Helping You Find Compatible Extensions

1. Juraj Mäsiar wrote on October 26, 2017 at 4:29 am:

   Why the “Extension Finder” cannot find any of my add-ons?
   My GroupSpeedDial and ScrollAnywhere are both web-extensions.

   When I type there “speed dial” I get only the crappy “Speed Dial (Lite)” which is also featured???
   I really hope this is not the final search engine.

   1. Amy Tsay wrote on October 26, 2017 at 9:57 am:

      Hi Juraj, thanks for the recommendation. Our editorial staff looked into it and we’re now recommending GroupSpeedDial in the Extension Finder. In the future, you can suggest legacy alternatives in this thread: https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/favorite-webextensions/17087/55

2. Gingerbread Man wrote on October 26, 2017 at 7:10 am:

   Both the “Find a Replacement” button and the Extension Finder site are completely useless. The only helpful resource for finding replacements is this spreadsheet on Google docs:
   https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TFcEXMcKrwoIAECIVyBU0GPoSmRqZ7A0VBvqeKYVSww/edit

   1. Sylos wrote on October 27, 2017 at 2:23 pm:

      I think, that spreadsheet was actually started by Mozilla and taken as source for this feature.

      So, if you see actual discrepancies between the two methods, you should describe in more detail what’s broken.

3. Ian Thomas wrote on October 26, 2017 at 9:29 am:

   “For legacy tab extensions that couldn’t migrate at this time because of unavailable APIs (some of which are being developed and prioritized for release in the coming months)”

   How can you write that with a straight face? I really want quantum to be a success, but you’re going to lose tons of users if their favourite Firefox extension no longer works and there isn’t a replacement, but Chrome does have one. All essential APIs needed to have been completed at least a year *before* the old ones were removed, so extension developers had time to redo their work to support them.

   I say this as a long time Mozilla advocate. I switched from Netscape 4 to Mozilla 0.6 and have been trying to get my friends to switch ever since. I just fear that with this change Mozilla have put their own technical needs above those of their users.

   1. Spazturtle wrote on October 26, 2017 at 2:55 pm:

      Firefox already supports all the APIs that Chrome does + more, so everything that works in Chrome works in Firefox.

      1. charles wrote on October 27, 2017 at 11:52 am:

         The majority of the Chrome APIs, sure, but not “all” of them are available in Fx. See the management API, for example.

      2. Quantum_Phase wrote on November 14, 2017 at 10:54 am:

         TextAloud (text to speech) is blocked in FireFox but works in Chrome ….. I’m migrating to Chrome until this is fixed!

         1. Caitlin Neiman wrote on November 17, 2017 at 1:40 pm:

            It looks like there might be two text to speech extensions that work with Firefox:

            Text-to-Speech (Google & HTML5): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-text-to-speech/

            Text to Speech: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/text-to-speech1/?

   2. Sylos wrote on October 27, 2017 at 3:07 pm:

      With “unavailable APIs”, they mean in comparison to the legacy XUL extensions, not in comparison to Chrome. Parity with Chrome has been done for a few months now, aside from implementation bugs and those few APIs that cannot be ported because they’re Chrome-specific.

      As for in comparison to XUL, yes, the new extension API will not support everything that you were able to do with XUL extensions. They’d have to reimplement the entire XUL extension API with still basically all its problems for which they’re wanting to remove it. That is problems in security, performance (which could largely be fixed by a complete reimplementation + breaking all extensions), maintainability, stability, in the sense how often will an extension crash your browser, and stability, in the sense of how stable is the extension API, how often do extension break when Firefox gets updated.

      As for this all feeling rushed, it is. The new multiprocess architecture, on which most of the performance improvements since Firefox 48 base on, requires breaking all extensions, as legacy XUL extensions are not multiprocess-compatible. (They can be made to be by the respective extension developer, but it’s also a lot of work and no one is going to do it for unmaintained extensions.)

