
Extensions in Firefox 58 - buovjaga
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/11/20/extensions-in-firefox-58/
======
y0ghur7_xxx
I still miss a lot of extensions. One of my favourites was pwgen¹. I missed it
so much I decided to write my own², but writing it I found out that the
WebExtensions api is still a big work in progress.

For example writing some text to the clipboard seems to be a basic thing a web
extension should be able to do. BUT to do it, you have to create a textbox,
set its value to something, then programmatically select the text, and then
invoke document.execCommand("Copy") to copy the text. Come on! Why not
something like browser.clipboard.copy('some text')? And it does not even
always work like expected³.

I hope the next ff versions will improve on this. Extensions are what makes
the browser your own.

¹[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pwgen-
passwor...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pwgen-password-
generator/)

²[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pwgen-
reloade...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pwgen-reloaded/)

³[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1344410](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1344410)

~~~
emmelaich
I use this bit of javascript I found via HN. Just bookmark it. (paste in as
the url) You can always add your own salt/tweaks too.

javascript:(function () { var pw = ''; var array = new Uint8Array(12);
window.crypto.getRandomValues(array); for (var i = 0; i < 12; i++) { pw +=
('0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ-_')[array[i]&63];
} prompt('Random password:', pw); })()

~~~
bhhaskin
You should checkout pass

[https://www.passwordstore.org/](https://www.passwordstore.org/)

~~~
craftyguy
This is what I've used for quite a while. I used to have a browser extension
to interface with it, now I just use rofi-pass with a keybinding to bring it
up in any app, search for a password, and put it on my clipboard. No auto
fill, but I never was comfortable with browser password managers throwing
credentials into any arbitrary form box (visible or not..) that 'looked' like
a password box.

------
lenni
I must say that Mozilla have made the right call with extensions in Firefox
57.

Web extensions are probably a small part of it but I have switched back to FF
after ~5 years of Chrome. I also like the redesign but the killer feature was
the noticeable speed up.

I consider myself a fan again!

~~~
asfdsfggtfd
Great to see that new users are getting catered for meanwhile those of us that
used Firefox the whole time get ignored.

~~~
KozmoNau7
I've been a Firefox user since Phoenix 0.1, and a Mozilla Suite/Netscape user
before that. I used Chrome for a couple of years, but went back around when
FF56 was released.

FF57 is absolutely the greatest version of Firefox to date. I have yet to hear
a single legitimate complaint against it that actually holds up to scrutiny.

~~~
megous
It broke web experience for me. I write userscripts / extensions for most
websites I frequent, and almost none work anymore. Granted, it's because
Greasemonkey decided to break backward compatibility, but that was triggered
by this move to a new extension model.

I tried to think forward, and proactively convert my greasemonkey scripts to
new style FF extensions a few months back, to avoid dependency on GM. But
abandoned that after it became clear that I'm not allowed to install my own
extensions on regular Firefox, because of forced thir-party signing
requirement. I have no need for signing. I could create an extension by
zipping a directory. Now the workflow is 1000x more complex with all the crap
loaded from npm required to sign it.

My web experience is s*it, ATM.

Firefox is great anyway. But it is power user hostile in some aspects too.
Personal extensions/userscripts are central to my use of the web. So this is
all quite annoying, since signing was enforced. And now even my userscripts
broke with 57, as expected.

~~~
zcid
This point is irksome. How hard would it be to provide a switch to disable
mandatory signing? Something similar to the unknown sources option in Android.

To all those claiming that Mozilla doesn't owe this to their users, you are
technically correct. But why piss off users when you can easily satisfy them
with a simple option. I shouldn't have to use a patched browser for something
so basic.

~~~
forapurpose
Last I knew, there were "unbranded" editions of Firefox - editions without the
Firefox logo and name - which allowed users to disable the signing
requirement. The ESR (extended service release) edition might also allow it.

------
DavideNL
Interesting, i wonder how effective _resistFingerprinting_ will be...?

