
Today’s Firefox Aims to Reduce Your Online Annoyances - Errorcod3
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/03/19/todays-firefox-aims-to-reduce-your-online-annoyances/
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dang
Comments moved to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19430684](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19430684).

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Jabbermonkey
If Firefox had treated TabMixPlus (TMP) and other extensions as first-class
citizens when they introduced quantum, I can guarantee I'd be using Firefox
today (along with all the less technical people in my extended network, who
I'd install it for).

Unfortunately, during the transition to quantum and WebExtensions the
developers blocked add-ons making changes to the Firefox interface, which
crippled TMP and a variety of other add-ons. To suddenly have your favorite
add-on crippled is a little painful but what made me walk away was the tone of
responses from Mozilla people on the boards and the bug reports. It ranged
from dismissive, to arrogant, to angry which, particularly given how quickly
the transition took place, just added insult to injury.

It seemed like Mozilla did get the message by the end of 2017 that their
approach and response to add-ons had alienated many users. One of their 2018
visions included a statement that 'In 2018, extensions will be one of the
reasons why people choose and use Firefox.' Unfortunately, when I looked at
the TMP message boards last year I still saw very little in the way of signs
of cooperation and encouragement from Mozilla. The TMP developer, onemen,
still seems to be trying his best to produce a suite of extensions to
reproduce the lost functionality and to be fair to Mozilla they have been
moving obstacles out of the way but the pace is glacial.

Chrome may be creepy and invasive but right now it's far more flexible and
remains a smoother experience. I'd really love to switch away from Chrome but
I won't trade it for an inflexible Firefox UI. If Mozilla could loosen up on
the UI restrictions, demonstrate that they're doing everything possible to
make the product friendly for add-on developers, and somehow get themselves
around to replicating, or helping to replicate, TMP and other crippled add-ons
then I would enthusiastically consider switching.

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Causality1
One of my primary online annoyances is having to maintain two Firefox
installations because most of my favored extensions can't or won't be
rewritten for WebExtensions.

