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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.


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  • (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!

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (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]