Big Changes From Mozilla Mean Firefox Will Get Chrome Extensions 192
Mozilla announced yesterday a few high-level changes to the way Firefox and Firefox extensions will be developed; among them, the introduction of "a new extension API, called WebExtensions—largely compatible with the model used by Chrome and Opera—to make it easier to develop extensions across multiple browsers." (Liliputing has a nice breakdown of the changes.)
ZDNet reports that at the same time, "Mozilla will be deprecating XPCOM and XUL, the foundations of its extension system, and many Firefox developers are ticked off at these moves."
First use seems to be seeding dups, (Score:2)
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Dupe-your-dupes! Dupity-dup!
Mozilla, please stop destroying yourself! (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if this is a dupe, it's still well worth discussing again and again.
Here we have Mozilla, which was once one of the most respected and trusted open source organizations, right up there with the FSF and the ASF, making yet another set of dumb moves. This isn't the first idiocy we've seen from them. It's just the latest in a long line of really obviously dumb moves.
Let's ignore the utter fuckup that's Firefox OS, the abandoning of Thunderbird, the pathetic ouster of Mr. Eich, the Rust debacle, and the other such failures. Let's focus solely on Firefox.
Just a few years ago, Firefox used to have over 30% of the browser market. Firefox was a major player, which made Mozilla a major player. These days, Firefox is likely under 10% of the market [caniuse.com], and we keep seeing its use drop and drop. We see single versions of competing browsers, like IE 11 and iOS Safari 8.4, alone nearly exceeding the market share of all Firefox versions, on both desktops and mobile devices. Chrome for Android is well beyond Firefox's total market share. Soon enough, we may even see minor browsers like Opera Mini having a greater market share than all versions of Firefox, on all platforms.
This drop was not necessary. People liked what Firefox used to offer. That's why people switched to it in the first place! Yes, Chrome did provide some competition to Firefox. But instead of facing this competition head-on, all Mozilla did was trash Firefox, for some inexplicable reason. From the very beginning, people were saying that they liked Chrome because it was fast, even if they didn't like the privacy implications of using it, nor its user interface.
Yet instead of listening to what Firefox users said they liked about Chrome, and using feedback that to improve Firefox, Mozilla did the complete opposite. People liked the Firefox UI, yet Mozilla turned around and imitated Chrome, reaching an almost identical state with the release of Australis, despite the protests of so many Firefox users. People didn't like the privacy implications of using a browser provided by a major player in the ad industry, so what did Mozilla do? They stuck ads in recent versions of Firefox, along with forcing integration wtih some third-party services that most Firefox users have no intention of ever using! And when it comes to Firefox's performance, we've seen next to no positive progress. Electrolysis, for example, actually feels slower than single-threaded Firefox!
Mozilla has systematically driven away a big chunk of Firefox's existing users by doing all of these stupid, unwanted things. Maybe this strategy would work if these changes brought in new users, but the evidence is that they aren't doing that at all. In fact, they've driven away the very users who were instrumental in getting others to use Firefox in the first place!
While we do often see organizations falter against external obstacles, it's rare to see an organization like Mozilla which appears to be doing everything in its power to destroy itself! It isn't Chrome or IE or any other browser that's drawing users away from Firefox. The problem is that Mozilla is changing Firefox in every way possible that will maximize the number of users who move to an alternative browser. These changes appear to be just another set that will drive away users. These users aren't stupid. They know that if they use Firefox, they're going to get an inferior Chrome-like UI, but without the performance benefits of Chrome. So although they don't want to use Chrome, and they'd rather use Firefox (at least as it once was), they do the only rational thing and use Chrome. At least then they get a less-inferior Chrome experience, plus they get to use a fast and light browser, too.
I truly though that when Mozilla hit only 20% of the market, they'd realize that something was wrong, and start making the sorts of changes that Firefox users actually wanted. But we didn't see that happen, obviously! Now we're seeing Firefox most likely under 10% of the m
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"The Rust debacle"? Rust is doing great!
There's a lot of "post hoc ergo propter hoc" reasoning going on here. Your claims about how Mozilla's actions influence market share are completely unsubstantiated, and you completely ignore the effects of Google's actions (e.g. massive Chrome marketing spend).