      Keeping multiprocess-incompatible extensions around would mean AMO became Russian Roulette, where if you install 5/6 of extensions, you get severe performance problems, as Firefox will then fall back to single-process whenever that extension does some work. Not to mention that tons of users would continue to have an incompatible extension installed and not even try to find a new, compatible extension as alternative.

      And well, they’re also just wanting to get WebExtensions out the door now, so that extension developers can port straight to WebExtensions, instead of going two steps, first to multiprocess-compatible and then to WebExtensions (which are inherently multiprocess-compatible).

      And multiprocess had to get out the door now, because the majority of users care more about acceptable performance rather than extensions. Firefox was bleeding users badly.
      With the release of Firefox 48, the first release with (the first iteration of) multiprocess, this bleeding was stopped and turned around. You can pinpoint 48’s release date (2016/08/02) by just finding the start of that wave going up: http://netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=1&qpaf=&qpcustom=Firefox&qpcustomb=0&qpsp=200&qpnp=24&qptimeframe=M

      1. Steve Owens wrote on November 14, 2017 at 7:34 am:

         I don’t want *parity* with Chrome. I want BETTER than Chrome. I want to be able to specify that any link, address, bookmark, etc. will open in a new tab. I also want to be able to specify that it open next to the current tab.

         Why is that so hard? I’ve looked at the current replacements for that functionality from TMP and they are ALL lacking.

         Why can’t this be baked into Firefox? Why? Is it too difficult a programming task?

   3. Allen wrote on November 14, 2017 at 10:31 pm:

      I am very unhappy about this mess.

      Thank goodness I read a little about this ahead of time and was able to turn automatic updates off in time, so I am still using version 56.

      I originally used Firefox long ago because of the extensions/add-ons. So now I have a finely orchestrated and customized set of tools that I use all the time. Rather than adding some new useful features or something, Mozilla has decided to now tell me that most of the extensions I use are “legacy.”

      Thanks for nothing.

      1. Robie wrote on November 15, 2017 at 10:33 am:

         I did the same thing, but I got two ssd so I got the new Firefox in one and the old one on the other. I’m trying to give them time to come up with a Replacement for Super start. I have been using it for about 4 years now and got all my bookmarks in one my place and right at my finger tips. I try all the new tabs and do not like any of them so far.

4. Kieran wrote on October 26, 2017 at 1:24 pm:

   Hi,

   I’ve been using Firefox since 2003. I’ve been using it for fourteen years, and have donated numerous times because I loved the project. XUL extensions were the best thing about Firefox. I have about thirty, of which about three have new-style replacements.

   I have to stop using Firefox now, and switch to another browser, Chrome, I guess? This breaks my heart. Rethink this madness.

   1. Gman wrote on October 26, 2017 at 4:46 pm:

      Same here, loyal customer since early 2000’s… it’s not that I can’t roll with the punches but few of my current extensions seem to be likely to be updated. Oddly I can get closer to my current setup with Chrome than with 57.

   2. Amy Tsay wrote on October 27, 2017 at 11:00 am:

      Hi Kieran, which add-ons are you using, if you don’t mind me asking?

      1. Jav wrote on October 29, 2017 at 8:51 am:

         Hi, Amy, I’m not Kieran but I can tell you my daily evening journey through Firefox. I always start by opening Bamboo Feed Reader [legacy, not willing to migrate], then I open Update Scanner [legacy], and finally ScrapBook [legacy]. When in the webs I open multiple links with Save Images [legacy]. If I have more time, I open Session Manager [legacy] for some saved pages of precedent days. When saving documents linked in a page, I use DownThemAll! [legacy], and occasionally Bazzacuda Image Saver Plus [legacy], Video DownloadHelper [legacy] and SoundCloud Downloader [legacy]. As I’m not a native English speaker (that was pretty obvious) I look up words in dictionaries selecting one of them from the ones I added in Add to Search Bar [legacy]. It might be a case of bad luck but I can’t imagine how will be my daily surfing routine after November 15th, honestly. And, yes, I’m a NCSA Mosaic -> Netscape -> Firefox user, and I don’t want to shift to Chrome _at all_.