"If true, the resistFingerprinting preference makes the browser report generic
spoofed information for data that's commonly used for fingerprinting. Such
data includes the number of CPU cores, precision of JavaScript timers, and the
local timezone. It will also disable features that are used in fingerprinting,
such as GamePad support, and the WebSpeech and Navigator APIs."

~~~
Sylos
I tested it on a fresh profile on Firefox Nightly 59.0a1 (2017-11-21), using
[https://panopticlick.eff.org/](https://panopticlick.eff.org/).

And well, apparently it has a pretty bad bug. It spoofs my screen size from
previously 1366x768, which 1 in 9.43 browsers have, to 1318x686, which by
itself is already unique, because that really is just not a screen size that
anyone sells.

So, that's a thing. Maybe it's just isolated to Nightly, but if in doubt,
maybe also just test yourself. Now where to report this...

~~~
bhrgunatha
> to 1318x686, which by itself is already unique,

Is it sticky though? I don't know how the spoofing works, but if the next
time, the same site gets a different size, wouldn't your profile become less
identifiable across visits and other web sites.

~~~
DavideNL
> Is it sticky though?

No, it changes every time...

~~~
Sylos
It doesn't for me...

~~~
DavideNL
Oops you're right, my bad.

------
lkramer
I love the new Firefox, but the fact that it killed my favourite tabtree
plugin, and the alternative is less nice + plus you have to do weird css hacks
to make it look seemless and hide the top tab bar is very disappointing. I'm
guessing the new extension system is a lot less flexible than the old one?

~~~
scrollaway
I think part of the problem is that Firefox doesn't have flexible, high
quality tabs. Vertical tabs, tab trees etc were really popular extensions.

Personally I'd be happy to see Firefox have tab feature chrome natively has:

\- Scroll wheel to move between tabs
([https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1285812](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1285812))

\- Ctrl+1 (2, 3, ...) to jump to a tab. Ctrl+0 to jump to the last tab. [Edit:
This works with Alt, nvm!]

\- Multi-select tab management (Ctrl+Click, Shift+Click to select, drag, snap
and move multiple tabs)

Back when Firefox initially got a lot of market share, its killer feature was
tabs. It almost feels like they forgot that :(

~~~
noisem4ker
Chrome parity would be good, but I think that with little effort Mozilla could
make a tremendous improvement:

\- Multiple-row tab bar.

Such an obvious improvement over tabs scrolling off the screen sides or
squashing them like Chrome does, I don't know why it's not being considered.

It's already been done by Tab Mix Plus (or was it Classic Theme Restorer?).
They only need to copy it and polish it a little.

~~~
baby
It's not been considered because Tree Style Tab just is just the best solution
to all these problems.

~~~
thom_nic
People keep mentioning tree-style tab but I don't see how that's an
alternative to TMP's multiple tab rows.

Personally I don't find tree-style tabs appealing at all because (1) I usually
have few pages open on the _same_ domain, but I have many pages open on
different domains. And (2) I don't want a vertical column of content width
lost to a sidebar.

Limiting tabs to a single row per window is awful for usability.

~~~
wtallis
> And (2) I don't want a vertical column of content width lost to a sidebar.

You have to understand that this is a pretty unusual concern. Most of the
world struggles with screens with aspect ratios optimized for watching TV,
making vertical space very precious but leaving plenty of excess horizontal
space that cannot be effectively used by the majority of web pages that only
use a single column of text.

~~~
thom_nic
> Most of the world struggles with screens with aspect ratios optimized for
> watching TV ...

You are right about that. I use two external monitors, one of which is rotated
90°. Guess which one I keep my browser window on? :)

------
kevin_thibedeau
I don't get the twisted priorities here. Extensions can do subversive things
like change search engines but useful modifications to the UI are verboten.

Blindly copying Chrome is the wrong path to head down. You end up playing into
Google's game of building systems with user hostile misfeatures meant to
protect ad revenue.

~~~
sp332
They are not forbidden. They are just not done yet.
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1332447](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1332447)

Edit: better link
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions/TabHiding](https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions/TabHiding)

~~~
Macha
From that wiki page:

> Some of the key goals of WebExtensions are that it’s not about changing the
> Firefox UI in the way we used to in legacy add-ons. There’s clear
> limitations we need to set. However there’s so much interest around tabs and
> tab groups.

So tab mix plus gets its APIs because people yelled hard enough, but
vimperator won't?

