The Future of Developing Firefox Add-ons

Today we are announcing some major upcoming changes to Firefox add-ons. Our add-on ecosystem has evolved through incremental, organic growth over the years, but there are some modernizations to Firefox that require some foundational changes to support:

  • Taking advantage of new technologies like Electrolysis and Servo
  • Protecting users from spyware and adware
  • Shortening the time it takes to review add-ons

To help the add-on development community understand how we will enable these improvements, we are making four related announcements today:

  • We are implementing 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.
  • A safer, faster, multi-process version of Firefox is coming soon with Electrolysis; we need developers to ensure their Firefox add-ons will be compatible with it.
  • To ensure third-party extensions provide customization without sacrificing security, performance or exposing users to malware, we will require all extensions to be validated and signed by Mozilla starting in Firefox 41, which will be released on September 22nd 2015.
  • We have decided on an approximate timeline for the deprecation of XPCOM- and XUL-based add-ons.

For our add-on development community, these changes will bring benefits, like greater cross-browser add-on compatibility, but will also require redevelopment of a number of existing add-ons. We’re making a big investment by expanding the team of engineers, add-on reviewers, and evangelists who work on add-ons and support the community that develops them. They will work with the community to improve and finalize the WebExtensions API, and will help developers of unsupported add-ons make the transition to newer APIs and multi-process support.

We’re announcing all of the changes today to make developers aware of our plans and to give everyone an opportunity to offer feedback. We are committed to doing what we can to make this transition as easy as possible. Together with our Mozilla community, we will create the future of Firefox add-ons.

Introducing the WebExtensions API

For some time we’ve heard from add-on developers that our APIs could be better documented and easier to use. In addition, we’ve noticed that many Firefox add-on developers also maintain a Chrome, Safari, or Opera extension with similar functionality. We would like add-on development to be more like Web development: the same code should run in multiple browsers according to behavior set by standards, with comprehensive documentation available from multiple vendors.

To this end, we are implementing a new, Blink-compatible API in Firefox called WebExtensions. Extension code written for Chrome, Opera, or, possibly in the future, Microsoft Edge will run in Firefox with few changes as a WebExtension. This modern and JavaScript-centric API has a number of advantages, including supporting multi-process browsers by default and mitigating the risk of misbehaving add-ons and malware.

WebExtensions will behave like other Firefox add-ons; they will be signed by Mozilla, and discoverable through addons.mozilla.org (AMO) or through the developer’s website. With this API, extension developers should be able to make the same extension available on Firefox and Chrome with a minimal number of changes to repackage for each platform.

A preview release of WebExtensions is available in Firefox 42, which is currently on Developer Edition, and information on how to start testing WebExtensions is available in the Mozilla wiki. We have started discussions with other browser vendors to begin an effort to standardize at least some of this API, and will continue to post additional information and more details about WebExtensions in the wiki.

Multi-process Firefox and Add-ons

Phase one of our Electrolysis project, which uses a separate operating system process to run Web content, has been moving towards our release channel. Subsequent phases will bring multiple content processes and improved sandboxing capabilities. Using a separate rendering process lays the foundation enabling us to bring significant performance and security improvements to Firefox, but it also breaks some add-ons, especially those that modify content. However, there are a number of mitigations in place to keep add-ons functional:

  • WebExtensions are fully compatible with Electrolysis. As the API matures and Electrolysis is enabled by default, this will be the way to port or develop extensions for Firefox.
  • Add-ons based on the Jetpack SDK will work well as long as they don’t use require(‘chrome’) or some of the low-level APIs to touch objects in the content process.
  • Add-ons that haven’t been upgraded to work with Electrolysis will run in a special compatibility environment that resembles single-process Firefox as much as possible. If an add-on touches content, the access will happen via cross-process object wrappers (CPOWs). However, CPOWs are much slower than the equivalent DOM operations in single-process Firefox, and can affect the user experience negatively. Also, some accesses aren’t supported by the compatibility layer and will throw exceptions.

Starting now, add-on developers need to think about their strategy to work with a multi-process Firefox:

The final release schedule for Electrolysis will be determined over the next several months as we test with more users. We would like developers to understand that, although there is a chance that the Electrolysis release schedule will be delayed or modified in the coming months, they should plan to update their add-ons to meet our current release plan as follows:

  • August 11th (Firefox 42 merges to Developer Edition). Electrolysis has been enabled by default on Developer Edition (it is already the default on Nightly).
  • September 22nd (Firefox 42 merges to Beta). Electrolysis will be available to users as an “opt-in” on the beta channel.
  • November 3rd (Firefox 43 merges to Beta). The earliest release Electrolysis will be enabled by default on Beta. When Electrolysis is enabled by default we will begin blocklisting Electrolysis-incompatible add-ons that cause major performance and/or stability problems.
  • December 15th (Firefox 43 merges to release). The earliest release Electrolysis will be enabled on the release channel, and our current planned release.
  • Six months past enabling Electrolysis on Release. The deprecation of CPOWs and compatibility shims will begin. We will release further scheduling information as appropriate, but developers should be aware that any add-ons that depend on them will stop working within six to twelve months of the general availability of Electrolysis.

The Electrolysis team has posted a list of popular add-ons for compatibility testing at http://arewee10syet.com. In addition to the steps above, developers are encouraged to review the list and follow the instructions to submit information about whether their add-ons are Electrolysis-compatible or not.

Signing

We currently use a blocklisting mechanism to defend against malicious add-ons, but additional measures are needed to better protect our users as some add-on developers have adapted to work around blocklisting. Blocklisting is also reactive: users can be harmed by dangerous add-ons that are installed until they are identified and blocked. Starting in Firefox 42, add-on developers will be required to submit extensions for review and signing by Mozilla prior to deployment, and unsigned add-ons cannot be installed or used with Firefox. You can read more about the rationale for signing in a separate blog post.

We realize that the add-on review process can sometimes be inconvenient for developers. Reviewing is a mostly manual, human process today, and moving an extension from the initial submission to passing a full review that meets our guidelines can be a time-consuming process that can take weeks or months. A major advantage of WebExtensions is that they can be reviewed more quickly. In general, it’s easier to develop a correct WebExtension, and the permissions system makes it easier to recognize malicious add-ons.

Our goal is to increase automation of the review process so that the wait time for reviews of new WebExtensions listed on addons.mozilla.org can be reduced to five days, and that the wait time for updates to existing WebExtensions can be reduced to one to two days. Current wait times for unlisted add-ons submitted for signing are less than three days. We are also expanding the team of paid and volunteer add-on reviewers and continue to make improvements to the automatic validator, both of which will reduce existing review queue wait times for all extensions in the immediate future.

