
A grim outlook on the future of browser add-ons - gilrain
https://palant.info/2020/08/31/a-grim-outlook-on-the-future-of-browser-add-ons/
======
IainIreland
Mozilla employee here (albeit not on the mobile team):

Relax, everybody. Fenix is a major rewrite. It takes time to reimplement all
the WebExtension APIs. Nevertheless, the intent is to eventually add support
for all the APIs that make sense on mobile. (See here, for example:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1632626#c1](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1632626#c1),
or just scroll through the list of bugs here:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?product=GeckoView&c...](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?product=GeckoView&component=Extensions&resolution=---&list_id=15396111))

If you go back and read old HN threads from the first public release of Fenix,
people were afraid that the lack of extension support was a sign that Mozilla
had given up on adblockers. I hope it's clear by now that's not true. (From
what I recall of lunchtime conversations, back when those were a thing, the
plan for extensions was "well, we're _definitely_ not shipping without uBlock
Origin, and we'll see what else we can get working from there".) Similarly,
the fact that parts of the WebExtension API are not currently available
doesn't mean Mozilla has given up on it. It just means that things take time.
(If it were easy, other mobile browsers might support add-ons!)

It takes a lot of resources to support two parallel codebases. At some point
you have to rip off the band-aid. The sooner Fennec is cut loose, the more
effort we can dedicate to Fenix improvements (like improving WebExtension
support). The transition was always going to be a bit bumpy, but things should
hopefully get better from here.

~~~
jacquesm
Why push out something half baked? You are essentially stabbing your users in
the back, some of us _depend_ on those add-ons to get through the working day.
To come into the office one day and to find your work environment irreversibly
borked is not something that I find it all that easy to forgive. You have a
very large responsibility to your users to _not_ mess up their workflows.
Better to keep your update in-house until you are done than to push something
half baked and not backwards compatible.

'a bit bumpy' doesn't begin to describe it, until this day there are many ways
in which the current iteration of FireFox is behind where 56 was.

~~~
Silhouette
You seem to have strong views on this. Perhaps you should write an article
about the hazards of pushing unwanted "upgrades" on users and degrading their
experience? Then every time a story like this comes up, it could help to make
your point again.

~~~
jacquesm
I just might ;)

Anyway, even if I did, it probably wouldn't make any difference.

~~~
Silhouette
Perhaps not, but I and probably many others would thank you for trying to at
least raise the issue.

------
causality0
_no technical reason why none of the other add-ons are allowed any more, it
being merely a policy decision. I already verified that my add-ons can still
run on Firefox for Android but aren’t allowed to_

That makes me almost incoherently furious. I understand if you rebuild the
foundation of a browser for better performance and that breaks all the
extensions until the developers can rewrite them for the new model. I get it
if one of my favorite extensions is no longer under active development and
will never have a version released for the new model. But how fucking dare you
gatekeep what I install on my own browser? Freedom from this walled-garden
bullshit is the _only_ reason I run Firefox instead of Chrome. Google's twice
as good at UI as you. They're faster, look better, and miraculously I never
have to swipe five times trying to dismiss a Chrome tab.

I get that Mozilla is drowning, flailing around trying to create a future
where they aren't irrelevant. This is just ugly, though.

~~~
palant
According to some Mozilla people, this part is actually wrong and extension
support is indeed not implemented completely. It's merely that I couldn't (and
still cannot) find a list of outstanding issues, and everything I tried worked
correctly.

~~~
causality0
I wouldn't put it past them to just be straight-up lying.

~~~
palant
They don't. Mozilla at this stage is still a very idealistically motivated
organization. Most people are trying hard to do the right thing. It's merely
that real-life constrains often lead to rather suboptimal results, despite all
the good intentions.

~~~
causality0
They do lie. Mozilla claimed Quantum was fundamentally incompatible with XUL
extensions, despite the fact people could simply build their own Firefox
Quantum from source with XUL support turned back on.