~~~
sp332
Those are both on the list, but they are not "priorities".
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions/Future](https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions/Future)

[https://github.com/vimperator/vimperator-
labs/issues/705#iss...](https://github.com/vimperator/vimperator-
labs/issues/705#issuecomment-344383643) "The WebExtension APIs offered by
Firefox already contain many features that chrome lacks and I am working
constructively with them to add the APIs we need to make something a lot like
vimperator in Firefox."

------
brudgers
Sandboxing user side javascript from the web seems like a reasonable security
step. Sandboxing web side javascript from the user side javascript is removes
power from users in the way that concerned Stallman 35 years ago.

Unfortunately, that's the direction Mozilla is going with web extensions. It
must because Mozilla's complicity to bake DRM into the browser requires giving
control of the user's computer over to media interests. It requires favoring
corporate interests over user freedom.

The horrible thing about Quantum is it replaces the last browser that put
power in the hands of users. It removes the last browser that was not
constrained explicitly for media consumption.

~~~
amaranth
Nothing to do with DRM, the old model let extensions modify every part of the
browser that could be touched via JavaScript (and since the browser UI itself
is made with XUL and JS that's quite a lot of it) and even allowed using C++
to access all of the compiled guts as well. That is impossible to support
sanely (every change is a breaking change to something) and is a security
nightmare as well (users have no idea what an extension can do unless they
read the code, if it's even available). The new model is sandboxed JavaScript
that gains all potentially unsafe functionality via somewhat fine-grained
permissions which means you have a good idea what an extension is capable of
and know it can't do anything unexpected like grabbing random files on your
disk. The downside to this model is someone actually has to think about what
an API should look like and what the security implications are and then do the
work to implement it. Before if someone made an API great but if not you could
just do it yourself.

~~~
brudgers
XUL could have been replaced without implementing Chrome's restrictions on the
user. They are orthogonal.

~~~
pcwalton
They aren't restrictions on _users_. They're restrictions on _add-ons_.

And the Firefox extension model does not implement Chrome's restrictions. It
has APIs that Chrome does not support: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Br...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-
ons/WebExtensions/Browser_support_for_JavaScript_APIs)

~~~
brudgers
Web extensions express the architectural decision to remove power from the
user. The extra API's are better for the user in the sense that a sharper
knife is better for the user when their hands are cut off.

------
pmoriarty
Firefox 57 was the version that permanently killed the extension that made
Firefox usable for me: Pentadactyl (along with many other extensions).

Now I'm migrating to using Qutebrowser, as it's the closest to providing a
similar experience.

~~~
mintplant
Have you tried Vim Vixen?

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vim-
vixen/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vim-vixen/)

~~~
nathyong
I don't know where this was when I was searching for alternatives to
vimperator, but thanks so much for mentioning vim-vixen. It seems like it's
just a port of the parts of vimperator that still work with WebExtensions but
it's so much better than the alternatives out there at the moment.

------
foob
The timing on this is quite coincidental, I just published a short article
this morning about adding support to Selenium for installing WebExtensions to
Firefox profiles [1]. I write and use extensions frequently for web scraping
and browser automation, and I've really been thrilled about what Mozilla has
done with the WebExtensions API. It was a quite miserable process to write
cross-browser extensions in the past, but that basically changed overnight
when Mozilla first announced the WebExtensions API. I think that this is
ultimately going to have an immensely positive impact on the extension
ecosystem.