While extension signing will not be enforced until Firefox 42, the code has shipped with Firefox 40, allowing users to see if installed extensions have been validated by Mozilla. Users of Firefox Developer Edition will have noticed that unsigned add-ons were blocked beginning on August 14.

The full schedule for add-on signing is currently as follows:

  • Firefox 40: Users will see a warning in the add-ons manager about unsigned extensions, but all extensions will continue to work.
  • Firefox 41: Unsigned extensions will be disabled by default, and Firefox will have a preference (xpinstall.signatures.required) that allows signature enforcement to be turned off.
  • Firefox 42 and beyond:
    • The Beta and Release versions of Firefox based on 42 and above (Beta 42 will be released at the same time as Firefox 41) will remove the preference that allows unsigned extensions to be installed, and will disable and/or prevent the installation of unsigned extensions.
    • The Nightly and Developer Editions of Firefox based on 42 and above will retain the preference to disable signing enforcement, allowing the development and/or use of unsigned add-ons in those versions. Unbranded versions of Firefox based on releases will also be made available for developers, and are expected to be in place for Firefox 42 for release (and potentially beta).

Deprecation of XUL, XPCOM, and the permissive add-on model

XPCOM and XUL are two of the most fundamental technologies to Firefox. The ability to write much of the browser in JavaScript has been a huge advantage for Mozilla. It also makes Firefox far more customizable than other browsers. However, the add-on model that arose naturally from these technologies is extremely permissive. Add-ons have complete access to Firefox’s internal implementation. This lack of modularity leads to many problems.

A permissive add-on model means that we have limited flexibility in changing the foundations of Firefox. The add-on breakage caused by Electrolysis is an important example of this problem. Technologies like CPOWs help us to work around add-on problems; however, CPOWs have been a huge investment in effort and they are still slow and somewhat unreliable.

Without a fundamental shift to the way Firefox add-ons work, we will be unable to use new technologies like Electrolysis, Servo or browser.html as part of Firefox.

The tight coupling between the browser and its add-ons also creates shorter-term problems for Firefox development. It’s not uncommon for Firefox development to be delayed because of broken add-ons. In the most extreme cases, changes to the formatting of a method in Firefox can trigger problems caused by add-ons that modify our code via regular expressions. Add-ons can also cause Firefox to crash when they use APIs in unexpected ways.

Consequently, we have decided to deprecate add-ons that depend on XUL, XPCOM, and XBL. We don’t have a specific timeline for deprecation, but most likely it will take place within 12 to 18 months from now. We are announcing the change now so that developers can prepare and offer feedback. Add-ons that are built using the new WebExtension API will continue to work. We will also continue supporting SDK add-ons as long as they don’t use require(‘chrome’) or some of the low-level APIs that provide access to XUL elements.

A major challenge we face is that many Firefox add-ons cannot possibly be built using either WebExtensions or the SDK as they currently exist. Over the coming year, we will seek feedback from the development community, and will continue to develop and extend the WebExtension API to support as much of the functionality needed by the most popular Firefox extensions as possible.

Moving forward

The strategy announced here necessarily involves a lot of trade-offs. Developers who already support Chrome extensions will benefit since they will have one codebase to support instead of two. Developers of Firefox-only add-ons will have to make changes. Those changes may require considerable development effort up-front, but we feel the end result will be worth that effort for both Firefox’s users and developers.

We want to reiterate our commitment to our add-on development community, and will work with you in porting extensions, designing new APIs, and creating innovative new add-ons that make Firefox great.

We will continue to post additional resources in the coming weeks and months to outline each of these changes in more detail, as well as provide support through our traditional channels via the Mozilla Developer Network, IRC (in #extdev), and the extension developer group.

Update: A lot of people have been asking what WebExtensions will deliver, and how. Bill McCloskey has posted an update on where we want to take them, and how you can contribute ideas and be part of the process. It’s a must-read for people who are concerned about how the addons they develop, use, and love will continue to be part of Firefox.

Update: We’ve added a Frequently Asked Questions section to the WebExtensions page, and will continue to address feedback and questions there along with additional posts in the near future.

471 comments on “The Future of Developing Firefox Add-ons”

  1. Anonymous wrote on

    If it really is true that XPCOM, XUL and multi-process can’t co-exist (I doubt it) then I expect most of the remaining Firefox users would choose not to have sandbox and e10s rather than have half their extensions stop working forever.

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

      It’s not that they can’t co-exist, but that the majority of add-ons would benefit from using simpler, high-level APIs, without losing functionality. This is what WebExtensions is meant to give. For more complex add-ons that need other APIs, we need to study which APIs they currently use and how, and see if they can be added to WebExtensions or something else can be done about it.

      1. Kyle wrote on

        You have to admit that asking developers are most addons out there to rewrite in a different API is a pretty big ask.

        1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

          You’re right. This isn’t something we will achieve overnight, and we have plans on ways to help developers migrate more easily. You should also take into account that lots of developers maintain Firefox and Chrome versions of their extensions, and it should be relatively easy to port the Chrome version to work with WebExtensions.

          1. flying sheep wrote on

            I maintain two addons based on the add-on SDK. Both need require(‘chrome’) because the add-on SDK API lacks features.

            Those features are small: 1. a segmented button with an action on click and an arrow panel when the arrow part is clicked. 2. Get closed tabs and undo tab close.

            If after years of that sdk existing it still doesn’t have those rather basic features, why do you think a new web extension API could achieve more in a shorter timeframe?

            Another thing: Firefox is the only practical browser for power users who want a vim control scheme or tree-style tabs. You need to give add-on developers the power to keep it that way.

          2. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

            The difference is that there will be more people working on WebExtensions than ever worked on the SDK. There will be a significant investment in the add-ons world in the near term, which is something that has never really happened before.

            As for the APIs you need, I recommend that you request them here.

      2. Timo Kissing wrote on

        It’s been said a few times already, but I want to add my voice anyhow:

        if you basically kill off XPCOM and XUL before WebExtension APIs have been in place long enough for the popular extensions to switch over, you will kill of what many view as their reason to use Firefox at all.

        I will certainly uninstall FF the day DownThemAll stops working. I doubt I am the only one.

        1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

          Removing XUL from the browser will probably take years, since it’s a very integral part of Firefox. Removing support for extensions that use it can happen before, but it definitely won’t be immediate. There’s a chicken/egg situation when it comes to moving developers to WebExtensions and removing support for XPCOM and XUL. I can’t give you a timeline because there isn’t one yet, but I’m sure both things will happen gradually and in parallel. There will certainly be announcements well in advance of things breaking.

          1. Mook wrote on

            I’m not sure I see where the cycle is. Once the API is available, then the deprecation can be announced; that seems like a clear ordering? Sure, people might not be moving to the new APIs yet, but that’s what the announcement would be about. At the moment there’s nothing actionable for people that do want to move, other than maybe port things to work with Chrome instead of Firefox (which would mean abandoning Firefox)?

