Popular Firefox Add-On Developer Calls It Quits As Mozilla Moves To New API

>When browser vendors make breaking changes to developer APIs, it's left to add-on and extension creators whether they fix their offerings. Usually, if it's a small change, no problem. But what about massive overhauls? For Luís Miguel, responsible for a number of popular Firefox add-ons, Mozilla's switch to the WebExtensions API this year will signal his exit from the add-on scene.

>Rather than rework his add-ons, which include FindBar Tweak, OmniSidebar and Beyond Australis, Miguel has decided to call it quits

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=3jAKnmpuHSc
addons.palemoon.org/extensions/treestyletabforpm/
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

mozilla firefox is a sinking ship, even i've stopped using firefox, and i used to love firefox back in the day

good thing none of those have any value to me

Use palememe

I installed Windows 10 for the first time the other day and when I booted up Internet Explorer (to install Chrome, of course), I actually took pause and thought, "Wow, this is nice." I considered using it and checking to see if it's still as bad as it used to be. I just realized when I saw this thread that I haven't considered using Firefox for a few years now. I am legitimately considering IE over FF nowadays.

The WebExtensions API is a port of Chrome's API for extensions with a few minor differences. They're trying to make it easy for Chrome extensions to be ported to Firefox.

They may lose many old extensions, but they're hoping to gain a lot more new ones.

what are you using now?

I came back to FF a few months ago after my chrome affair, tired of Google getting all my info. Just use it for email and drive now.

only addon any needs is uBlock origin
i don't give a fuck about this chink OP, not using your fucking Google Chrome so bite it

Edge uses WebExtensions too. It's becoming a universal cross-browser extension standard.

Weird how they failed to mention his most popular addon: Tab Groups

What about HTTPS Everywhere and Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey?

Firefox is such a slow piece of shit nowadays but I still can't move from it because I absolutely addicted to some addons and customization.

> glorified script author of shit tier add-ons can't be fucked to learn a new API
> "OMFG Firefox on suicide watch!!!!!1"

Not needed. uMatrix, uBo.

Chromium is the only ethical and logical choice for a web browser in 2017.

They might lose users as well

>caring about chrome add-ons

U got ublock,and grease monkey that is all you need

...

When the update is released almost all add-ons will break, maybe 20% of them will be fixed, maybe 20% more will be essentially re-made by other people. With such an unreliable development environment, add-on developers will just move to something with a more stable foundation.

The only reason people ever used Firefox over Chrome (once Chrome got its instability stable) was for the add-ons. Soon there will be nothing but flag-wavers using Firefox.

So what you're saying is that you're too stupid and/or lazy to audit the code of an open source project for yourself? Mmm, very interesting.

>Luis Miguel

youtube.com/watch?v=3jAKnmpuHSc

Don't even need to audit code. Clearly see in uMatrix logger that Chrome/ium is home calling botnet.

>has his new tab page set to a Google service
>it contacts Google

Very interesting, I'd never have expected that!

Everyone used to love FIrefox.
But then the decline began at around about the same time they switched to the rapid release schedule.

Who? I would panic if uBlock origin, uMatrix, HTTPS Everywhere, and Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey are deprecated in FF.

Not him but are you sure that new tab is the cause chromium is calling home?

Replaced with empty tab, still botnet. There will be no ungoogled-chromium if Chromium wasn't botnet.

So far we have 3 big add-ons pretty much confirmed to be dead:
Classic Theme Restorer
Down Them All
Greasemonkey

This
Once May hits, every TreeStyleTabs fan will have no proper home.
>Vivaldi only has Vertical Tabs
>Pale Moon doesn't work with TreeStyleTabs (The workaround doesn't work)
>Qupzilla doesn't have a proper replacemnt (close but no cigar)
>Firefox ESR will only delay for some long (Early 2018)

We need a home! A proper one!

fucking vimperator is broken and you can't use any of it's functions that handle tabs now. No closing tabs, opening new ones, etc. What a fucking shitshow, what do I even bother with now? Am I just done with the internet finally?

Literally every Chrome-only extension is shit

DTA dev quit, other devs have been doing the same, most of them did low level stuff which Mozilla has no actual plan to keep supporting despite promising to bring some API's in the future
The only dev Mozilla has been forthcoming with is the NoScript author, which has enraged every other dev since no fucks have been given about them

>Only have been able to enjoy tree style tabs for a year and it's already being taken away from me

Greasemonkey is dead, Tampermonkey can't work without quite some rework in Fx
With Mozilla just telling devs to fuck off no one will port Tampermonkey

>Miguel
>shit, useless, unheard of extensions
>thinks this is relevant
No thanks, I'll keep using nightly Firefox.

This. µBlock origin is thankfully still supported.

Tab Groups.

Finally, was about time they broke it.

That is why 6.75 % of internet users is using Firefox. But tell that to Mozilla ://

Where'd you get that number from?
The official alexa ranking says it's only 3,85% market share.

Stop making shit up.

gs dot statcounter dot com

>statcounter
>a site made by Aodhan Cullen, a well known Mozilla supporter

Yeah, totally believable

I only use uBlock and ASP for screencaps. Never heard about this douche.

I don't give a fuck, why are you telling me that?

>greasemonkey/tampermonkey
>not needed
you high?

This isn't the first, the guy that maintains the tab groups addon and a few others said he wasn't going to port it to web extension as it's too much work so was just going to stop working on it.

How long do I have to wait for a decent fork of firefox that is commited to using XLU?