         1. Amy Tsay wrote on October 30, 2017 at 3:53 pm:

            Hi Jav,
            Have you tried Feedbro as an alternative for Bamboo Reader? https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/feedbroreader/. Also:
            – One Note (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/onenote-clipper/) in place of ScrapBook
            – Tab Session Manager (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tab-session-manager/) in place of Session Manager
            – A compatible SoundCloud downloader: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/scdl-soundcloud-downloader/
            – For Save Images legacy, Album (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/photo-album/) or Image Picka (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/image-picka/) could work.
            – Video DownloadHelper is expected to migrate, but he has a lot of code to write and will probably update at the last minute.
            – There is a chance that DownThemAll might provide a lightweight compatible version. http://www.downthemall.net/progress/
            – I’ve reached out to the developers of Update Scanner and Bazzacuda Image Saver Plus to see if they are planning to migrate.

            1. Amy Tsay wrote on October 30, 2017 at 4:03 pm:

               The developer of Update Scanner is working on an update; he might not make it in time for Firefox 57, but he is planning to release an update.

            2. Jav wrote on October 31, 2017 at 12:45 pm:

               Thank you for your reply, Amy. Maybe I should have made some research before whining but seeing all my usual extensions tagged as legacy was shock at first sight.

            3. Amy Tsay wrote on October 31, 2017 at 1:00 pm:

               No worries! A sea of yellow tags can look quite daunting.

            4. Kees wrote on November 1, 2017 at 2:37 pm:

               “– There is a chance that DownThemAll might provide a lightweight compatible version. ”
               This is a clear example where it becomes obvious that Mozilla didn’t do their homework and neglected to check whichs APIs are needed for a popular extension… Even after I and others indicated that this should be a top-priority (and that was months ago already).

               “The developer of Update Scanner is working on an update; he might not make it in time for Firefox 57, but he is planning to release an update.”
               Again this shows that the planning of disabling the classic add-ons is just executed wrongly. When about 80% of the add-ons are converted then starting to think when the classic add-ons can be disabled is totally different but also better from a user friendlyness point of view.

               I do understand the need for changing the add-on logic (as this gives Mozilla the possibility of replacing an aging framework with more modern [rust based] alternatives), however the way it is done is poor. Basically when the plan was first publicized (about 2-3 years ago) it should be made clear immediately that XUL/XPCOM based add-ons are going to be deprecated – as far I remember this was not immediately clear – and the should have been a plan for a way to support the classic XUL/XPCOM add-ons for 5 years [from the moment that it became clear that WebExtensions are going to be the only supports add-on logic on the normal release chanel] via an ESR release…

            5. JD wrote on November 15, 2017 at 11:35 am:

               When I click on replacement for IMDB Search I get the landing page for searching add on’s. Nothing relevant.

               Little Help? Amy? Anyone?

      2. Honza wrote on November 7, 2017 at 6:01 am:

         Hello Amy,
         like Jav, I’m not Kieran, but since some addons are not spoken about as often as others, I’ll ask as well. I’ll go alphabetically.
         Add to search bar – very powerful, but, I think, no longer developed, I never encountered an alternative. By the way, does anyone know if for instance having an outdated portable firefox with Add to searchbar and syncing the search engines added there from there to up-to-date firefox would be possible?
         All-in-one sidebar – as such seems impossible to do as webextension. Can at least bookmarks be loaded in sidebar? I haven’t looked at alternatives doing just that yet. Crucial for my workflow.
         Better reader – seems like it should be possible, but haven’t seen replacement
         Download status bar – much, much better way to work with downloads. I think I saw somebody trying to imitate it by including a small overlay at the bottom of each page, but seemed far from ready.
         Tab groups – various containers compensate only to certain extend. Should be acceptable, though not quite as good.
         Tab mix plus – absolutely crucial, I don’t see how people work without it. Makes life so much easier… I know it’s being ported, but information on progress of works and loss of features is scarce. It’s unlikely it will be as powerful as now.
         If you have any helpful comments on this, I’d be grateful.