            It’s not like this is completely new territory; it has already been done once, with the introduction of Jetpack; unfortunately the Jetpack API was never quite flexible enough and people kept on needing require(“chrome”). Not quite sure how switching to yet another API would help there.

          2. Dan Simmons wrote on

            It appears that Key has set a timeline, “12 to 18 months from now.” Are there any documents available from Mozilla to help the add-on devs with the transition?

            The “chicken/egg” phrase is nonsense. Mozilla has control over when this happens so the chicken is in control.

          3. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

            The initial documentation is in the wiki page. We will be expanding on that in the future.

    2. Markus Reinhorn wrote on

      Agreed. This is the death-knell of Firefox. The whole reason to use this browser was the massive extension library that allowed complete customization of every aspect.

      I know FF was losing ground to Chrome and others, but this announcement is terribly sad because it will only hasten the demise.

    3. Kym Farnik wrote on

      Mozilla – What the freaking heck are you thinking? Seriously, XUL/XPCOM allows fantastic add-ons that is the main reason I used Firefox over Chrome or anything else.

      This is the DEATH of Firefox.

      Do NOT cut off your noses to despite your face! PLEASE!

      1. Anonymous wrote on

        This is a nightmare. I want it to end! No, no, no, NO WHY!!! Are there any alternatives left!???

        1. LimboSlam wrote on

          Yes, well depending on what you consider an alternative. In my opinion, I highly recommend Pale Moon (an Open Source web browser forked off from the Firefox/Mozilla code). Now I would include Cyberfox and Waterfox, but seeing how they are just a re-branded build of Firefox (the same), I don’t think so.

        2. Gary51 wrote on

          I switched to Pale Moon a month ago. I use a lot of extensions and they all work, even ones the Pale Moon site calls unsupported. Everything is smooth and fast. The UI is exactly what I want. It’s like waking up and the last two years of nonsense from Mozilla was just a bad dream.

  2. Internet wrote on

    Have you lost your mind? Good addons are THE reason to use Firefox, if you remove them you basically have a bad chrome clone. Thanks mozilla!

    1. Connor Behan wrote on

      21,000 of them and counting.

  3. moot wrote on

    nobody gonna use mozilla software anymore

    1. Anonymous wrote on

      This

      1. Adi wrote on

        is

    2. Utkarsh Ray wrote on

      The powerful XUL add-ons Greasemonkey, DownThemAll were the reason I stuck to Firefox after experimenting with Chrome. Time to switch to PaleMoon I guess.

      Market-share only goes down when you’re not even trying to keep existing user-base happy.

  4. Stan Greeb wrote on

    You genius’s do know that without CTR and other Extensions post Australis Firefox is a useless as Chrome ?

  5. MrSnowman wrote on

    Well, was fun while it lasted I guess. Thanks for ruining something beautiful.

    1. Anonymous wrote on

      Yes it was, I think it’s time for a browser with it’s own direction. How about Pale Moon (an Open Source web browser forked off from the Firefox/Mozilla code)?? This snappier and lighter browser does not implement all this bloatware that is prone to vulnerabilities (Hello, Pocket, Reader+, Share, Telegram, Tab Groups, built PDF reader, WebRTC related code and the newly privacy features being tested) and continues support for XUL, XPCOM and XBL source code for any add-on devs that wish to use it.

      1. E. Jung wrote on

        Pale Moon has no OS/X port.

      2. firecuck wrote on

        But pale moon sucks

        1. The Ublock Team wrote on

          Hey, instead of criticizing them, how about you all try it out and lend a hand to make Pale Moon your browser, your way.

  6. Manuel wrote on

    While I pretty much liked many of the last changes (for example I really like the Australis theme) I don’t agree with your current plan.

    While there may be good reasons for Addon signing, I don’t like the idea that you plan to give Addons less privileges.

    Yes, it is a fact that some users are moving over to Google Chrome. The users, I’ve asked so far, ported not because of GUI things or as they think Chrome could be more secure. They ported because Chrome runs faster and works much better with modern Web 2.0 applications.

    You don’t get your users back if you just clone what they already have with Google Chrome. You have to do something *BETTER* to get users back.

    The new Servo engine could be a way in the right direction. Maybe you manage to create something that works better and faster than Chrome.

    But Addons *have to* run in the same context and with same privileges as the new HTML based GUI. This is what makes Firefox unique and allows to create Addons that aren’t possible with Google Chrome!

    And please, don’t create just another API. I’m just happy with using whatever you’ll use to do your own GUI stuff as long as Javascript is the language of doing things. I’m doing so now and I would love to do so in future.

    If you just clone another “Feature” of Chrome (in this case no feature but a limitation), then I agree with the others. This will just reduce the number of Firefox users even more!

    You are on a good way to, sorry, piss off some of your Addon developers *right now* so I really hope there will be some kind of feedback/answer, maybe in form of another blog post. Don’t just ignore your users! Don’t just ignore addon developers!

    1. Salar wrote on

      “…because Chrome runs faster and works much better with modern Web 2.0 applications…”

      This is the the real reason, I don’t know why they don’t get it!

    2. Chris wrote on

      Very much this. I switched to Firefox because it’s not Chrome, not because it is. I liked Firefox because it put the power in my hands, and now that’s slowly being taken away. I want Firefox to be faster and more stable instead of adding features I’ll never use and promising false security that restricts what I can do.

      1. Curtis Kwong wrote on

        Chrome’s security sucks just don’t even ask about the website that hog Chrome (though)

        Example: Adobe and Twitter will slow down Chrome.

  7. rich wrote on

    There is good and bad in your decision (easier to review add-ons being a very good part), however by the comments the reaction of the users is pretty clearly one-sided.

    I hope it is responded to intelligently.

    A significant amount of recent updates have been bloaty misfires. Please pay more attention to your userbase. Firefox should be a customisable desktop browser. Not a chat platform or a chrome clone.

    Favourite add-ons are like our favourite programs or favourite musicians. Your collection is made over years and you are familiar with it. Getting rid of old add-ons just gives reason to find another browser that will support them.

  8. FITB wrote on

    Goodbye Firefox, you were once good but are now just Chrome by another name.

  9. Panayiotis Andriopoulos wrote on

    Why don’t you just make a Chromium build with the Mozilla logo? It will save you lots of resources and the end result will be roughly the same as with Firefox sans XPCOM/XUL. extensions.

    Terrible decision, hope you will revise before it’s late.

  10. Cocaine wrote on

    Those addons are the only reason why firefox has not lost all it’s old user base “yet” and now you decide to take them away.