[1] - [https://intoli.com/blog/firefox-extensions-with-
selenium/](https://intoli.com/blog/firefox-extensions-with-selenium/)

------
piyush_soni
Are they planning to add a local file writing API too to WebExtensions (tried
to search it but couldn't find). Every browser is trying to standardize on
Chrome's extension model (which already has local file writing support), but
"only so much", and that's a problem.

~~~
gear54rus
Also wondering about an unchained 'fetch'. Still can't get or set some headers
([https://github.com/github/fetch/issues/163](https://github.com/github/fetch/issues/163)).

------
dbolgheroni
Still no API for WebExtensions with Vimperator-like or Pentadactyl-like
functionality. [0][1]

For those interested, the whole discussion about adding it is here [2].

[0] [https://github.com/cmcaine/keyboard-
api](https://github.com/cmcaine/keyboard-api) [1]
[https://github.com/Koushien/keyboard-shortcut-
api](https://github.com/Koushien/keyboard-shortcut-api) [2]
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215061](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215061)

~~~
jlgaddis
Vimium-FF [0] works just fine and has since I first installed FF57 Developer
Edition (right after FF55 came out?)

[0]: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-
ff/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/)

~~~
idlewan

       .. works just fine ...
    

Not really. You can't yank the url (yy) in Firefox, and the search is borked
sometimes when there is no match on the page. After spending a few months with
vimium, I found vim-vixen, which doesn't have these problems.

------
TheRealPomax
To me the important part is "Starting with Firefox 58, the CSP of a web page
does not apply to content inserted by an extension". This was flagged as going
to be a problem back when CSP was still a draft instead of a spec, and it was
blatantly obvious that bookmarklets and extensions would get impaired if CSP
ignored the difference between site-content-activated scripts, and browser-
owner-activated scripts.

I would have preferred to see this land 6 to 12 weeks after CSP handling
originally landed in Firefox, but landing it now is a clear case of "better
late than never".

------
piyush_soni
What is a good replacement for DownThemAll! ? It was such an important one for
me, now lost too :(

~~~
bhrgunatha
DTA lite (web extension version) was planned for release along with Quantum,
but was delayed. [1] I still don't know how limited it will be compared to the
XUL version though.

[1] [https://www.downthemall.net/delays/](https://www.downthemall.net/delays/)

~~~
Sylos
Huh, except for the quip with calling it "Lite" and the simply factually wrong
bullshit in the footnote that there would be no technical reasons, this
surprises me.

He was the only bigger extension dev that threw a complete tantrum over this
decision, refusing to even try to work with Mozilla to get some APIs into
place, so that he could maybe actually port his extension in full. And now
he's doing a port anyways.

Well, good on him. I do not think that his behaviour back then was entirely
justified, so this remedies that.

------
rolodato
Is there a genuine use case for changing the default search engine from an
extension? Even if it has to be confirmed by the user, it still seems like a
dialog that many users won't read and click on Yes anyway.

~~~
PurpleRamen
I guess this means that the extension handles the searchinput local, which
seems like a very legit use case. Maybe we are lucky, and it means ALL
adressbarinput is handled by the extensions, in which case this supports
vimperator-style interfaces.

Another use case coming to mind is to compensate for the horrible bad ability
to define your own searchengine. Leting a extension handle this would be an
improvement.

------
yscik
I'm not sure how allowing extensions to change privacy settings is going to
increase user privacy.

And while it's becoming easier to manipulate any website you visit, with
basically nothing stopping a malicious extension from stealing user data or
just taking over any online account, actually extending the browser UI, the
original goal of many former extensions, is extremely limited.

~~~
acqq
If you mean the stuff under "Additional Privacy Controls" you already surf
without the functionality that can be turned on with this API. That means that
the new API allows you more privacy, at least until you install some extension
that maybe overrides the extension that turned "on" that privacy
functionality.

So it's like before, adding a new extension is _always_ a security risk.

~~~
yscik
Wow, I thought the controls are exposed in browser preferences. This makes
even less sense, why would these be only controllable by extensions? (Though
they are accessible in about:config at least)

~~~
milofeynman
I personally have them both turned on in about:config.

But It would be nice to have an extension to turn off resistfingerprinting on
some sites (like firefox's extension site) because it fakes the browser's user
agent which breaks things that check your user agent. I'm not sure this will
allow that. It seems like it'll allow a privacy extension to easily enable /
disable it for all sites with a check box.

------
proee
Regarding extensions, can we really trust random 3rd party developers that
their code is 100% safe and will not steal our passwords.

Giving full read/write access to an extension seems VERY dangerous to me,
especially if the extension was compromised unknowingly by someone who hacked
into the developers machine prior to a release.