   3. Sylos wrote on October 27, 2017 at 3:35 pm:

      I’m not associated with Mozilla, so I’ll be a bit more blunt here: There’s no point in leaving. Yes, Firefox is losing customizability, but it’s still going to be the most customizable browser out there (aside from soon-insecure forks of Firefox 52 or 56). Definitely more customizable than Chrome.

      And I do suggest, you give Firefox 57 a chance. There are a lot of people, me included, that were blown away by the performance enough to give up even vital extensions. (NoScript for me, which is getting ported, supposed to be ready when 57 lands.)
      Obviously, your situation is probably too extreme to really compensate, but maybe you can then understand why they chose to do that. Also in light of them needing users to defend webstandards and most of their users probably not losing any extensions by this (around 40% use no extensions, another good percentage will have just an ad blocker).

      Lastly, Firefox 52 ESR will receive security updates until June 26, 2018. You can wait it out on that and then maybe the situation has improved by then, or is at least more acceptable than the current situation.
      Again, I don’t see the point in moving to a different browser and I cannot possibly imagine Mozilla going back on this plan, as they do have very good reasons to be throwing some power users under the bus for once, so this is the best I can offer.

      1. Kees wrote on October 28, 2017 at 1:01 pm:

         “Lastly, Firefox 52 ESR will receive security updates until June 26, 2018. You can wait it out on that and then maybe the situation has improved by then, or is at least more acceptable than the current situation.”
         What really puzzles me is that -even after suggestions from me and other people- Mozilla did not decide to make a Firefox 56 ESR (or wait with the real breaking changes to be happening just before an ESR release, which was wait I actually suggested on a response to a blog posting).

         From a user point of view it still feels that the step to Firefox Quantum was rushed when we are looking at the add-ons side of things. It not only sounds strange, but IT IS STRANGE, that people from Mozilla are saying “The add-on you are using is not longer working because the functionality it uses is no longer available, but please wait it will be back in a year or so. From an end-user point of view this is just ridiculous.

         By aligning the change with an ESR release (or create one based on Fx 56), you will enable the users of those add-ons to use an up-to-date Fierfox [at least when it comes to security fixes]. When after a year the feature is finally ready – then these users can still enjoy a smooth migration path.

         Personally I would like a Firefox 56 ESR, but even an UPGRADE (when it comes to [classic] XUL add-ons compatibility) to Fx 52 could be a better solution for those users.

         I also said that this step should be part of a 5 year plan, having it done withing ~2 years is just to fast – especially because when starting with WebExtensions there was no clear depreciation path of XUL extensions. As far as I know it is about a year ago that Mozilla said that Fx 57 is lacking XUL compatibility, so even if we would be somewher in the middle of 5 and 2 years then it should be at least 6-12 months away from now before using the classic XUL extensions is made 100% impossible.

         Just to pick a few bugs related to WebExtension functionality, for about at least a year there is discussion about support for setting up TCP/IP connections from a WebExtension. However it is still not in Fx and it seems (at least to me) that it will not be in for at least another 3-6 months and possibly even more. The result is that the Fx57-compatible Gopher add-on only can provide a redirect to a Gopher to HTML gateway instead of doing the work itself (like the -more advanced(!)- classic XUL one is doing).

         This is just one example of a feature not implemented yet, event although IMHO it should be…

         Instead of focusing on getting quantum ready for Fx57 IMHO Mozilla should have waited 6-12 weeks and used the resources available to get features from the XUL/XPCOM layer in WebExtensions. It think it would be better to have say 10% more coverage in add-on features and wait a little that to get quantum out 6 weeks earlier…

         1. Cathy wrote on November 15, 2017 at 10:19 am:

            I agree with you. In all the latest versions I did loose to much extensions how are necessarily for me and there are no replacements for them. I’m going back to FF 52

5. Idiot wrote on October 26, 2017 at 2:04 pm:

   Any news about toolbar API?