    1. Marco wrote on

      Yep. If my addons don’t come out of this with the same functionality they entered with, I’m jumping ship. There’s literally nothing to keep me using Firefox at that point.

  11. Matthias wrote on

    Why not simply give your users a choice instead of this new “one size fits all” approach to everything?

    [ ] Please protect me from spyware and adware (recommended)
    [ ] I know what I am doing, so please let me install what I want

    Is that not what Mozilla is all about?

    1. Maave wrote on

      I’m running nightly right now (to test Electrolysis) and it’s rather easy to disable mandatory signing. That creature will probably stay in for quite some time, perhaps forever, because it’s a lot faster to develop without signing. Android has a similar thing- I can run unsigned apks all day but to be in the store it has to be signed. Somebody will probably make a “signature toggle” add-on that’s just 1 button that flips the signature enforcement variable in about:config

      The security aspects are integral to the browser, that’s not something that can be turned on or off.

    2. Connor Behan wrote on

      This is why everyone (who doesn’t leave Firfox) should use developer builds from now on. I’ve been compiling Firefox from source for years because I want to use a little thing called shared libraries instead of their 100 of MB of bundled bloat. Being able to run code written by yourself or colleagues before it’s been cleared by an overlord is essential. There is no reason left to use the official builds.

  12. I AM OUT wrote on

    I AM OUT

  13. Nik wrote on

    This is not moving forward, this is moving backwards.
    The only reason, the sole reason, most people including me are using Firefox is because of the addons Chrome doesn’t have but Firefox does.
    The ability to have addons like YouTube Center for instance that improve Google services better than Google is capable of, and yet are barred by Google or made an inconvenience to have on Chrome for one reason or another by the Google devs.

    The two thing that made Mozilla better than Chrome: Customization and Addons.
    – Customization got castrated in the past 2 years to the point where i need addons for thing that were otherwise inherently available through Firefox by default, like the addonbar for instance. Then other UI decisions that are plain dumb happened, like going towards making Firefox look like Chrome thus losing its personality and just making it feel like one of those cheap Chinese ripoffs of hardware.
    – Now the castration of the existing Firefox addon library?

    Firefox has lost the expert coders it once had, it has lost the philosophy of putting functionality above design choices, the philosophy of power user experience over casual users, and now i see the PR department is also gone and replaced by pigeons.

    This is just a foolish trade-off philosophy.

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

      If you’re talking about YouTube Control Center, then I see no reason it couldn’t exist as a WebExtensions add-on. It doesn’t use any special APIs as far as I can tell. Many YouTube-related add-ons aren’t supported for Chrome because of “content” restrictions that are unrelated to the capabilities of their extensions API. I would expect most YouTube add-ons to continue working after the move to WebExtensions.

      1. Krasnaya Ploshchad wrote on

        I found some PRC’s websites still providing WML pages for mobile devices, you can find them in this page: http://123.pctowap.com/wap/ Firefox have an unique addon “wmlbrowser” (https://addons.mozilla.org/zh-CN/firefox/addon/wmlbrowser ) to access these sites, this addon is available for the current version of Firefox despite it’s developers doesn’t have an activity until today. If you want to abolish XUL, this addon will be sentenced to death. And there is some difficulties to persuade webmasters to receive new technologies. So in my opinion, you should provide a way in the WebExtension technology that to compatible with XUL.

      2. Simon wrote on

        The issue here is not about Youtube Control Centre or any particular extension per se, but about the wrong path that Mozilla is blindly galloping on. Frankly Firefox is nowhere as fast as its competitors like Chrome or Edge, but people – at least, I – still use Firefox because of its unparalleled customisability. The multitude of extensions, scripts and themes are the largest asset of Firefox that bonds its users to this browser. Chrome, arguably the second most customisable browser, has far fewer interesting browser gadgets for its users to play with.

        What Mozilla should consider doing, instead of adding redundant and regressive features such as the instant chatting function (honestly I don’t see why people would want to video-chat with strangers in a browser), is to better its performance while maintaining its core competitiveness: its customisability. The market of browsers welcomes diversity, not homogeneity.

      3. YouTube Center User wrote on

        YouTube Center has been publishing builds on their website because the AMO review queue is too dang long. By the time a version of the add-on is reviewed, it is already obsolete due to changes on the http://www.youtube.com website. Now that addons are required to be signed, it will become impossible to receive timely updates for such add-ons.

        1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

          We’re hiring reviewers to address the waiting times. They should begin in a couple of weeks.

      4. anon wrote on

        So far, the vast majority of commenters have proven themselves to be one or more of the following:
        not an addon author, not any kind of programmer, not dedicated to staying informed on all aspects of mozilla activities, not aware of the OPEN design process that created Australis, not aware of other browsers copying ideas from the Australis design process YEARS before Australis was implemented, morons.

        On the other hand, Mozilla is still unaware of how much less customizable the toolbars have become since recent updates. Do a survey of Classic Theme Restorer users and you’ll find the vast majority of us use it for only 2 or 3 very simple tweaks that you should bring back to Firefox.

    2. EH wrote on

      All is not well in FF…starting the expulsion of the head because of his religious belief now this…crippling FF because it want to be a Chrome clone…

      One reason I always return to FF because Chrome a shitty extensions…doesnt support a DownAllThem like extension or the like…

      Now they are targeting the developer of Addons…men, you people have the guts to insult the makers of this once great browser…

      What’s next? making FF a Spartan clone…

      Sorry for the rant…I just cant see clearly the goal of these…

    3. anon wrote on

      I’m almost certain that most, if not all of Youtube Center’s functionality could be implemented as a simple js UserScript and not an addon. It’s just easier to “promote” addons and for the average user it “seems” easier to install an addon vs a userscript.

  14. Name wrote on

    The direction Firefox has taken in the last few months is baffling, saddening and honestly patronizing to the point that I dread every new blog post. Stop trying so hard to be like Chrome.

    1. ZXSpectrum wrote on

      Mozilla is in hard place, because they are damned if do, and damned if they do not.

      They want to advance the browser, but it required shedding off is uniqueness.

      So this article is right from developer’s point of view, but may be wrong from market share view, since for those who use FireFox there will be less differentiation comparing to Chrome, and hence there will be a question why just not move to Chrome itself?

      _______________________________________________________________________________________________________

      Also, Mozilla has spend so many efforts on useless technologies and functionalities lately — instead of making, for example, Electrolysis usable (which is NOT, EVEN TO THIS DAY) — that they corner themselves into making much harder decisions comparing to situation if they would not waste few latest years.

    2. Tex wrote on

      Years. Not months, years.

      I’ve been using Firefox since it was Phoenix v0.2, back when it was still a side project that aimed be “a lean, lightweight browser” and the Mozilla suite was still envisioned to remain the ‘main’ browser.