------
Santosh83
Regarding browsers, I suspect the writing is on the wall. They have approached
complexities rivalling full-fledged operating systems, and it seems to me that
we're heading in the direction of the same few giant vendors authoring and
maintaining both. Independent browsers that are not customizations of existing
engines are probably on the way out. So we are going to end up with a few
major browsers, tightly integrated with their maker's OS, and other broswer
'apps' are going to differentiate on niche features but employ the same few
engines underneath, so they won't make a difference to the openness or lack of
it for the web.

This is already the case with the sole exception of Firefox, the only truly
independent browser not backed by an OS/platform vendor, and it's struggling
badly precisely _because_ of that. But hopefully, it will still manage to
nominally keep pace with the "living standards" and be ready to step into
renewed prominence when the bigger players mess up or become too top-heavy for
their own good.

~~~
momokoko
Firefox is struggling due to the borderline legally liable gross mismanagement
of their executive leadership. How are any of these people allowed to be in
control of, sadly what was, such an important piece of the open web?

Mind blowing all of them do not resign out of shame and humiliation.

~~~
mdoms
Can you give some examples of this mismanagement?

~~~
jacquesm
\- spending funds donated for browser support on frivolous nonsense that
nobody wanted

\- not allowing for earmarking of donations for specific projects

\- breaking user trust repeatedly

\- firing a large fraction of employees the evening prior to picking up
funding (or because of, hard to see cause and effect separate here), almost
ensuring that everybody else who is capable will jump ship or at a minimum
work on polishing up their resume.

\- moving income derived from one project to support others that can't stand
alone

\- allowing a vast gap to come into existence between how the outside world
sees the company vs how the company sees itself

\- chasing lofty, highbrow future goals and vague missions at the expense of
squandering market share and user goodwill for existing products

\- prioritizing new and shiny (but unproven) stuff over core and mission
critical stuff

Do you want me to go on?

~~~
ChrisSD
It would be better to first add evidence to the allegations you made.

First of all, Mozilla donations never get used to fund browser development.
Instead the browser is in part funded by "frivolous" projects that actually
generate an income. The other major source of income is from Google web
search. Firefox's dependence on this isn't ideal and has been critcised by
many, hence the search for other revenue streams.

~~~
jacquesm
> It would be better to first add evidence to the allegations you made.

Is there anything controversial in what I wrote? If so I am not aware of it,
this has all been laid out in some detail by now - repeatedly - so I don't see
why the burden of providing evidence should be on me, unless you think one or
more of these items are controversial or contradicting evidence already out
there.

> Mozilla donations never get used to fund browser development.

Exactly. But they should be.

> Instead the browser is in part funded by "frivolous" projects that actually
> generate an income.

I think the burden of proof is on you now.

> The other major source of income is from Google web search.

That is income that should 100% go to FireFox development, and never to
anything else.

> Firefox's dependence on this isn't ideal and has been critcised by many,
> hence the search for other revenue streams.

Donations to the Mozilla foundation are one such stream.

~~~
ChrisSD
Mozilla (as of 2018-2019[0]) gets millions of dollars from their profitable
projects.

Yes this pales in comparison to the hundreds of millions from web search
partnership but then so does donations. However, significantly growing revenue
from paid products and services is very possible. Whereas increasing donations
by two orders of magnitude is very very unlikely.

> this has all been laid out in some detail by now

Providing a link to that would be useful.

[0]: [https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-
fdn-201...](https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-
fdn-2018-short-form-final-0926.pdf)

~~~
jacquesm
> However, significantly growing revenue from paid products and services is
> very possible.

Of course it is possible, but that's called 'Accenture', not 'Mozilla'.
Really, this all goes directly back to what I wrote above: Mozilla has an
entirely different view of what company it wants to be from what the general
public thinks it should be based on previous statements and there is no amount
of creative redefinition that will solve that.

If Mozilla wants to be an ordinary software house then that's fine by me but
then stop using funds pulled in through FireFox to support the rest of the org
and allow FireFox to be completely independent of the foundation.

It is beyond ridiculous that an important resource like FireFox should be
milked in order to start a software house that does not seem to be all that
dedicated to keeping FF around for the long run.

If FF dies then Mozilla has failed, and the income from the search box alone
should be enough to ensure FireFox's continued existence for a long time into
the future.

That won't happen if Mozilla keeps raiding the piggy bank to cover for their
mistakes, those 'millions of dollars from their profitable projects' are a
drop in the proverbial bucket compared to the costs of the whole org. I'll bet
you not a single sou of that effectively makes its way to FireFox due to the
top heavy org structure.

------
tomc1985
Everything I love about tech is slowly being taken away, because technology is
apparently too hard for the masses :(

~~~
athrun
At the same time, there's never been so much open-source software and hacker-
friendly hardware available.