~~~
weaksauce
fwiw if you put a webextension on AMO they manually do a review of your code
before it's release to make sure it's not malicious. not 100% safe but what
is?

------
lexicality
And yet it still lacks the tab hiding API.

~~~
lexicality
(Should you wish to follow along at home to the glorious process of Open
Source you can read the related discussions here:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1384515](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1384515)
)

~~~
Sean1708
A better place to start might be:
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions/TabHiding](https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions/TabHiding)

------
Rusky
One thing that might release some of the pressure around addons would be to
make Gecko more embeddable, the way Blink is.

We've started seeing a lot of alternative Blink UIs (Brave, Vivaldi, new
Opera, etc) alongside apps built on it via Electron. Those alternative UIs do
things Chrome extensions can't, even including things Firefox 57 lost the
ability to do.

I don't know how close to that state Gecko is right now, so maybe it would be
less work just to recreate the necessary APIs like they're already doing. But
if not it could help bring back some of Gecko's market share, which is at
least as important as that of Firefox as a whole.

~~~
pcwalton
Blink isn't very embeddable. In fact, removing the "ports" system that
facilitated embeddability was one of the main goals of the Blink fork.

The alternative "Blink" UIs, and Electron, are really just forks of the entire
Chromium browser, soup to nuts.

~~~
Rusky
Ah fair enough. How easy then would it be for a Firefox fork to drop the
chrome the way Electron does?

------
dbrgn
> Support for PKCS #11 Security Devices

This is nice, but I'd prefer if support for FIDO U2F would be here already.
But it looks like something is happening with that too:

[https://www.yubico.com/2017/09/firefox-nightly-enables-
suppo...](https://www.yubico.com/2017/09/firefox-nightly-enables-support-
fido-u2f-security-keys/)

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1065729](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1065729)

~~~
veeti
U2F support for most sites is already in stable Firefox, you just have to flip
security.webauth.u2f in about:config. Unfortunately Google doesn't work yet,
maybe due to missing AppID support:

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1244959](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1244959)

~~~
dbrgn
Whoa, TIL. Thanks!

------
sdfjkl
I love firstPartyIsolate and resistFingerprinting. These should probably be on
by default.

~~~
mkbkn
What is firstPartyIsolate ? Could you please explain?

~~~
zaarn
fPI will isolate every first-party domain as much as the browser can,
including HSTS and other security related properties.

This means that if you visit example.com and then initech.com and both load a
tracker from evilshit.org, then the tracker will see too completely fresh
browser installs, not even HSTS will be setup if it was used.

Basically, every domain you type into the URL address bar behaves as if it was
a unique container.

------
cyphar
The privacy changes look quite cool, especially firstPartyIsolate (though it
also looks like it'd break most websites -- notably YouTube and similar sites
would likely break).