      Arguably the rot set in with the big changes in v4, and from this end-user’s PoV it’s all been downhill from there. The last few years I’ve been dragging my heels on the ESR channel because of all the changes that broke/removed functionality or cocked up the UI; lately I haven’t even bothered updating to new major ESR releases without waiting months to ensure I could undo / work around the worst of the changes.

      If Mozilla’s plan is to remove everything that makes Firefox different to Chrome/Safari, then fine. My plan will be to use Chrome/Safari…

      (Yeah, no, don’t mention Pale Moon – at least, not until they come up with a version for OS X…)

  15. irlittz wrote on

    If you do this, you’d be losing the biggest advantage over other browsers that you have: customizability through add-ons. I will stop using Firefox if you do this.

  16. KM wrote on

    Rip firefox, 2002 – 2017

  17. Darvo wrote on

    Time to dump Firefox like radioactive waste.

    1. Anonymous wrote on

      Yes it is, so f***ing sad and terrible!!! I think I will go ahead with using Pale Moon now as some here have suggested, seeing as Firefox has deprecated and Pale Moon does support the XUL, XPCOM and XBL source code for any add-on devs that are using it. Maybe I’ll start developing for them?

  18. Anton wrote on

    Today I searched for “Chromium for Windows”. I was not proud to do so and was a bit tearful.
    As of right now my plan is to use Nightly 42.0a1 (2015-08-09) (which is somewhat stable) and locally save addons copies of the addons I use.
    But in the end I have no illusions. FF is dead and Mozilla wants it to be a 100% Chrome clone. It was fun while it lasted and I hope something else takes its place in the future. I am old enough to have used Mosaic and suffered (like most of us) the IE/Netscape browser war . Nowadays I feel like I am battling Mozilla every day the for control of the browser. It ain’t fun.

    1. Noitidart wrote on

      Don’t do it man! You only shed some tears so far, as soon as you download Google Chrome you’ll be forced to shed your clothes, your dignity, all your information/privacy/data will be in Google’s hands. And Google turns around and sells it, makes money off of it, and they won’t give you a cent, and when you have some words to share, they won’t even lend a ear! Don’t do it man! Be safe!

  19. Jake wrote on

    Give me an F! Give me an O! Give me an R! Give me a K! What does it spell? Fork! What did you say? Fork! I can’t hear you! Fork! FORK! FORK! FORK! FORK!

    1. NoNames wrote on

      Your fork has existed for some time: http://www.palemoon.org/

    2. Connor Behan wrote on

      A successful fork would need so much manpower. Even though billions of people use Javascript-capable browser engines, there have only ever been three real ones: Gecko, Webkit and Trident all written in C++. Everything else is derived from those. The only one with a tiny chance of lessening this monopoly is NetSurf. They’re working on a JS implementation in pure C but I’m sure it will still take years.

      1. vertigoback wrote on

        ahm … three are/is(?) not a monopoly …

  20. Mike wrote on

    This is terrible news. Please don’t do this.

    1. cry wrote on

      Please, don’t do this!
      。・゚゚・(>O<)・゚゚・。

    2. Riik wrote on

      Mozilla please!! I beg you, don’t do this.

  21. INeedANewBrowser wrote on

    Oh god, here comes another Australis, only this one can’t be undone because they’re going to drop support for the only thing keeping Firefox on life support: its massive libary of addons.

    I’m so tired of this recent Mozilla attitude of “screw you, you’re gonna take what we give you and you’re gonna like it!” and “Chrome is popular so they must be doing it right, so let’s just do what they do!” When Australis was forced on everybody, Mozilla insisted that most people liked it and only a few people who must hate all change were just being obnoxious about it… If that’s true then why is the addon to undo all those changes the highest rated addon of all time, with just under half a million users? And remember, that’s just the people that decided to stick with it instead of just switching to Chrome, were tech savvy enough to figure out what to do, and willing to put in the effor tto install it and configure it to their liking.

    The reason Chrome is so popular is because Google just strongarmed their way in and jammed it down everyone’s throats by telling you to install it every time you go to google.com. Haven’t you guys noticed how Firefox has only been losing more and more market share? It’s because you’re taking away everything that ever made Firefox good and replacing it with all with useless bloat. I’m tired of seeing “the users are too stupid to have this option and might get confused if they accidentally turn it on so we’re removing it”. It’s not your job to protect people from themselves, and if you never let people make mistakes, they never learn anything!

    This blatant disregard for all the people who have used Firefox since the beginning and/or are power users is just ridiculous and only further ruining what’s left of what used to be a good browser.

    I’ve been strugging to stick with Firefox for a while now because essentially the only other choice is Chrome, which I like even less, but I think this is it for Firefox for me. This isn’t even the straw that broke the camel’s back, it’s more like a knife to its jugular…

    1. Haider Rehman wrote on

      This.

      Firefox is dead in 2 years. I hope I’m wrong

    2. ZXSpectrum wrote on

      Agree on bloat. There are critical bugs that make both normal and Electrolysis operation damn slow — and they are open at Bugzilla and never solved/fixed FOR YEARS, but the management wasted all this time by throwing engineers into projects that are not really needed.

      As result, quality of pro-users experience has been quite bad. And this was supposed to be main advantage of FireFox.

    3. tux. wrote on

      +1

    4. cry wrote on

      Amen

    5. Timothy wrote on

      +1

  22. Robin Hell wrote on

    I just lost access to firefox on my laptop…Says “Couldn’t load XPCOM”. Why? Can it be retrieved?

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

      Sounds like one of your add-ons is broken (for reasons unrelated to this post). Please visit https://support.mozilla.org/ for help.

  23. Sean wrote on

    Reading Bill McCloskey’s blog and he lists every add-on I have installed right now minus greasmonkey. Those add ons are literally the `only` reason I still use firefox.

    1. Joe wrote on

      The funny thing about Bill’s blog is that he lists Opera as an inspiration for the path forward. That’s right, Opera, the browser that shit all over its users by becoming a Chrome clone and then lost so many users that now the whole company’s for sale without any interested parties. Is this the way forward for Mozilla as well?

      Firefox is fucked.

      1. Curtis Kwong wrote on

        The blog mentions NoScript because I’m using NoScript extension. Will NOT go to Google Chrome (fake security option)

  24. Anonymous wrote on

    “……..So, without XPCOM binary components, and without XUL&XBL, there’s no extensibility left in the browser — you can’t change a native-code main window on-the-fly that easily as is possible with XUL, since it is basically built up using a markup language that can be manipulated.

    And without the Gecko web browser engine, later on, what is left of the original concept of Firefox?”