It's true that the average computing device is turning into an appliance (is
it a bad thing?), but it also appears the options for DIY are ever-expanding.

~~~
tomc1985
The problem is these new DIY platforms don't have the kind of reach that
mobile or even desktop computing has. Even 30 years ago you had people buying
PCs by the droves for all sorts of general-purpose tasks. Raspberry Pis and
such are great for a lot of niche use cases but you don't have people buying
them as a GP computing platform.

~~~
edoceo
Not yet.

I know of one company that has a few "desktops" that are Pi4 and I've seen
loads of them powering "active terminals" \- like in-store menu and office
status screens. Gotta start somewhere. Special case and move towards general
case (some call it crossing the chasm)

------
godelski
This just seems like slippery slope logic. Most addons previously did not
actually work on mobile. All the major addons that people use are available.
I'm not sure why we're putting Firefox down for still being far ahead of every
other mobile browser which still offers 0 addons. To put this in perspective,
I can see 12k people use uBlock origin and the next most popular addon is
NoScript with 3k. This really doesn't affect a lot of people.

~~~
ekianjo
> Most addons previously did not actually work on mobile.

I beg your pardon? Literally hundreds if not thousands of add-ons worked
flawlessly on Firefox Android until a few weeks ago.

> All the major addons that people use are available

You'll need to seriously find some source for that extraordinary claim. What
does "major" even mean? Who cares about "major ones" if 50% of my add-ons are
missing, crippling the functionality of my browser on mobile? This claims
makes no sense at all.

~~~
Vinnl
> You'll need to seriously find some source for that extraordinary claim. What
> does "major" even mean? Who cares about "major ones" if 50% of my add-ons
> are missing, crippling the functionality of my browser on mobile? This
> claims makes no sense at all.

Presumably, "major" means "used by most people", and even without checking I'm
quite sure that if you looks at the install numbers of old Firefox for Android
Add-ons, you'll find that a very large part of those installs were of
extensions that are still available.

Sure, I'd like my small Hacker News extension to be available as well, but I
do care far more about uBlock and Privacy Badger being available - and judging
by installs, so do loads of other people.

(Again, which is not to say that I'd like the smaller extensions to be
available as well. But "the major addons that people use are available" looks
like a mostly accurate claim.)

------
pmontra
> Particularly given that there appears to be no technical reason why none of
> the other add-ons are allowed any more, it being merely a policy decision. I
> already verified that my add-ons can still run on Firefox for Android but
> aren’t allowed to, same shouldq be true for the majority of other add-ons.

I wonder how the author did that. If it was a custom build of FF, we could
rely on a fork as long as FF is open source and it supports extensions. If it
is a configuration, I'll be happy to apply it to my FF.

Meanwhile I used ApkExtractor to save the APK of FF 68 on my phone (no root
required) just in case I inadvertently upgrade FF on it. I already upgraded FF
on my tablet and my old phone to test the UI. My take is that the new
collections are good but the navigation UI is really bad. Opening new tabs,
tapping the URL bar to go to a new site, forward button, they are all worse
than in FF 68 and before. Hopefully they'll make them work as before.

I understand that staying on version 68 is also bad because of no security
fixes. Furthermore it's possible that extension authors kill the Android
version of their software. The plan is to wait for a while and see what
happens.

~~~
palant
Unfortunately, it was neither. However, I'm being told that Firefox Nightly
allows you to install any add-ons, so maybe running it would be an option.

I actually used the debugging functionality to install a temporary add-on.
This is a supported scenario, but it isn't exactly easy to set up.

~~~
iggldiggl
> However, I'm being told that Firefox Nightly allows you to install any add-
> ons, so maybe running it would be an option.