> firstPartyIsolate – This preference makes the browser associate all data
> (including cookies, HSTS data, cached images, and more) for any third party
> domains with the domain in the address bar.

~~~
kwoff
I already in v57 had to set privacy.firstparty.isolate.restrict_opener_access
to false in about:config because every site is wanting me to login all the
time... (At least I assume that was the reason.) I did toggle
privacy.firstparty.isolate to true, though.

------
eejdoowad
Looking forward to this update.

I wonder if it will be possible to load scripts into the reader view document.
Currently, it isn’t, so keybinding extensions, which rely on inserting
Keyboard event listeners, don’t work in reader view. I had been prototyping a
custom reader view in Saka Key using Mozilla’s Readability library to work
around this issue.

The Content Security Policy fix is a lifesaver. Saka Key attaches hint
elements to the DOM and attaches a script tag to load common styles/fonts.
Sites with the policy style-src: self (like crates.io) block script tags,
which breaks hint styling and positioning.

------
crispinb
The lack of configurable keyboard shortcuts for extensions is what stops me
continuing to use Firefox each time I try it. I have yet to find a usable
Pinboard extension, for example.

Is this an extensions API limitation or is not using the keyboard part of FF
norms/culture? Even much built-in functionality (like save to Pocket) is
mouse-only.

------
YSFEJ4SWJUVU6
Well isn't it just great to have a new Theme API, never even knew I missed
that. And a Reader Mode API, I'm sure I'll love that too even though I've
never even used that mode.

Glad they got rid of the old extension system now that the new one is so
feature complete. I mean who needs spellchecker API anyway, if you miss
spellchecking in your language, you can always start writing in another
language, no? Perhaps they could introduce a Pocket API to compensate?

------
eb0la
Just when I thought FF57 was great. Now switching to Nightly :D

------
TimTheTinker
All the recent developments are really great. I’m just waiting for:

\- Workspace support in DevTools (i.e. unify localhost-loaded resources with
an on-disk workspace to enable updating JS & CSS without reloading, editing
and saving files from DevTools, etc.)

\- queryObjects console API method (from Chrome)

\- alternate DevTools themes

If/when those land I’ll likely go back to using FireFox as my primary
development browser (been developing on Chrome since 2009).

------
frading
The tabs.Tab.isArticle does not seem to be in chrome. Anyone know how they
detect if a page is an article or not?

~~~
frading
replying to myself, it simply is the html tag <article>. Didnt realise it was
that simple.

~~~
throwanem
That's good to know, and I didn't think it was that simple either. Thanks!

------
infogulch
Is there an extension for 57+ that shows bookmarks in a tab?

I dislike all the window-based bookmarks, downloads, etc UI ("Library"). You
have a world-class extensible customizable graphical user interface system
right here in the middle of the browser, use it.

------
trqx
Nothing new about TCP/UDP socket API? That and possibility to hide the tab bar
is what I miss the most.

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1247628](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1247628)

~~~
throwanem
You can hide the tab bar with userChrome.css (I think that's what it is
called), although possibly not in a way that can be toggled. Should be able to
hide it only in windows where only one tab is present, at least.

------
monsieurgaufre
They kill many extensions, but make Pocket unremovable. That's beyond stupid.

If I care about speed, I use Chrome. If I want custombility, I used to pick
Firefox. Right now, it's basically a Chrome clone, so why bother.

And the privacy argument is not strong enough.

~~~
imran3740
You can disable Pocket. In about:config, toggle 'extensions.pocket.enabled' to
false.

------
phreack
No good RSS extension yet, no mousewheel scrolling through tabs, no 'Add "run"
option to download dialog'...

I suddenly lost so much with Quantum, I wish they had held onto killing the
old add-ons until the WebExtensions API was complete.

------
bartkmq
Does anyone found an alternative to "BackTrack Tab History", an extension that
copies the history of the current tab to newly opened tabs? The author thinks
he won't be able to port it to Quantum.

~~~
DiThi
What's the difference with duplicating the tab then going to about:blank?

------
ishbits
Probably silly, but I pretty much only use Chrome for the custom/compact title
bar on Linux. On smaller screens it gives me more vertical on the content.

~~~
r3bl
That's an expected feature for Firefox as well.

It landed in Nightly as a WIP feature, but it's getting there:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1283299](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1283299)

------
wnevets
I just want my scroll wheel switches tabs add-on back :(

~~~
overint
I missed this when chrome removed a similar addon. It was an awesome feature,
would love to see it make a comeback.

------
rockdino
All nice feature but Firefox still doesn't support hangout or bluejeans

------
andrepd
They're clearly adding APIs that _they_ think are necessary, vs the ones addon
developers actually need and clamour for. We've seen this in the entire
process. Mozilla is not interested in listening to the actual needs of the
developers. They just have their own idea of "brand new cool features" and
they're gonna roll with it. Disappointing.

~~~
DiThi
Part of the reason is that most users of some popular addons don't participate
in the open source community, reporting bugs, commenting on them to add
details or tell why are they important, etc.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Do Mozilla contact the creators of the most popular addons, they could serve
as a useful proxy for trying to get direct input from inexperienced users.