  25. Brett Zamir wrote on

    If you had some coordination with the other browsers whereby there was commitment to gradually expand the APIs to increase the power and portability of browser add-ons (and even websites which could optionally be allowed to request and be granted privileges)–or at least to allow for custom behavior when allowing Mozilla-only features (like “moz”-prefixed APIs), I for one would be in favor of such a move (I requested as much at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=848647 ) as long as the old XUL and SDK-based approaches continued to work during the transition.

    But I’m not convinced that the likes of Chrome are eager to allow the building of powerful decentralized browser-integrated apps, and you haven’t stated that they are committed to doing so. On the contrary, it would seem that they only have an incentive to keep as much as possible reliant on the cloud which they can monetize and to avoid apps which provide unadulterated local control.

    And it seems you have explicitly rejected require(‘chrome’) type of solutions to allow Mozilla-only (or Mozilla-enhanced) versions to break out of the limitations of the Chrome-like API.

    Abdicating the power of full user and developer control would be to reject everything Firefox has stood for and will I believe, and as others have been eloquently stating, lead to its demise.

    1. Brett Zamir wrote on

      Committing to fully implement all non-server-specific APIs of Node.js would also be a welcome portability step, again, assuming you are not emasculating what add-ons can do.

    2. Robert O’Callahan wrote on

      It doesn’t matter what Chrome wants. We’re free to extend the API beyond what Chrome allows, and I’m sure we will:

      > Over the coming year, we will seek feedback from the development community, and will continue
      > to develop and extend the WebExtension API to support as much of the functionality needed by
      > the most popular Firefox extensions as possible.

      1. Noitidart wrote on

        If we’re going to extend it beyond, then will we extend to the point that XPCOM is right now? haha kind of funny thought 😛 (restart and extend and extend till we’re right back to XPCOM 😛 haha)

      2. trlkly wrote on

        Which then completely undermines your intentions of having all the extensions work crossbrowser.

        1. Noitidart wrote on

          I’m cool with it not being crossbrowser to other browsers. I actually like that Firefox addons wont work anywhere else. I would like if addons from other browsers worked in Firefox though. So extending to defeat crossbrowser in direction away from Firefox is a good idea.

          However if we’re going to extend anyways I say why waste the effort and put it into something more useful, so just servo-ize existing xpcom. I like brining in webext buti dont like removing xpcom. xul to html is good move too. just hope we can servoize xpcom in the background so nothing changes for the tons of addon devs.

  26. Harsha wrote on

    This is pretty cool. I am glad you are taking a step towards making the developer’s life a lot more easier. Especially for those who develop for multiple browsers.

  27. Lestat wrote on

    Just switch over to http://vivaldi.com 🙂

    This will be the customizable power user browser of the future 🙂

    1. Mike wrote on

      Is it open-source? If not then no thanks.

    2. tux. wrote on

      Vivaldi has no ways to modify the user interface by add-ons.

      1. Lestat wrote on

        Vivaldi’s UI is made of CSS and Javascript. There is no need for add-ons.

        It is even more flexible as Firefox old UI, as it is not native. Btw. ADd-ons are possible with Vivaldi, they are working right now on add-on support.

        But if you use Vivaldi you will realize that the amount of necessary add-ons is not big. Vivaldi has even side bars and tabstacking which can create some kind of treestyle tabs!

        What more do you want? Just grab your favorite text editor and rewrite it all to your likings!

        1. John Constantine wrote on

          “Vivaldi’s UI is made of CSS and Javascript. There is no need for add-ons.”

          If that’s the case, CSS and Javascript should be Firefox’s XUL replacement in the future.

        2. Riik wrote on

          Can you extend the core functionality of the UI with CSS?

        3. Brian wrote on

          An HTML, CSS, JavaScript UI, like Vivaldi’s, is the direction that Firefox needs to go.

    3. Muzzy wrote on

      Vivaldi is another Chrome clone. Looking different, but all the same spying crap inside.

  28. Anonymous wrote on

    And so goes the end of Firefox.

    Seriously. Firefox needs to be forked and taken from Mozilla. You guys have no clue what you’re doing anymore. Pocket. Hello. Signed extensions.

    Now you decide to take the feature you lead the market on – plugins – and copy a poor implementation from a browser known to have inferior plugins (Chrome).

    It’s time for another group to step up and eat your lunch because you seriously have no damn clue what do with what you have sitting in front of you.

  29. Henry Wilkenson wrote on

    Firefox is the ONLY browser that supports mouse gestures well, in that they always work, with the Firegestures extension. Chrome and Opera don’t work like Fx does. I hope you preserve the ability for mouse gestures extensions to work _NATIVELY_ like they do right now on Firefox.

    I’m actually really scared about this. Please don’t let me down!

  30. Travis wrote on

    The decision to deprecate XUL/XPCOM is nearly malicious is in its incompetence. If it needs to be removed than it should be replaced with something equally powerful.

    1. Does Mozilla realize how many of Firefox’s top 50 most popular addons /require/ these technologies to exist?

    2. Does Mozilla honestly believe their browser is unique enough that they can afford to only support addons that could exist on /any/ browser?

    Sorry, but Firefox is not special: its addons are.

    If someone asked me “whats the fastest way to plunge Firefox to depths of mediocrity?” I would outline exactly this plan.

  31. GG wrote on

    Look at what Google did to the Streamus add-on, and now you want to follow that rabbit hole, pls don’t do this.

  32. Scott Turner wrote on

    It’s very confusing that in blog posts you talk about “addons submitted for signing” while the actual options offered on AMO are for “preliminary” or “full” review. When you say “less than three days” I guess you’re talking about a preliminary review, since I’ve been in the “full review” queue for five days and have moved from about 310 to 300. I’ve just switched to the preliminary review queue and I’m 332 out of 398, so I’ll be surprised if I’m done in three days. We’ll see.

    At any rate, I believe that the release date for 41 ought to be tied to the review queue, e.g., “41 will be released when all the extensions submitted for review by 8/30 have received a full review” or something along those lines.

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

      There’s an additional choice, between Listed and Unlisted. Unlisted add-ons are the ones that are submitted only for signing, and are the ones that are being reviewed fairly quickly. For Listed add-ons we’re hiring a couple of full time reviewers who should help us reduce the waiting times.

  33. Mr Robot wrote on

    I think its time for change, I vote to replace the entire Mozilla development team or at least sack who ever thought this was a good idea.

    There are somethings you just don’t do like commit application suicide this change will kill Firefox if this change lands i will no longer develop addons for Firefox, I have bitten the bullet with forced signed but can’t swallow such disregard for users of Firefox and addon developers.

    I think every Firefox user needs to stand up together united and say NO If the millions of Firefox users uninstalled and stopped using anything Mozilla for 1-2 weeks it would send an undeniable shock wave to the Mozilla corporation.