It doesn't – it's still at the stage of only being thought about:

[https://github.com/mozilla-
mobile/fenix/issues/14034](https://github.com/mozilla-
mobile/fenix/issues/14034)

~~~
palant
Yes, I realized that. I probably misunderstood the user who reported this.

------
ChrisSD
> What this text carefully avoids stating directly: that’s the only nine (as
> in: single-digit 9) add-ons which you will be able to install on Firefox for
> Android now. After being able to use thousands of add-ons before, this feels
> like a significant downgrade. Particularly given that there appears to be no
> technical reason why none of the other add-ons are allowed any more, it
> being merely a policy decision. I already verified that my add-ons can still
> run on Firefox for Android but aren’t allowed to, same should be true for
> the majority of other add-ons.

There is a technical reason. They need to thoroughly test the new
implementation of the APIs before they enable broader support. Just because
the author did some (brief?) testing of a few more addons, it doesn't mean
that the APIs themselves are production ready.

The main issue is that the new Firefox was released too early so compromises
had to be made. Thoroughly testing a handful of addons is easier than
thoroughly testing the entire web extension surface area.

This isn't a great situation to be in but there's no need to imagine nefarious
plans to explain it.

~~~
codys
The argument being presented would just as well support Microsoft releasing an
automatic update to windows (automatically deployed to all their users) that
only supported some tiny fraction of white listed applications. They then
don't clearly make any promises about removing the white listing, or any
timelines, but only vague statements about "ensuring a positive user
experience" and "working with their application development partners".

Most people would probably see this as a Very Bad Thing, for a few reasons.
First of all, if we were to take the claim that it's "to ensure stability of
APIs" at face value, it would indicate a staggering lack of maturity in their
decision making process around releases. Next, we shouldn't take the "API"
argument as being anything representative of reality: applications people
develop (or browser extensions) have always been the responsibility of the
developers developing them. If there were bugs in a browser, they'd discover
and work around them, or they'd have a broken extension/application. There
isn't a way around that. Perfect APIs don't fix it: people write bugs into
their applications/extensions/platforms all the time. Things are broken all
the time. Testing has never been Mozilla's responsibility. It's always been on
extension authors. There are already ways to "declare" in an extension that
support of a specific version exists.

There is no competent technical reason to end up in this situation. We're only
left with incompetence and malice. And it's _very_ difficult to think that the
people running a popular mobile browser could be so incompetent. Though I'm
sure we've all said that before about other Mozilla decisions.

~~~
ChrisSD
The decision that lead to this was releasing the new browser before it was
ready. This was done because Mozilla can't afford to be maintaining and
supporting two different browsers on the same platform at the same time. This
is nothing to do with extensions per se. They are just a casualty of
pragmatism; given the initial decision the team had to prioritise.

Secondly, Mozilla absolutely do have a responsibility to ship APIs that work
to spec. It's not up to Addon authors to fix Mozilla's bugs (and that may not
even be possible depending on the nature of the bug). And of course you're
assuming Addon authors would be interested in going so far out of their way to
support what is a relatively small user base.

~~~
codys
This argument is continuing to ignore the solution that's already used to
handle new APIs that are unstable and might not be ready: allowing developers
to opt-in to deployment on that platform via standard metadata included in
apps/extensions. If there was a concern with things being unstable, that would
be the first thing to go to! There's already support for similar things.
Creating special whitelisting is something extra that had to be done. Given
the "we have too much work" angle here, I find it hard to understand why the
existing mechanisms weren't extended instead of creating a new one.

It seems very funny to say "we had to give up and release a broken browser"
and in the same breath take on extra responsibility for API correctness prior
to letting any one who can't convince Mozilla to whitelist them to use the
APIs. And take on responsibility of maintenance of a whitelist

~~~
ChrisSD
Who do you think people complain to when their browser doesn't work right? It
doesn't matter if an addon is responsible, many people will blame the browser
(or at least go to them for support). This increases the support cost and
leads to a very negative perception of the browser itself. Also I'd suggest
that addon authors publicly complaining about broken Firefox APIs would be a
whole other headache for Mozilla.

We've been here before with desktop Firefox when the browser got a lot of flak
for issues that were mainly caused by addons.