Re:Mozilla, please stop destroying yourself! (Score:4, Interesting)
The Firefox situation isn't so much Mozilla's fault for screwing it up as it is Microsoft making real gains in browser quality recently, combined with Google and Safari making for a simpler cross-platform experience. FF is not the default on any major platform, so it doesn't get to use that momentum to press into other platforms. All its major competitors do get that advantage.
Re:Mozilla, please stop destroying yourself! (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely disagree that it isn't Mozilla's fault. The horrid UI changes, the decades old bugs, abandoning core products to dick around with crap no one wants, failing to improve their OSX/Linux offerings in a timely manner, and completely ignoring the community are all major mistakes. At one point they needed to be the same to make it easy for people to switch from IE but they never got out of that mentality. They needed a focus/direction on how they were going to be different from the big boys to make their offerings unique while still being standards compliant. They spent way too much time creating bureaucracy that never got used (like the privacy team that was supposed to meet once a month), making their websites pretty instead of functional, and generally doing everything possible to piss people off.
That wasn't the only factor, Google's tactics rivaled that of early IE in their bundling of Chrome/leveraging their websites to push it.
Honestly, if they went back to Firefox 3's UI, cleaned out all the advertising/Hello/other gimmicky crap and focused on being a light weight/secure/fast/privacy focused browser I would be excited about it again. As it stands, most of the addons I use will not be WebApplications compatible as they're mostly to fix Mozilla's fuckups - once that's gone I don't know what I'll do. Opera possibly?
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I trust Norwegian companies more than I trust American companies. Otherwise, there's no compelling reason. I'm not a fan of any of the offerings these days.
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Palemoon?
Tried it, was underwhelmed to say the least.
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I think it's fair to consider Rust a "debacle" so far. Have you actually tried to use it? I've been following it for years. It took them fucking forever to get the 1.0 release out. Until then, they spent most of the time flip flopping back and forth between the different options for language features and library functionality. It wasn't just evolution, improvement, or rapid development. The language convulsed for years and years. You couldn't write code one weekend and reliably have it work the next weekend
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C++14 is good in many ways. We have adopted many modern C++ features in Firefox, like closures. (STL features are unfortunately limited due to the crappy STL situation on Android.) However, it just doesn't provide any of the safety guarantees of Rust. You *can* write safe code in C++, but it's always very easy to accidentally write unsafe code that corrupts memory.
The Rust compiler is slow, but that's being worked on. The actual generated code is good. Servo benchmarks show it crushing Webkit, Blink and Gec
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Browser marketing does not normally work. Users switch due to attrition when they install a new OS, or if something really wrongs them. Very few if any people don't use the browser they first installed when they setup their system.
Except for many former Firefox users who just got pissed off at the new shit that every update brought.
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Let's start a betting pool. Put me in for $50 that Mozilla Corporation goes under within a year of ending support for XPCOM extensions.
What you'd need for that is a rerun of the Netscape/Phoenix thing, where the backlash against the fuckup that Mozilla has made of their browser is sufficiently large that it gets forked, all the crap they've larded onto it gets removed, and it starts again. Given the XPCOM/XUL change, that may actually be enough to do it, either giving something like Iceweasel enough momentum to gain traction or starting a new fork that goes ahead like Phoenix did.
The only problem is that we may end up with 1-2 years witho
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Let's focus solely on Firefox.
I think the problem may be less with Firefox than a return to the re-invigorated default web browser. Edge for Windows 10, Safari for OSX, Chrome for Chrome.
That, and the app and touch-oriented world of mobile use.
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Hardly. Edge has an absymal market share though it get some slack for being new. However the number of systems that come installed with Chrome as default is absolutely puny.
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That's not actually true. Chrome comes preinstalled on a high percentage of systems due to Google's bundling deals.
Re:Mozilla, please stop destroying yourself! (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's also not forget that Chrome comes bundled, Ask Toolbar style, with many popular applications. Naturally, it also sets itself as the default browser.
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I assure you, it's not. Using Firefox is a constant hunt for the open tab that's slowing the whole browser down due to 100% CPU utilization. Did I say 100%? No, that would require a multi-threaded design - Firefox is effectively single-threaded, or at least a single thread getting overworked will jam the entire program.
