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posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 30 2017, @05:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the soon-it'll-be-IE dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

The respected Firefox add-on developer Quicksaver announced yesterday that he won't update any of his extensions anymore because of Mozilla's decision to move to WebExtensions exclusively. Quicksaver, responsible for add-ons such as Tab Groups, OmniSidebar, FindBar Tweak, Beyond Australis and Puzzle Bars, had four of his five add-ons for Firefox featured by Mozilla in the past.

If you open any of the author's add-on pages on the Mozilla Add-ons repository, you will notice an important announcement on the page. It reads:
IMPORTANT: The add-on will not receive any more updates and will stop working by next November with Firefox 57.

[...] Quicksaver posted an explanation on his website that reveals why he made the decision to stop add-on development. There are several reasons, but the core reason given is that at least four of his five add-ons rely heavily on functionality that will either not be provided by WebExtensions, or would require him to rewrite the extension almost completely.

[...] Quicksaver is not the only author who announced that he will stop working on add-ons for Firefox. Add-ons like New Tab Tools, Classic Theme Restorer, Tree Style Tabs, Open With, DownThem All, KeeFox and many others are likely also not going to make the cut.

Source: http://www.ghacks.net/2017/01/28/firefox-add-on-quicksaver-quits/


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @08:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @08:00PM (#460767)

    then we'll just move on to the next "best thing"

    I don't want the "next best thing", I want an open-source project that has a say in developing web standards.

    Many have forgotten about it now, but Firefox was instrumental in defeating the "you need Internet Exploder X to visit this site" practice in web development.

  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 30 2017, @09:13PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 30 2017, @09:13PM (#460790) Journal

    I haven't forgotten. I may not remember as clearly as some other people - at that point in my life, I wasn't at all involved in open source, had little idea what it was all about. Libre meant almost nothing to me. But, I did see the results of free, open source, and I'm perfectly aware that Mozilla was the kick in the ass that the internet needed at the time.

    But, you may be forgetting that we have a sort-of replacement for Mozilla, right now. Webkit is open-sourced. Google turned it loose, far more effectively than they turned Android loose.

    Can you tell me how many webkit based browsers there are on the market today? It's kind of a trick question - think a moment before you start tallying them up. ;^)

    Mozilla did win the browser wars, even if they decide to throw their victory away after all these years.

    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday January 31 2017, @05:38PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday January 31 2017, @05:38PM (#461322)

      Can you tell me how many webkit based browsers there are on the market today?

      Pretty much all of them other than IE and, until the near future, Firefox.

      #whatcouldpossiblygowrong

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"