    Mozilla used to stand for something i used to be proud to use and promote Mozilla products, Mozilla we matter don’t you forget you would be nothing if it was not for us users, We have a voice, We are many and we will be heard!

    Everyone needs to in the coming weeks and months stand up and say NO!

  34. Alexufo wrote on

    “will remove the preference that allows unsigned extensions to be installed”
    Why need to remove it?
    We developed extension inside company for company needs. Why i need sign private extension?

    1. ZXSpectrum wrote on

      Under current rules, you will have to upload your private extension to Mozilla Add On site, sign it there, and mark it as hidden (or however they call it); it is a new option there. Or you have to use developer/nightly versions of FireFox, where signing can be switched off.

  35. alyandon wrote on

    Sorry Mozilla, the only reason I continue to use Firefox these days is because of the extensions that are available that have no equivalents in Chrome because of the restricted API Chrome developers have made available to addon developers.

    The moment I lose the ability to run my private extensions without having to jump through hoops to get my personal extensions approved by Mozilla and/or I lose the ability to run existing extensions that I use that authors are unable to rewrite to work in a restricted api is the moment I ditch Firefox for good.

    It’ll be a sad day considering I was using the Mozilla browser long before Firefox came into existence. However, enough is enough.

  36. Revre wrote on

    And there goes the last of Firefox. The highly customizable browser finally gets its guts taken off and ripped apart in favor of a dumbed-down Chrome version of it.

    I have been using the Nightly channel for a few years and i am completely disgusted at what has been happening recently. You guys dumbed-down the whole User interface, the user Options and now even the Addons Engine.
    It is almost 2016 and Firefox is still struggling with proper html5 Video playback on Youtube and other sites, like corruption and sometimes not playing at all (also, it has been turning into a huge CPU hog since 2x.x when rendering pages), and i am not even remotely testing it in some “hardcore” mode like many do, just using it normally.

    It is sad to see that the priorities at Mozilla changed from making Firefox better into “Lets see how much of this we can turn into Chrome”. I used to recommend people to use Firefox when fixing or helping them buy a new computer, but now you guys are leaving me without reasons to keep doing that.

  37. Tom wrote on

    Well, I now have Pale Moon installed in my 64bit Linux.

    Most of my essential FF addons installed into Pale Moon directly from addons.mozilla.org. For example, all of the following installed:

    Adblock
    A cookie manager
    DownThemAll
    Flash Block
    LastPass
    Lazarus
    RequestPolicy
    Session Manager
    Tab Kit 2nd Addition
    Web Developer Toolbar
    WOT

    Unfortunately, Ghostery and Greasemonkey both said they were incompatible. Hopefully I can edit their source files to hack the allowed version numbers.

    Goodbye, Firefox, it was fun while it lasted.

    1. Krasnaya Ploshchad wrote on

      I think WebExtension should also compatible with XUL. Because there are several useful addons that is hard to convert into WE, and not all developer receive this technology.

    2. anon wrote on

      Do you even know which of those addons will be negatively affected by the announced changes?

      What if I told you, only 2. And those 2 are the 2 most likely to have mozilla pony up cash to make sure they are compatible with the new system as soon as possible. This is just a guess of course. But it’s a guess based on logic and some knowledge. Your decision to switch NOW (and suffer the loss of greasemonkey) is based on what?

      Chris Pederick’s Web Developer Toolbar’s Chrome version will be easily ported to the new system IF the current Firefox version has problems.

    3. Marnes wrote on

      Addon compatibility is not just some number you can change and then expect it to work.

  38. Anonymous wrote on

    So what you’re saying is, you plan on giving all of Firefox’s market share to Chrome, by continuing to make Firefox a shitty Chrome knock off. Your latest step being to kill off all existing Firefox addons, and demand that developers recreate them from scratch, it a significantly less capable environment. Yeah, that’s not going to happen for most of them. To say nothing of the addons that still work, but have been orphaned.

    Without the addons like Classic Theme restorer which turns your piece of shit Australis theme back into something that’s actually functional, or NoScript, AdBlock Plus, and Ghostery which block all kinds of shit I don’t want running in the least in my browser; there won’t be any reason to stick with Firefox. Pointing to a blog with a vague idea of how the Tree Style Tab addon might be reimplemented, and begging for other ideas does not reassure. You all have been listening to us less and less since Firefox 4.0, why should we trust you to listen to us now? If you were listening, there wouldn’t be this piece of shit “pocket list” added to my bookmarks menu. No you keep going “Oh, just make an add on” every time people complain about removed features, and shitty UI changes. Now you’re taking away undefined but large chunks of the ability to do even that. No thanks.

  39. David wrote on

    So will the Mozilla main page just link to the Chrome download page now? Because I can’t see any reason to continue using Firefox over Chrome if this is the way you guys are going with this.

    I use Firefox for its Add-ons over the obvious speed benifits while on Chrome. Why would I bother using a slower version of Chrome instead of just making the merge back to them?

  40. Dan wrote on

    This is the most stupid move I’ve ever seen. Mozilla just committed suicide. How much you got paid?

  41. Norbert wrote on

    I’m a ‘user’… but NoScript is the Killer-app the have prevented me from considering Chrome.
    And on principle I really do not like the mandatory nany-mozilla. That you provided a scheme to sign stuff fine.. that you want to forcibly prevent users from doing what they want, that is quite another story.
    Long is gone the time when Mozilla meant ‘power to the users’, not it has become an nominally open-source org that push an agenda what even Redmond or Cupertino would not dare…

    1. Curtis Kwong wrote on

      This comment just because of NoScript

  42. Chris wrote on

    Like many of the other comments here, I would like to point out that this “Chrome imitating” attempts are highly damaging to Firefox. If anything, I’d argue further losses in market share are possible simply because the Mozilla foundation has misread what the Firefox user base wants.

    If people wanted Chrome, they would use Chrome as their main browser, not Firefox. This could send a large part of Firefox’s remaining elsewhere – or it could push the popularity of forks. I will note that I am typing this from Pale Moon x64.

    I understand that one process per tab is important, but I would urge that it be done in a way that minimizes any disruptions to the existing Addon community.

  43. Isaben wrote on

    Stop copying Chrome for God’s sake, the sole reason for many people including me to still use Firefox is that it is different (or at least was different). Now Firefox is just Chromium with Mozilla logo.

    At this rate using Edge is a better choice, at least it doesn’t try to be a Chrome.

  44. john wrote on

    Any chance that the new extensions API will include support for the sidebar? I presume there aren’t many extensions that use the sidebar, but I have one.

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

      It’s likely there will be one, but I recommend that you voice your support here.