Palemoon sort of fits the bill in that it still keeps up with features while being based on the original designs of Firefox. The problem is compatibility with addons made for modern Firefox isn't great.

If forking will be done then it will be done around Firefox 57 release. There are probably to few people even realizing their addons are going to vanish later this year.

Shit sucks

I will take action when something actually happens.
Not whenever I hear of news like this.

To be honest their plans to drop XUL are already set in stone. It IS going to happen.

Lol somebody already forgot the whole chromium microphone incident

To be honest that shit was in compile flags. Most people just don't go through compile flags, this includes Debian apparently.

>popular
>Miguel
Literally who?

>mozilla firefox is a sinking ship
Chrome is a sinking ship for "power users" as well

things that recently got changed
- "view website certificate" button got moved into dev console somewhere
- "change encoding" setting removed completely

can you have tree style tabs and down them all with webextensions?
no! what a load of shit they are literally downgrading their extension system

all chrome extensions are basic shit and you can find a Firefox equivalent of any useful chrome extension already

Hold on, are you telling me that Firefox is soon going to irreversibly break tree style tabs?

Fuck. I guess there is no good browser anymore.

That's because the chrome web store is a) set up as a fucking app store that also hosts media and games and unrelated nonsense and b) is impossible to find anything in.

Power users are marginal in whole population. This is in no way equivalent argument.

Which means it doesn't matter if Firefox changes because only power users use anything other than uBlockO, HTTPS everywhere and downloadhelper/yt-dl, which will remain on Firefox no matter what. Which just makes this thread pointless.

No it doesn't. Normies don't use FF at all. They all use chrome or safari. All FF has are power users. We are literally lambs to the slaughter in mozillas attempt to regain normie population by allowing them to install magic actions for youtube.

>normies don't use firefox
Except this is false

>Hey, look mommy... I'm a bad boy. Can I get a prize?
FUCK OFF!

Because they tried to become Chrome.

You will never be better at being Chrome than Chrome. So stop trying.

Pale Moon is better than Firefox, just use that.

The problem is that they want to drop all the low-level APIs from Firefox when that was the very reason Firefox was so successful in the first place; it could become anything anybody needed.

Hell, it was a perfect drop-in replacement for Opera 12 with three addons, my usage patterns barely changed at all. Same with IE users who transitioned to Firefox; a few changes and it could be functionally be just like IE.

But that's all going the way of the Dodo, now; welcome to the age of "you're too stupid to have anything but high-level APIs".

Mozilla staff think themselves misunderstood savants of the highest order.

>We removed a feature people want
>someone made an addon for it
>it is popular as fuck
>"Damn if people find out they will think we are incompetent hurrdurr"

This is Mozilla's home page.

They don't even care about the browser anymore. They're now solving social programs and are empowering niggers in Africa or some shit like that.

RIP Firefox.

get esr and don´t update it
why does everyone seem to imply most current version or nothing?
it´s hardly like they are fixing many important things.

>djeez FF is slow and still not multiprocess
>m-fucking assholes are removing XUL to enable multiprocess and speed things up I HATE THEM

neckbeards, you cant please them

gr8 b8 m8

Saw this shit yesterday, jesus.

>DTA dev quit
Thank fuck, that shit kind of download manager that shits all over TCP bandwidth sharing deserves to die.

WTF? I thought my DNS is poisoned but others see this shit too. Sup Forums-fox when?

>pickup truck lacking in performance
>remove pick up bed to make it faster
>everyone upset

Fucking carpenters, can't please them!

At my job, I occasionally have to do some web projects and on one occasion, Firefox produced a bug while all other browsers (including IE) didn't. I joked to my colleague (ff user) that IE was the best browser anyway. Since then, IE was the only browser to not make any problems at all, so it became a positive meme. Not gonna switch though

>attach a trailer aka webextensions
>problem solved

Fucking truckers, can't please them!

>stealing your car analogies from HN

you little bitch faggot

Car analogies are way flawed, but if they definitely had to do something about both multiprocess and security.

XUL was powerful, but it was pretty shit all things considered. That new API is much better, I just hope they can be pressured into making it powerful enough to do everything that we could do before.

ill clock ur gabber u cheeky cunt

You don't understand. It is not possible for these add ons to be ported over to the new API because you can't do shit on the new API
There is a reason why Chrome has little to no customization and it's not because every dev in the world is retarded

If I can't use extensions to modify tabs I'll just not update Firefox to the new version ever.

are there any plans for sandboxing?

What is TabCenter?

Not one of the tab related extensions that I use.

Which browser should I switch to?

>I want my setup to stay exactly the same but i don't care about the extension that tries to replicate it with the new, faster and more secure API
As you wish user. But don't go on and spout outright lies then.

Just use the Firefox ESR until someone makes something better. Don't need to jump ship entirely just because the new versions are retarded.

Servo

>Pale Moon doesn't work with TreeStyleTabs (The workaround doesn't work)
addons.palemoon.org/extensions/treestyletabforpm/

>he prefers his car to continue to have wheels instead of high quality cubes

What a loser amirite?

A sad attempt in trying to replicate something that simply can't be replicated with XUL

>he uses car analogies to talk about software

without*

It's just unbelievable. "The only advantage Firefox has? Let's get rid of it!"

No addons, I'll drop ff in 1 second.

>he pretends not to understand how relevant the analogy is

Will ESR "just work" with my current profile or will it fuck everything up too?

Firefox still has the ability to search as you type and select links when you press enter over chrome, but so does Opera.

It's not.