Firefox is losing market share because it has numerous technical problems that show no sign of going anywhere. It's going the same way Netscape an
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Anyone using both Firefox and Chrome extensions... (Score:2, Interesting)
.
Or are the Chrome extensions also buggy?
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... who can comment on the relative quality of the two sets?
Are you talking about the two sets of browser extensions, or the two sets of comments that come from us having this dupe [slashdot.org] article?
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Chrome extensions have some advantages. They can be installed and removed without re-starting the browser (some Firefox extensions can too, but not most of them). Chrome extensions can be very small and light weight, and are very easy to develop because the API is well documented. With Firefox you have to start hacking XUL and parts of the browser.
Firefox extensions are more powerful. They can affect pretty much any part of the browser. That also makes them more prone to security vulnerabilities though.
Chro
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Chrome extensions generally can't break the browser in the same way Firefox extensions can. They're also sandboxed, so can be used with less trust.
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Firefox extensions are needed in cases where other browsers build that functionality in.
( Hotkey|Shortcuts, Tab Options, etc )
Firefox is the only browser with "native" (via extension, Tree Style Tabs|Tab Mix Plus) vertical|side tabs.
(Not counting Vivaldi and Slepnir's implementation of side tabs, as they are piss poor in comparison).
Chrome|Opera have a few options for side-like-tabs, but due to Chrom
This is complete bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
If Mozilla wants their browser share to increase, deprecate the god damned single-threaded engine!!!!
Didn't Like Eich (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Didn't Like Eich (Score:5, Insightful)
There are two lingering bad tastes from decisions the Mozilla Foundation made that still bother me. The first was the addition of the 'Awesome Bar', and the removal of the settings to disable it; and the second was the removal of Brandon Eich because he held a non-progressive belief.
Both are indicators of a fouled decision-making process, and it's clear that they were precursors of other, similar, mistakes.
(And I still use Firefox, to a degree, because Chrome has other problems.)
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Company Image Threat a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Score:5, Interesting)
And for all the right wingers that cry for Eich, saying he wasn't ousted for "not being progressive"? I hate to burst your bubble but he was fired for refusing to do his job simple as that. What IS the job of a CEO? Well a very large part of it is to be "the face of the company" and to deal with the press and issues in the press that are affecting your company's image...what did Eich do? Say "I don't want to talk about it" like a little spineless coward and hid while the opposition could say anything they wanted and build up steam for the boycott because he refused to do his job and fight back! If he would have said "these are my beliefs, this is what I support and what I do not and why" and actually started a dialog? He probably could have diffused the entire thing, remember he had an entire PR team at Moz to help him craft his side, while the other side simply were speaking their minds, so he had a pretty big advantage.
Nope, I don't buy that. Firing him from a company with Mozilla's tech cred for failing to carry out the PR mission sounds like lame after-the-fact justification. I suppose it could be argued that the company's primary focus had already changed by that point--the new marketing CEO and strange decisions since then do seem to point that way--but that makes the situation worse rather than excusing it.
/. post announcing the new CEO:
Eich had already created javacript, founded Mozilla, served as the browser's chief architect and the company's chief tech officer for years and years. It's tough (maybe impossible) to think of anyone more in tune with Mozilla's mission, or qualified to carry it out.
And as we've seen in the last year, "the opposition" has unreal influence over the tech news media (including Slashdot), often right down to user forums/comment policy, including the willingness and ability to spin a one-sided narrative completely disconnected from reality and/or popular opinion.
From the
http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... [slashdot.org]
We did not "stand by and watch". Many Mozilla staff made public statements supporting Brendan as CEO, including (courageously) many LGBT Mozilla staff. Many more publicly supported Brendan than publicly opposed him. The media of course focused on his opponents because "Mozilla employees call for CEO to step down" gets more clicks than "Mozilla employees support CEO".
http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... [slashdot.org]
It's absolutely true. There were a bunch of blog posts by Mozilla employees supporting Brendan as CEO (even though many disagreed with his position on Prop 8), all completely ignored by the media. Looking at the relevant date range on http://planet.mozilla.org/ [mozilla.org] should find them...