~~~
Arnavion
>This increases the support cost and leads to a very negative perception of
the browser itself.

Their solution to that problem hasn't exactly led to a positive perception of
the browser either, and it hasn't even left them the out of blaming it on
anyone but themselves.

~~~
ChrisSD
Sure. But there's no good solution here. As I said, the decision to support
only one browser on Android is what lead to this. That browser isn't fully
ready so all the team can do is go for the least worst option (which is
admittedly a judgement call).

Besides, it would not be a good look to be blaming extension authors for
Mozilla's problems. So I don't think that's a viable "out".

------
superkuh
Mozilla has made it very clear that they don't care about the add-on
ecosystems and will throw away everything so they can be more chrome-like and
provide a safe browser for users that cannot make decisions themselves.

They did it to desktop, now they've done it to mobile.

~~~
aembleton
Why did they add any extensions then? I remember that Fenix didn't allow any
for a while whilst they built that part of it.

------
stickfigure
I just installed FF on my Android phone last week. Haven't started using it
yet but I'm desperate for any mobile browser that supports the equivalent of
Chrome's _Quick Javascript Switcher_ extension - something that gives me one
button "disable javascript for this domain".

I like using well designed webapps and I generally prefer to leave Javascript
enabled. Unfortunately most content sites have become so incredibly user-
hostile that the only way to read them is without Javascript. I do not care
about enhanced privacy yadda yadda whatever... I just need to be able to turn
off the crazy that much of the modern web has become.

I guess I'm too late? Sounds like FF is not my answer.

~~~
bmurphy1976
Brave has this. You can toggle JavaScript in the Brave menu. You can even go
into preferences and change it to disable JavaScript by default and use the
Brave button as a whitelist. I ran this way for years. It was great!

I recently switched to Kiwi+uBlock Origin because it has a proper night mode,
but if you don't need that Brave is a good option (you can ignore/disable the
crypto currency/advertisment nonsense).

------
AnonHP
Discussed yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24330983](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24330983)

------
cft
Just quit FF because of this. Mobile add-ons were the only reason I used it vs
Chrome.

------
dafoex
I recall back in the XPI extension days it was possible to host your extension
on your own website and have Firefox offer to automagically install it as if
it were from the normal add-on site. I believe Chrome also did this for a
short while in the early days, too. Surely even with the severely gutted and
locked down WebExtensions they have now, it would still be possible to do this
again and independently provide your own add-on, or even host an alternative
add-on store along the lines of what F-Droid does for Android.

You can put all the scary security warnings you want to scare off the
unknowledgeable masses, but at least you'll provide some vector to allow niche
users with niche requirements to add and trust a niche repository of their
niche add-ons.

------
freediver
The web browser "situation" that is lasting for the past couple of years
inspired us to start working on new macOS/iOS web browser with webextensions
API support. We are looking for people to alpha test it. Please email if
interested.

------
SergeAx
> In the past, add-ons have done little to help Mozilla achieve a breakthrough
> on mobile

Are you friggin' kidding me? uBlock Origin is the only reason I've switched to
Firefox on my mobile. I pledged to do the same on desktop the moment Chrome
disables ad blocking extensions, but cheeky bastards are only threating that
for years yet.

------
pabs3
Anyone know how well desktop Firefox works on mobile devices? I'm thinking
situations like Debian on PinePhone or Librem 5.

------
jahabrewer
Seems that autofill (for password managers) was broken, too. That and uBO were
the reasons I used Firefox on Android.

~~~
godelski
Both still work on my end. I am using nightly though. BTW, uBlockOrigin is one
of the whitelisted apps.

------
cinquemb
I know this might sound blasphemous (useds uber alles seems to be today's
accepted philosophy)… but one can have all the addons one wants, one just has
to run `./mach build`…

Only grim for those who chose not to (for whatever reason short of missing
hands or bashed in cranium), or cannot be bothered…

~~~
palant
I doesn't say “grim” because you personally cannot circumvent the
restrictions, it says so because of the impact this is going to have on the
add-on ecosystem. Your trick isn't going to do you any good if nobody is
developing/maintaining add-ons any more.

