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Moonchild, the lead developer of the Pale Moon browser writes:
"Dear Web Developer(s),
While, as a software developer ourselves, we understand very well that new features are exciting to use and integrate into your work, we ask that you please consider not adopting Google WebComponents in your designs. This is especially important if you are a web developer creating frameworks for websites to use.
With Google WebComponents here we mean the use of CustomElements and Shadow DOM, especially when used in combination, and in dynamically created document structures (e.g. using module loading/unloading and/or slotted elements).Why is this important?
For several reasons, but primarily because it completely goes against the traditional structure of the web being an open and accessible place that isn't inherently locked down to opaque structures or a single client. WebComponents used "in full" (i.e. dynamically) inherently creates complex web page structures that cannot be saved, archived or even displayed outside of the designated targeted browsers (primarily Google Chrome).
One could even say that this is setting the web up for becoming fully content-controlled."
https://about.google/: "Our mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful"
Useful to... whom?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NickM on Saturday March 21 2020, @05:11AM (5 children)
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 21 2020, @02:37PM (3 children)
Great for you. That may be because you only used add-ons that affect web pages, not add-ons that changed/amended the browser UI (including, but not limited to those that undo earlier unwanted interface changes).
The vast majority of add-ons I use are the second type, and all of them broke, and where there are replacements at all, they are inferior because the functionality they need is not provided.
I couldn't care less whether the functionality I want is provided through XUL or any other technology. I do care when the functionality is not provided at all.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Saturday March 21 2020, @03:15PM (2 children)
Many years back, I felt similarly. I tried to retain my UI as much as I could, be it firefox, KDE or other applications. I spend spent hours to search the internet or dig into configurations myself. That is all gone by now. I feel having matured and being set free. First, I evaluate whether I can still achieve what I need after a UI change. If not, I look for a workaround. If that is not there, I go somewhere else, but I do not complain any more (for many things I have actually gone back to the command line).
Firefox for me looks pretty much the same, it used to look. There are the annoying tabs int window title but I can ignore that. Otherwise I have vertical tabs and good privacy protection. If vertical tabs were gone, I could live with a menu for the tabs. If that would not be available, I would go somewhere else.
Nowadays, I perceive bickering about the UI as rather childish. Yes, there are stupid changes, but admit to yourself that you have a strong personal bias against change (we all have, for good reasons). Once you can make that step much of the pain is gone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @10:49PM (1 child)
Have you attempted to manage your cookies lately?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Sunday March 22 2020, @10:23AM
Privacy is very important to me, however, again, I have given up on sophistication. Firefox allows to delete cookies and site data when closed which is good enough for me. I do close firefox once a day on average.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @09:55PM
The one add-on I really miss that required XUL is Tree-Style Tab. Well, it still works, but it can't display its own version of the top tab bar anymore. But the performance is so much better and everything else works fine.