Did you ever see any of these viewpoints reported on at tech news sites? I think the Eich fiasco might have ended differently if it happened today, now we're more savvy to the disengenuousness and bigoted (and collusive) nature of those who perpetrate outrage culture.
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Eich wasn't fired. He stepped down because his position became untenable. He couldn't do is job effectively because of the effect his presence was having on the company, and the fact that people within the company had publicly voiced opposition to his appointment.
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Agreed.
As much as I dislike or disagree with Eich's opinions, having him run out of Mozilla on a rail was just plain bullshit.
Sorry, the guy is allowed to have his opinions and positions, just like everyone else. He wasn't using his position to spread his anti-gay opinion as far as I can tell. So okay, he's a bigot and a jackass, but to have him hounded form Mozilla was a travesty of overreaction.
And keep in mind, I'm pretty fucking liberal. I'm probably more liberal than most of the people reading this.
So
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...and the second was the removal of Brandon Eich because he held a non-progressive belief.
Why can't people that support Eich be honest about what it was that happened? He didn't get ousted for a bumper sticker on his car. Instead he used his wealth to support an ad-campaign that succeeded in suppressing the rights of up to 10% of the workers in his company. In fact we heard about this FROM HIS EMPLOYEES. He succeeded in turning the public against Mozilla. His actions didn't align with the stated goals of the organization, so ... what... were they expected to fight his battle for him?
Like
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Eich removed himself, and it's a good thing, because his response to the overblown controversy was to try to hide from it and hope it went away. His inability to cope pretty well proved that he wasn't fit to be CEO of Mozilla, whose problem is largely the same (unwillingness/inability to engage with its public any more) to begin with.
On top of that, the last thing I remember about Eich's activity at Mozilla was him enthusiastically cheer
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Re:Didn't Like Eich (Score:5, Insightful)
It use to be as a C level employee your political views outside your business goals, didn't matter. Now we are like oh no! CEO/President of organization X has a political view opposed to mine, this means we can't like anything he does.
Politics don't matter, it is just the media and the population trying to pidgin hole people in nice boxes, and get angry when some just don't fit.
The evangelical christian democrat. The atheist republican. Just because you get a particular job title, why should our views on unrelated to their jobs really matter?
Re:Didn't Like Eich (Score:5, Insightful)
It use to be as a C level employee your political views outside your business goals, didn't matter.
That's false. Even 40 years ago no one would have accepted a KKK member as CEO of any major american corp. CEOs get paid boatloads of money precisely because they do represent the company. Nobody cares about the politics of the janitor because he's not paid for that, CEOs are.
For another, Mozilla's "business goals" are explicitly political, that's why they have a manifesto rather than a charter.
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Blame the idiot SJW's who are righteously outraged that any CEO might have non-progressive views.
They killed Mozilla.
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The bad decision was promoting him to a job where his politics mattered.
Without checking, do you know who the CEO of Mozilla is now? Probably not. In most cases, the CEO is not a particularly public figure. In some cases, he will be, if he considers that his skill lies in that area.
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The really revealing thing here is that practically to the man all the people arguing that on principle a CEO's politics should not matter happen to agree with Eich's politics.
Well that's definitely not true. Weirdly, I know one guy who thinks Eich should have been ejected, but attacking Orson Card for the same reason is too much.
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He may or may not have had other negative aspects, but the justification for his ousting was reprehensible to say the least. Talk about hypocrisy. I hope those gay employees who 'felt uncomfortable' with him will feel even MORE uncomfortable when mozilla folds for good and they're out of jobs. That's what they get for pissing all over meritocracy in that organization.
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I'm not assuming that either. I was referring to the ones who did.
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What's 'winger' about it? My argument applies equally to officers who'd fire employees for being gay. Oh right, leftist dogma makes the implication that it's only discrimination when straight people do it. Who's the wingnut again? Not me.
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There's a nice meme going around on Facebook right now: would all the people defending Kim Davis's "religious freedom" be doing the same for a Muslim employee of a DMV who started denying drivers licenses to women, because Koran?
Of course not, because they're bigots and hacks, like yourself.
