15
                Arch User Repository (AUR)
                Gentoo Overlays
                Slackbuilds

        Having used all three approaches, I can say they all work just fine.

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday November 29 2016, @10:15AM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday November 29 2016, @10:15AM (#434404) Homepage
        Looks like you either failed to follow all of the instructions (which include the addition of a repo and key to your apt config), or were too stupid to even accept that might be instructions that would need following. If you want a single-button point and drool OS, Mac is that way --->
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:15PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:15PM (#434186)

      More liek GayMoon amirite?!?!?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:31PM (#434200)

      The relmirror2.palemoon.org page isn’t working
       
      relmirror2.palemoon.org didn’t send any data.
       
      ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:32PM (#434202)

      Yes. (The story was shortened a bit for the front page.)
      The Original Submission [soylentnews.org] and the comments at gHacks both mention this alternative and that, with a move toward increased extension incompatibility, you'd be no worse off going this route.

      I'm wondering if there will be a serious migration of extension devs to Pale Moon (like what happened when OpenOffice was given to Apache and LibreOffice forked that codebase).

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:55PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:55PM (#434212)

        I don't use it all the time, but I have palemoon installed and waiting for when mozilla finishes its 'stupid' migration.

        The biggest problem holding me back right now is lack of a tor browser extension for palemoon to help ensure it isn't leaking anything. Although given the changes in Firefox lately, I am not sure that firefox, even in the TBB isn't leaking too much information to begin with (I have had that problem with the clearnet browser and default settings, along with a complicated set of configuration parameters, some of which firefox has defaulted back to enabled during browser updates.

      • (Score: 2) by darnkitten on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:36PM

        by darnkitten (1912) on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:36PM (#434553)

        I'm wondering if there will be a serious migration of extension devs to Pale Moon (like what happened when OpenOffice was given to Apache and LibreOffice forked that codebase).

        I sincerely hope so--with the update to v27, Pale Moon has diverged enough from Firefox that several of the extensions I rely on either no longer are compatible or require regression to specific old versions in order to work.

        I also hope there is enough migration to raise PM's public profile, as there are many sites that do not yet recognize it as a valid/current browser.

        Much like SoylentNews, Pale Moon has not yet achieved the recognition that it, its developers and its community deserve.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:55PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:55PM (#434213)

      What if I run a Mac? I wouldn't mind compiling Pale Moon.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @11:36PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @11:36PM (#434281)

        Palemoon for the Mac is called Newmoon IIRC and it's available as a .dmg

    • (Score: 3, Disagree) by maxwell demon on Monday November 28 2016, @08:58PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday November 28 2016, @08:58PM (#434215) Journal

      Pale Moon doesn't natively support Linux. No, a third-party port is not the same; it doubles the risk of losing support: Only if both the provider of the original browser and the provider of the port continue to provide updates, support will continue.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @09:18PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @09:18PM (#434229)

        Maybe try Vivaldi [vivaldi.com]? Not sure it will fix UI woes, but it certainly fixed my non-configurability woes. Supports Chrome extensions, too.

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @09:22PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @09:22PM (#434230)

          Closed source browser? You best be joking...

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @11:36PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @11:36PM (#434280)

          Read their EULA carefully. Pretty sure Vivaldi phones home.

          If you have minimal requirements, you could check out Min [github.io].

          • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:08AM

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:08AM (#434410) Homepage
            Min is based on Electron. Electron is based on Chromium and Node.js. There's little that is minimal about min.
            --
            Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:15AM

        by Magic Oddball (3847) on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:15AM (#434298) Journal

        That hasn't been the case in quite a while: the Pale Moon team produces generic 32- & 64-bit Linux binaries, plus a growing number of distros have their own copies in their repos.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @10:56PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @10:56PM (#434268)

      I tried Pale Moon for a while, but then switched to SeaMonkey; the UI is alright, the memory usage seems a lot better (even after keeping it open for long periods of time), it supports many FF extensions, and it seems less bloated overall.

      • (Score: 2) by chromas on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:16AM

        by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:16AM (#434287) Journal

        SeaMonkey's pretty good except no wheel-click to close tabs. No thanks.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:02AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:02AM (#434307)

          Yeah, that bugged me too.
          I got over it.