   1. Amy Tsay wrote on October 26, 2017 at 2:36 pm:

      The discussion is still ongoing: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215064. Here is the tracking issue: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1315819

      1. Kees wrote on November 1, 2017 at 2:27 pm:

         This is a prime example of a bug which should have been fixed BEFORE deprecating XUL/XPCOM add-ons and not the other way around (where the people using an add-on which has a toolbar will get a huge regression first and then at a certain point in time (which may be anytime between 6 months and 6 years – looking at the way the discussion seems to be going) the can get the functionality back when somebody is re-creating the add-on the were using for WebExtensions…

         It would be nice to think of a way to get users of those add-ons on a special ESR release (based on Fx 56) where they can use the add-ons for about 1 year longer).

         Also indicate to them via notifications/display on the start-up tab (etc) that in about 1 year the old add-ons are no longer working… And in the mean time Deliver The Functionality to Fx 57+ – so that we do not have to do the same discussion again…

         When the planning would have been good and the functionality of the actively developed XUL/XPCOM add-ons was available as WebExtension already and of the classic add-ons 90% is actually converted then we would not have this discussion as almost all users would be using WebExtension based add-ons already.

         At the moment is seems that a number of add-ons will be barely making it due to functionality being added very late (i.e. weeks ago instead of 9+ months [or even years] ago).

         It is not the change itself I’m critical about it is about the planning related to this…

6. WalterK wrote on October 26, 2017 at 5:13 pm:

   Google Hangout is still not working in FF 57. While it suppose not require an extension anymore, it doesn’t work nevertheless. All required APIs are implemented according to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1281882 , but https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1347055 still has open dependencies. None of these two bugs are being tracked for Quantum release.

   QuitNow https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/quitnow/ has no replacement for both desktop and Android.

   Generally, now that XUL and complete customization of FF via XUL extensions are on the way out, adding built-in advanced customization capabilities and settings becomes crucial for long-term success of Firefox. Power users are product champions, and FF needs them!

7. Larry Atkins wrote on October 28, 2017 at 11:26 pm:

   I’m a bit unhappy about a recent change to the developer hub page – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/addons.

   I’ve developed several extensions. Until recently, they always showed up in name order. Since this was consistent, I got used to looking for the entry for specific extensions in certain places in the list. However, recently the extensions are sorted by the order in which they were last updated. This can cause randomness.

   I can then tell the page to sort by name, but I have to wait for it to reload.

   My suggestion is that, even if you sort by “updated” by default, nevertheless, if the developer selects another sort order, it would be good to save that setting in a cookie, and then use it by default on subsequent page loads.

8. Oleksandr wrote on October 31, 2017 at 7:59 am:

   Please add S3.Translator to Extension Finder
   https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/s3google-translator/

   search by “translator” / “translate”
   https://mozilla.github.io/extension-finder/

9. Arnaud wrote on November 1, 2017 at 7:16 am:

   You are killing Firefox by stopping the support of the XUL extensions!!! Let more time of extensions developers to migrate to the fucking WebExtensions, because you want Firefox to be a clone of Chrome. When it will be done the only users of Firefox will be the developers, shame on you!

   You make every time the wrong choice!
   – Pocket is useless
   – Remove Tab groups was an error
   – Kill XUL extensions ? The worst of all errors. It’s like removing a previous and next buttons…

   Users want a fast and secure browser they can customize with great extensions. The rest is optional!
   I’m web developer. I use Firefox Developer Edition with specific extensions for my work and the release version for the rest of time with others and appropriate extensions. I don’t want to migrate to Chrome for several reasons, the first for the extensions and the second because Chrome do not understand “click on refresh icon” to duplicate tab.

   If developers of Firefox don’t want to listen users… fuck off! I will install the last Firefox ESR and wait and see.

   1. Kees wrote on November 1, 2017 at 2:18 pm:

      “You are killing Firefox by stopping the support of the XUL extensions!!! Let more time of extensions developers to migrate to the fucking WebExtensions, ”

      The problem is not killing XUL/XPCOM based extensions, as it is not about the technology but about the functionality. However the problem is the fact that nobody seems to listen at the Mozilla side. Just a question for the people blogging here: “Do you read the comments and take the suggestions into consideration. Or is this a one way road where suggestions (e.g. plan around ESR releases etc) are basically ignored?”.