Would you guys be as poutraged for a Klansman? (Score:3, Insightful)
Eich was a bigot. It's a free country, and he's allowed to have his personal views - but he also spent money to force those views onto other people. Would you guys be all indignant if a reasonably talented software manager was shown the door after he was shown to be a Klansman, and worked to deny basic civil rights to blacks or jews?
If not, why not?
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Because personal beliefs have no relevance in the workplace. It's not a party where you get to choose who you hang out with. You're there to do a job. So is everyone else. He shouldn't have been canned just because some find his politics unacceptable. If he, as CEO, fired those gay employees for donating to pro gay marriage propositions, would you be ok with that? I doubt it. Part of diversity is tolerating those who disagree. Tolerance != like. It just means leave them and their rights alone. He has a rig
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He resigned because Mozilla's customers didn't like him, and it was harming the company. Should people not be able to express their personal views, boycott companies run by people they don't like? That's their right, they are under no obligation to use Mozilla products regardless of what the company does.
Tolerance != support. No-one attacked him or anything like that, they just withdrew their support for the company that decided to appoint him.
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The employees didn't fire him, so it's just not parallel. It wouldn't be okay if he, as an employee, was fired for a private vote he made, even if it was reprehensible (eg. he was donating to the campaign for the "kill all the 9-year-olds who fail this standardized test" act).
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Said those against interracial marriage in the early 60s.
(I knew that someone was going to say that...)
Anti-miscegenationists never changed the definition away from between one man and one woman. Wanting to keep keep the races separate, they restricted the right to marry who you want, but that's not the same as changing the definition of marriage.
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Who is supposed to be the primary beneficiary of marriage?
For thousands of years across many cultures, marriages were frequently arranged by the parents of those to be married. How could the parents know what was in the best interest of their children?
Because marriage was never about the people getting married. It was about the CHILDREN that marriage produced. People have known instinctively for thousands of years, and modern studies have confirmed
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Because marriage was never about the people getting married. It was about the CHILDREN that marriage produced
No, it was usually about the PARENTS of the people getting married. This is also where we get the term elope, by the way.
That is obviously false, since how else do gay "parents" get their children except by divorce, buying them via surrogacy, or adoption?
This is a logical fallacy. Allow me to illustrate. Pretend that search and rescue teams don't exist for a moment.
- People who shipwreck in an ocean usually drown.
Then SUDDENLY ocean search & rescue teams exist, and the people they rescue are no more likely to drown than the general population. This is obviously false, because how else did they get rescued except by shipwreck?
Furth
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Nonsense. Marriage was a business deal between two families, not a procreation contract. That's why you'd have 80 year old men marrying 12 year old girls, which has long been verboten in civilized societ
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What gives us the right to extend its legal definition from what a religion - or a set of religions - says marriage should be? Why the First Amendment, of course.
You don't get to call upon state's power without being subject to its checks and balances. Think very carefully what victory over that would cost you.
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Why the First Amendment, of course.
Eh? That needs explaining.
You don't get to call upon state's power without being subject to its checks and balances.
The state's power to do what? Tell people that they can't willy nilly change the meanings of words?
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From the very previous sentence: "What gives us the right to extend its legal definition from what a religion - or a set of religions - says marriage should be?"
Notice the word "legal" there? The issue is not whether you recognize same-sex marriage as valid, the issue is whether the law does. And the law is subject to First Amendment, which specifically excludes religious law.
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which specifically excludes religious law.
So now polyamory is "up for grabs", too. After all, consenting adults need to be able to show their love for each other...
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Just as complaining about Obama's birth certificate is an instant sign that someone is a hack, so is complaining about the "redefinition of marriage". That debunked ship [youtube.com] has sailed so many times it's pathetic.
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"That's not tradition" and "that's not the way we do things" are the rationalizations used by every bigot throughout history whether it be racists
Interestingly, black slavery was not traditional among the English colonists. It had to be imposed from above, slowly and via changes to laws.
IOW, if the well-educated elites had left tradition alone, this country would not have had the centuries of evil inflicted upon itself.
or homophobes protesting marriage equality.
Are you sure that I'm a homophobe?
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TSTRT.
Being against minority rights makes one a racist. Being against gay rights makes you a homophobe.
It's not complicated.