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @09:31AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @09:31AM (#434396)

          If that's the only issue with SeaMonkey, maybe one could write an extension for it?

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:16PM (#434187)

    It's what happens when you permanently shift all of your resources as an organization from "software development" to "social justice".

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:23PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:23PM (#434192)

      Aww poor whitey. *crocodile tears*

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @04:38AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @04:38AM (#434348)

      I've seen businesses completely destroyed in the name of "social justice".

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @09:35AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @09:35AM (#434398)

      No, it's what happens when the developers stop listening to their users and think they know better what's good for the users than the users do.

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:32AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:32AM (#434415)

        Sounds a lot like social justice to me.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by iamjacksusername on Monday November 28 2016, @08:44PM

    by iamjacksusername (1479) on Monday November 28 2016, @08:44PM (#434207)

    They have been off the rails for a while. The rapid-release cycle was just the icing on the cake. They are tanking everything that made FF as good as it was. I think the symptoms first started around Firefox 2. That seems to be when they started mindless screwing with the UI. Remember the "Awesome Bar"? The Mozilla organization seems more interested in messing with the UI and re-writing the JS engine than fixing fundamental problems. There are bugs that have been open for 14 years. I guess that is not exciting work but supposedly that is why they generate revenue. So they do not have to rely on volunteers.

    • (Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday November 28 2016, @10:20PM

      by GungnirSniper (1671) on Monday November 28 2016, @10:20PM (#434256) Journal

      The Awesome Bar is now standard in browsers. For all their faults, it wasn't a mistake.

      • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:08AM

        by jmorris (4844) on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:08AM (#434285)

        Yes it was. Why do I need search in the URL bar, search in the search bar and just to be annoying, yet another search bar cluttering up the new tab window? I mean, yea, I get it, for years Firefox was kept as a pet by Google. But seriously, three places to type that all do the exact same thing?

        • (Score: 2) by Celestial on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:14AM

          by Celestial (4891) on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:14AM (#434286) Journal

          It'll get better. IIRC, Mozilla is talking about getting rid of the search bar!

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:29AM

            by Hyperturtle (2824) on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:29AM (#434290)

            I would not choose to endorse the use of a browser that sends the URL of every place I visit, or every typo I make in it while trying to visit something, to some centralized authority that then parses my typing and decides which result to best send me to, or at best keeps a log of what I did.

            The awesome bar is not awesome when it comes to privacy. In any event, I flipped from Firefox to Palemoon back when Firefox ESR 24.5 was becoming untenable for regular modernized website use. I encourage (and endorse) anyone to try Palemoon or similar firefox derivatives. There are mix of products available, some better, some more open, and some more of both, than others... but one need not be trapped with pure Firefox or Chrome or whatever MS is pushing these days.

            • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:54PM

              by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:54PM (#435743) Journal

              I would not choose to endorse the use of a browser that sends the URL of every place I visit, or every typo I make in it while trying to visit something, to some centralized authority that then parses my typing and decides which result to best send me to, or at best keeps a log of what I did.

              Chrome does that by default, but Firefox doesn't unless you specifically ask it to. Firefox is the only browser I use, and the only suggestions it ever shows me in the URL bar are sites from my own browser history. Which is great -- I don't have to remember the exact URL, if I know I saw something before I only need to remember one word from the page title and I can probably find it again in seconds. It does kind of annoy me that it'll also search open tabs, because if I've got the site open and I start typing that same URL again, it's because I want a second instance open, and occasionally I'll end up switching to the existing one instead. But for me, that's a minor problem with a very useful feature.

              IF you configure Mozilla to use a privacy-invasive default search engine such as Google, then it will send what you type to Google. Because it's a search bar, so if you configure it to use Google, it works like Google. But you have to actually go into the Firefox settings and configure that, it won't happen by default. And if you're that worried about Firefox sharing your search terms with Google, then why the hell are you specifically configuring it to use Google?

              See 'Things you should know' > 'Search Suggestions':
              https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/ [mozilla.org]