~~~
DiThi
They probably do. But Firefox addons is a long tail. There are many addons
that would qualify as "popular" but Mozilla wouldn't be able to contact them
all. So they have to measure not only popularity, but also if the community
cares about that addon. I had many addons installed that I don't use,
synchronized across devices: They may count as "popular" but it doesn't
reflect the actual community and usage.

------
vermaden
One of the extensions I miss most is UnMHT.

Anyone have info about if/when it will support Quantum?

------
TimLeland
This will make it easier to port extensions from and allow developers to have
one codebase.

Makes it easier for me to manage my extension
[https://weatherextension.com](https://weatherextension.com)

------
s_kilk
[Meta] Do we really need to rehash the same discussion about tree-style-
tabs/insert-favourite-extension-here every time Firefox is mentioned on here?

~~~
piyush_soni
(Not a tree style tabs user, but ... ) Yes, because

1) Someone here might know more (updated) about when's the support going to be
added for the same,

2) The Extension Author might comment on when he's going to add the support
for it if possible,

3) Some of the geeks here might know a good replacement of it (because
Firefox's "Find a Replacement" is not as good as it's supposed to be).

4) When people say "me too", some other Hackers around here might be inspired
to write one from scratch, or Firefox people might see how important it is (I
know about Bugzilla's voting system, trust me, that doesn't work)

Firefox has just broken people's workflows that were set in place for years,
and they are naturally concerned. Let it be.

~~~
KozmoNau7
>Firefox has just broken people's workflows that were set in place for years

The XUL deprecation in FF57 has been public knowledge for _years_. The
extension authors are to blame here.

~~~
throwanem
How do you port a XUL extension that relies for critical functionality on
calls whose equivalents the web extensions API doesn't provide?

How do you achieve 1:1 compatibility between extension APIs when the
architecture that enabled XUL to expose the entire codebase for extensions'
use no longer exists, _and_ no longer exists because replacing it was the only
way to resolve showstopping performance issues?

How do you keep using a browser that no longer supports extensions without
which you can't satisfy the use cases for which you chose and adapted that
browser in the first place?

No one is to blame here.

~~~
KozmoNau7
The extension developers could have worked more closely with the Firefox team
to find possible solutions.

In the end, XUL was a _major_ performance and security issue. Good riddance.

~~~
msla
The Firefox team _has_ a solution: Break everything to make it faster, and not
care about the freaks who _like_ extensions, who _rely on_ extensions.
Cooperation is a two-way street, and the Firefox devs blocked it off entirely.

~~~
KozmoNau7
There are still thousands of actively developed extensions.

I get that you're mad about some of your favorite niche extensions being
unavailable due to relying on XUL functionality that shouldn't have been there
in the first place, but you'll just have to find alternatives.

~~~
msla
And the dismissive attitude of the Firefox team just makes the whole thing
worse.

The alternative a lot of people will find is a different browser.

------
wpdev_63
I recently switched to firefox and I find that chrome has much better plugin
support. Just browsing between the plugin stores and you can see the
difference. Hopefully firefox can catch up.

One plugin that I really miss in firefox is holmes[0]. I bookmark alot of
useful sites and it can be a pain to find them in the bookmark list. It's a
plugin that makes me really miss chrome.

[0]
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/holmes/gokficnebmo...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/holmes/gokficnebmomagijbakglkcmhdbchbhn?hl=en)

[1] [https://www.chromium.org/tab-to-search](https://www.chromium.org/tab-to-
search)

------
super_mario
As far as I'm concerned Firefox is dead. I'm sticking with 56 and Pentadactyl
for the times I need to do extensive research online where it is so much
faster to browse and find things.

Otherwise, I'm using Safari and weaning myself off of all the power of VIM
like browsing. Safari also happens to be so much smoother and does not kill
the battery.

~~~
asfdsfggtfd
I would switch to ESR version - at least you will get security updates.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Was there anything changed between versions 52 and 56 that would make this a
retrograde step?

~~~
throwanem
Perf improved considerably over that span, even before e10s officially landed.