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Nice try [youtube.com], homophobe. "Traditional marriage" has variously meant:
Rapists marry their victims
Soldiers marry the surviving daughters of the families they just massacred
Kings marry hundreds of wives
80 year old men marrying 12 year old girls
Marriage has constantly been "redefined" throughout history, so all you've got is a red herring in addition to your flaming nazi shitbaggery.
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Look at what balmer did to microsoft.
Make them earn money hand over fist???
Re:Didn't Like Eich (Score:5, Insightful)
He converted their reputation into money, which worked great until they didn't have any reputation left.
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Except that they're still making money hand over fist.
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Gary Kovacs [wikipedia.org] (2010-2013) previously VP of Marketing at Macromedia, Adobe and Sybase.
2010? That's about when Firefox started going to shit, isn't it?
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If Mozilla wants their browser share to increase, deprecate the god damned single-threaded engine!!!!
It's on the way [mozilla.org].
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If Mozilla wants their browser share to increase, deprecate the god damned single-threaded engine!!!!
Firefox is already heavily multi-threaded!
Process isolation is already in nightly... Have been for a while now. This is some of what is necessary to roll out per-tab-process isolation...
Note the old way of doing extensions have been on the way out for a long time... AFAIK jetpack based extensions will not be experiencing issues.
Is it any surprise that going major architectural changes to FF necessarily means extensions will break.
Hopefully, the new APIs (and extensing jetpack SDK) will be more stabl
This is part of going multi-process (Score:4, Interesting)
The Gecko engine's current extension mechanism is not really compatible with the forthcoming change to multiple processes. (BTW: Multiple processes, not multiple threads, for proper isolation.) This move is in fact _necessary_ for what you want them to do.
Another problem with the current extension mechanism is that any extension can do basically anything to the browser, or any component of it. (Hence the need to deprecate unsigned extensions.) The permission system is a single bit: XUL/XBL chrome (including extensions) can do anything, non-chrome is restricted per HTML5. The new WebExtensions API has fine-grained permissions, among many other good things. See https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebEx... [mozilla.org] for details.
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Between your post and Rudy's one
(" One of the most common comments I see from people, over and over, is "If I want a browser that looks and works like Chrome, I'LL USE FUCKING CHROME." )
Seems like most of slashdot is on the same page I'm at :/
Fuck Mozilla are proper grade A dipsticks. Man do I miss Firefox of old.
I don't even use Firefox anymore, it's too fucking unstable, I've switched to Waterfox, at least a 64bit version of Firefox crashes vastly less than the stock 32
How the fuck do we not have the mul
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If Mozilla wants their browser share to increase, deprecate the god damned single-threaded engine!!!!
At the moment I use FF for browsing because of the extensions - youtube download, ghostery, noscript, ABP. Also it seems to work well as opposed to Chrome which sorta quit working a while ago for some things. For this, being single threaded doesn't hurt anything.
I use chrome for streaming music. Seems to work well for that. only that. I used to use it exclusively for everything.
But since chrome inherently uses html5 it has broken netflix, audio and video get out of sync almost immediately.
So for streaming n
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What more do you want?
What a stupid question. I want them to finish it, naturally, instead of piddling around with all this extraneous shit.
Big changes in Slashdot... (Score:2)
No longer being part of Dice means Slashdot will stop posting dupes!
Just kidding! That will never change! [slashdot.org]
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Really how hard is it to always do a quick search before accepting- heck it could be already tagged as such when it is submitted. My guess is they don't mind rerunning stories on slow newsday....
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God or bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
For me there is only one important thing: Whether the browser allows developers to implement the most aggressive ad blockers possible. I want everything blocked, images removed, content rerendered, flash rewritten, etc. -- whatever it takes to remove ad, remove ad blocker warnings, skip screens, and so on. Everywhere.
So is the change good or bad? Does it allow ad blockers to be further improved or not? If yes, I'll continue using firefox. If no, I'll use another browser.
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In the short term it's a bad change, but it is pretty uneventful as the old/current stuff continues to work.
In the longer term we'll have to see, as they intend to extend the new API to regain lost features.
One major goal is to make extensions work safely with browser multi-threading/multi-processing, so you would end up with a really good browser for mobile low power quad core CPU theoretically.