  45. Eric wrote on

    What’s the point in asking for feedback if all the negative feedback in the world couldn’t change the slightest thing about the proposed changes? There were posts about this before, the feedback was almost exclusively negative. Nothing changed. This time, again, the feedback is overwhelmingly negative and full of people who are deeply concerned about the future of the browser we all love, but the road map remains set in stone.

    This has happened before with the removal of options, features, the addition of stuff nobody asked for, the design of Firefox and so on. Ever since developers started talking about how negligible the small minority is who cares enough to provide feedback and how happy the silent majority must be, Firefox gradually lost huge portions of its user base. Nobody seems to learn anything from it. It surely must be the lack of hard-coded Facebook and Spotify integration, too many options and freedoms or the fact that Firefox isn’t only available on tablets, let’s change that! I’m really losing my hope for Firefox 🙁

  46. Elliot wrote on

    All PC illiterate people I know can’t explain how Chrome got on their computer. You can’t compete with something that installs itself and sets itself as default without doing that shit yourself. Same reason IE6 was so popular, everyone already had it.

    You might as well target the power user for browser features because the causal user does not give a sh*t how it works.

    People don’t choose Chrome because of Blink or Webkit or Addons,, they don’t even know what is that, they just want to login faster on their Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, browsers are nothing but a Facebook/Twitter/Instagram machine now, except for Firefox, or you guys think that Firefox users use this for social media only?

    These days, most developers don’t want to innovate, they just write similar software (see: Opera). Or develop less expensive/mediocre ideas (see: Flat themes), Mozilla were Mozilla because it was different, it wasn’t like “We’ll make a Phone app just because everyone is doing it” or “Flat themes are good because everyone use it”. Just because their popular it doesn’t mean is good, if it is, Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus are the biggest artist ever.

    Windows 10 is been updated without most people concern, people barely use Cortana, but Microsoft boast that people use their OS because of their features, of course no. Windows is the most installed OS because most computers have it installed by default, so with Chrome.

    Mozilla is a clear example of how every tech foundation or company tend to do that crap of “let’s try to make everything work with [MONOPOLIZED SOFTWARE]” I mean, why? for what purpose? It’s ridiculous.

    tl;dr: we barely have the liberty to choose DIFFERENT software, don’t take that liberty from your community. I’m sick already with all these flat themes and pro-google/apple software (that are the same but with different name/theme).

    tl;dr2: this really remind me when every single Linux distribution was based on Ubuntu, like, what the hell.

  47. Nope wrote on

    Bye Felicia

    1. Felicia wrote on

      Nnnnnnnooooooooooooooo!!!

  48. TakeNoticeFFCommity wrote on

    I hope FF is taking note of user comments here!…everyone (FF users who are so far interested in it) are against removing XPCOM/XUL.

  49. Oak Tree wrote on

    I fear for the worst.

    Not that change is evil, but your actions lately, Mozilla.
    Very doubtful, regarding integrating pocket, hello. Just to name a few. Not listening.

    Mozilla developers claiming publicly that just by removing the pocket and hello icons with a simple ‘drag and drop’ out of sight will disable their functionality, which is a complete and utter lie.
    (It needs to be disabled in about:config too).

    One more thing: Firefox for Android uses a brand-new API to check the battery status and report it back to servers, which makes it uniquely identifiable, yet no way to prevent THAT from happening. Until a new API to reduce the risk of tracking is introduced. …

    Latest security flaws because of bloat: pdfjs/pocket!

    Information publicly available through CVE’s, plus nice blogs about exploitation techniques used.

    Keep it simple, web-browsing is feature number one and most important.
    Less source code, less troubles.

    I really thought a lot of this lately and wished for a Firefox slim version,
    just web-browsing functionality, nothing else.
    Rest is handled like I want it, with whatever program I want it.
    Like tox / jitsi / jabber as chat program for instance or none at all.

    Best part of using Firefox is about:config and being able to disable annoying bloat and ‘features’.
    How long will this last, before we unify this as well with chromium to a bare minimum or none?

    I do understand the need and change for e10s (electrolysis), to isolate the browser core from plugins/addons,
    gain even more security and stability, avoid crashes.

    However, I’m not very optimistic and deeply concerned about the equal level of quality and features the new WebExtensions might provide.

    NoScript is the MIGHTY shield and sword and unbeatable in Firefox.
    No other web-browser comes close or will come close in regards to proactive protection.
    That addon alone makes browsing the web secure in an unprecedented way.
    Compared to chromium’s scriptsafe addon … you must be f…… joking!

    Or chromium’s adblocking disaster: just hide advertisement, not block it.
    Until, ? Not sure about its status now.

    All of chromium’s addons are quite shallow, operate only on the surface,
    reduced in functionality and yet we shall embrace the idea of web-browser unification.
    I’m just not willing to bet we achieve more compared to what we have now.
    Same quality level as before? I highly doubt it. Needs more demonstration and convincing. SERIOUSLY!

    Firefox is, in regards to addons, but for me as a whole, a world-wide unmatched _leader_!

    Please, Mozilla, don’t ruin our web-browser.
    Listen to your user-base.

    I used Firefox since the beginning. In all its forms and editions.
    As a nightly user, as a self-compiled version with customized options, on different Operating Systems,
    as mobile version and nowadays as extremely tuned and tweaked version because lately you integrate too much unwanted bloat and I have the urgent need to get rid of it and restore my privacy and choice of freedom to do what I want.
    To some degree you steal my precious time to reverse and reduce unwanted bloat or privacy issues.
    My task of removing and really disabling things is getting way too long for my taste.
    Yes, I’m one of your users looking sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-… menus to find all settings. 😉

    Please, Mozilla, listen this time for the sake of us all. Let us all decide what’s best,
    then start implementing it or simple don’t.
    Don’t rush ahead and skip the concerns of your users and addons developers.

    Thanks for reading. Hope you really understand now, with all the feedback, what’s at stake here.

    1. Curtis Kwong wrote on

      “NoScript is the MIGHTY shield and sword and unbeatable in Firefox.
      No other web-browser comes close or will come close in regards to proactive protection.
      That addon alone makes browsing the web secure in an unprecedented way.
      Compared to chromium’s scriptsafe addon … you must be f…… joking!”

      I know right that addon is fake; want to what is stupid – try going to Twitter and Adobe website on Chrome it will slow down your browser.

  50. Anonymous wrote on

    I’m disappointed. I’ve always been a supporter for Firefox, even through some of the more questionable decisions, but this is just too much. It feels like a massive step back for Firefox, killing many of the extensions that made it popular. People used to use Firefox for the unique extensions made solely for the browser, and now, I’m afraid Firefox not only will have a much weaker ecosystem, but one possibly inferior to those of other browsers.

More comments: 1 2 3 4 5