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Whether the browser allows developers to implement the most aggressive ad blockers possible. I want everything blocked, images removed, content rerendered, flash rewritten, etc. -- whatever it takes to remove ad, remove ad blocker warnings, skip screens, and so on. Everywhere.
So who pays for content and distribution?
Slashdot content is plain text and user-generated. You cannot get much cheaper than that. But it is on the auction block again because it is showing piss-poor returns given the traffic it generates.
40% of visitors here are based in India, where Slashdot is a top 300 site. slashdot.org [alexa.com]
Amazon. Netflix, and others are growing in presence and power because they have a secure revenue stream. They also have multiple digital distribution channels outside the web browser a
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So is the change good or bad? Does it allow ad blockers to be further improved or not? If yes, I'll continue using firefox. If no, I'll use another browser.
The change is good. The plan is to make it possible to still have add blockers, and essentially all the functionality that is available to plugins now. They announced this change now so that they can get comments from the public on what functionality needs to be included.
Hmm, the only reason to use Firefox... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually the main reason I use Firefox (alongside Chrome) is that it has some extensions that Chrome does not, and AFAIK that is exactly due to the more permissive add-on API. Otherwise, on fast modern systems it is rather sluggish compared to Chrome, I don't see why I wouldn't use Chrome all the time. I get it that it would be safer and easier to use the Chrome model, but what would the selling point be then? Is "not made by Google" enough?
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But also note that the "more permissive add-on API" is why FF extensions break between FF versions...
Note, I think there is commitment to allow FF extensions to do more than Chrome extensions can... Ie. sidebar-tabs etc. will still be possible.
Hopefully, the extensions won't break as much... In related news Mozilla is also moving various features into add-ons to reduce bloat, and be able to update features independently of Firefox. I think Hello, Pocket are great
Convergence (Score:3)
At this point why doesn't Mozilla just throw in the towel and slap the Firefox logo on a Chromium build? It would save them a lot of time and effort. That's basically what their strategy has been for the past several years: make Firefox a clone of Chrome.
The extension APIs aren't the problem, it's the constant churn that makes it a chore to maintain extensions.
The End (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck Mozilla.
The extension ecosystem is the number one reason many people are still using Firefox. Amid all the "user experience" bullshit, the deprecated-then-removed features, and the asshats steering Mozilla, it was extensions that kept the browser usable.
And they're dumping them -- giving a giant "fuck you" to the thousands of developers who have kept their browser afloat. Some of the most popular extensions have been actively developed for the better part of a decade, such as NoScript (over 8 years) and Adblock Plus (over 9 years). And why? So we can have Chrome extensions which can't even do simple things like completely block Javascript or advertising. Gee, I wonder who likes that idea?
This was the last vestige of the Firefox that we knew and loved being ripped out and tossed aside. In 2-3 years Firefox will be nothing more than another shitty Chrome clone. I can only hope this absurd move leads to a serious fork of the browser that focuses on getting back to the original goals of Firefox.
Re:The End (Score:5, Informative)
In 2-3 years Firefox will be nothing more than another shitty Chrome clone. I can only hope this absurd move leads to a serious fork of the browser that focuses on getting back to the original goals of Firefox.
That already exists in Pale Moon. It avoids the Australis interface that is just a clone of Chome's toolbar style, doesn't have the new start tile page with the "suggested" additions, or Pocket, or the earlier "social" additions.
What it needs is more developers and a plan on how to move forward and improve the browser until it stops being a tweaked third-party Firefox.
Re: (Score:2)
Last time I checked there was no OSX build.
Not officially, but I installed this build [palemoon.org] just last night.
I still consider the Linux build to be a work in progress, too since it's still not as easy to install as Firefox (as in -- it's just there as a package in the repositories).
Re:The End (Score:5, Insightful)
In your rush to complain, you missed a couple essential points. 1) They're extending Chrome's system, not simply cloning it. 2) They're working with developers to ensure they have all the essential API features necessary.
So we can have Chrome extensions which can't even do simple things like completely block Javascript or advertising.
Here's where the first point would have saved you some angst. They're extending Chrome's plugin API significantly.
Some of the most popular extensions have been actively developed for the better part of a decade, such as NoScript (over 8 years)
You'll be happy to discover that Mozilla are already working with NoScript's author to ensure his plugin will work long before legacy support is pulled.
Now that you're properly informed, do you have any legitimate complaints? I hope not, as this is an excellent move. No longer will plugin authors have to deal with an ever shifting API. They'll have a stable API to develop against, designed in part by other plugin authors. Chrome plugin developers will also have an easier time porting their plugins to FireFox. It's a pretty huge win all-around.
Re:The End (Score:5, Insightful)
Tailoring the new API to specific (popular) extensions is a clear sign that:
- the new API will *not* have all the features of the old model
- the devs at mozilla have no idea how to cover that gap right now, so they are cherrypicking to avoid the worst of a shitfest.
Yeah, everyone should be celebrating this. *snicker*
WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
And yet, for the past 4 years or so, beginning with Firefox 4.0, they have been on a steady campaign to rip out all the customizability that made Firefox popular and desirable in the first place. One of the most common comments I see from people, over and over, is "If I want a browser that looks and works like Chrome, I'LL USE FUCKING CHROME."
Meanwhile, complaints from users are met with little more than a thinly veiled FUCK YOU from Firefox developers.
Re: (Score:2)
Meanwhile, complaints from users are met with little more than a thinly veiled FUCK YOU from Firefox developers.
Why is this happening with so many different projects lately? What happened?
Designers decided they knew better than the programmers and then the bean counters saw dollar signs where developers saw usability nightmares.
Re: (Score:2)
Feminists and friends took over, men were kicked out.
SJWs destroy everything they touch.
Re: (Score:2)
I know, right! It was so much better when black people had to use their own water fountains. /s
You seem to have been born 100 years too late.
Circling the drain (Score:3)
This reminds me somewhat of the path Opera followed - gradually giving up fundamental parts of what made them unique, devolving until they became an insignificant entity.
Sure, just like with Opera I'll bet there will continue to be a tiny cadre of devoted Mozilla fanboys screaming "we're still relevant!" going forward... but this is just additional evidence Firefox is done. The companies giving all that money to the Mozilla Foundation should probably keep a close watch on where those millions are actually ending up.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As far as market share goes, you're right. It did seem, though, as if for a while it was seen much like Chrome is today - the power-tool choice for a certain subset of us nerds.
I never understood the love some tech-heads had for Opera, myself. But I did know guys who swore by it.
Old extensions (Score:5, Insightful)
As I said in the dupe thread, I'll say it again:
I want Firefox to be compatible with Firefox extensions. Not to dump their own superior extensions because Chrome.
Re:Old extensions (Score:4)
I agree, as an extension developer there are many things the Firefox API provides that Chrome's doesn't. In order to do some things in Chrome, you have to do ugly work-arounds, if it's even possible. While I use many different browsers, Firefox is still my goto browser. Opera used to be, before they conformed to Webkit and Chrome-style things. The FF API is the only thing that's really kept me using it.
While you're at it, Mozilla... (Score:2)
Could you rip off some code from *any* other browser to bring Firefox up to 2012-level features? Thanks.
"...many Firefox developers are ticked off..." (Score:2)
No shit, Sherlock.
XUL and XPCOM were supposed to be the very foundation of Mozilla apps in the first place. Instead, they've been one long drawn-out bait & switch.
So Firefox is turning itself into Chrome. But we've all known that for a couple of years already.
I'd be pissed off too, if I were them.
Hell, I've been pissed off just as a user watching this slo-mo train wreck from the sidelines.
Why don't they just brand Chrome and call it done? (Score:2)
Seriously! All of the apparent decision-makers at Mozilla have such a goddamn hard-on for Chrome.
Just fucking brand it "Chromezilla" and be done with it for fuck's sake. Then the rest of us can go look for another browse that actually does what we want.
They've simultaneously gutted AND bloated their browser. Gutted by removing features that made the browser something people wanted to use. And bloated with all the built-in add ons that nobody fucking uses.
This is one of the reasons we GOT Mozilla in the
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt it. From reading the article, having add-ons able to fuck with Firefox's internal implementation details is exactly the problem they are solving by deprecating the API.