      It has been said over and over again: Ensure feature compatibility with the current active and most populair add-ons before killing the technology that powers them. This seems to be totally ignored, and that is STRANGE and puzzling.

      Although it is de facto too late to change the roll-out plan for Fx 57, it is still not to late to create an ESR branch based on Fx 56 and ensure that in the mean time (about 1 year) the functionality Is Actually Delivered for the most popular add-ons (and also release channel users using legacy add-ons to the Fx 56 ESR release).

      Yes, this is extra work for Mozilla and its developers, however then executed right this will prevent a PR disaster coming due to comments/messages/blog/social media postings from users of XUL add-ons which are suddenly no longer able to use them.

      Doing this would show that Mozilla is a unique organisation, listening to people, not doing it shows that communication at Mozilla seems to go one way…

10. Tim Williams wrote on November 1, 2017 at 10:22 am:

    It looks like extensions which I find critical will never get ported to Webextensions due to gaping holes in the API. I’m sorry, but I need Classic Theme Restorer to make the interface usable, I need Tab memory usage to monitor my pages. I want a proper fully functional ad-blocker (not the cut down webextensions version) and others.

    I am totally mystified by the development approach of Firefox now, I don’t have a fundamental objection to the concept of deprecating old API’s and replacing them, but the replacement needs to be feature equivalent. This is not the case, from what I’ve read, it’s webextensions don’t even come close. Simply trying to clone Chrome looks like a strategy for failure, there is no USP.

    I have heard it said that because power users like me are a small minority, we can be safely ignored, but this spectacularly ignores the fact that the power users are your strongest advocates. A lot of people use FireFox because they asked me which was “the best” and trust my opinion. When FF57 comes out, my advice will be “Use PaleMoon, FireFox is just a Chrome clone now”. How many users will you loose because you have upset your advocates? There are other browsers out there which do provide power users features, so we will use them and tell others to do the same.

    Also, as a web developer who uses FF as my go-to browser this means that websites I work on will always work according to FF’s interpretation of the specs. I suspect this applies to a lot of developers. If power users switch en-mass, then FF will loose it’s defacto status as the “reference” web browser.

    As for performance, well based on my experience so far PaleMoon is a lot faster and more stable than the current iterations of FF and is more than fast enough for my needs. I don’t really see how FF57 could ever offer enough extra speed to make me want to cope with the terrible Australis interface or loose my other plugins. Slightly faster page load times will never compensate for an inefficient UI.

    I switched my laptop to PaleMoon some months ago and this post will probably be the last thing I do with FF as the default browser on my desktop computer, as soon as I hit submit I’ll be changing my defaults. I feel sad, I was a user of Netscape 3.0 and have stuck with it’s descendants through thick and thin. At least PaleMoon is a fork, so shares that inheritance. Bye FF, it’s been nice knowing you, but you’ve left me behind so I’m heading for a more welcoming home.

11. Ed wrote on November 4, 2017 at 2:04 pm:

    You can count me a one of the thousands of users who moved to Firefox because of the numerous add-ons that were available for Firefox. After your updates killed an add-on I depend on, I was able to recover by downgrading to the 32 bit version Firefox. Now I find I can’t even use this fix on another machine I have, so it is time to move on. I am not motivated to seek work-a-rounds for problems you have chosen to introduce. MS Edge was always faster but lacking features. However, I now see the Edge has the add-ons I need, and Firefox does not. Firefox got me away from Internet Explorer, but now forces me to move yet again.

    1. Amy Tsay wrote on November 6, 2017 at 3:00 pm:

       Hi Ed, which add-on are you referring to?

12. Mark wrote on November 8, 2017 at 6:54 am:

    Ok, I’m grumpy about losing many of my favorite add-ons, but I’m open to being convinced that this is the best way forward. So I’ve been reading conversations like this to try to understand Mozilla’s reasoning here, and I’m starting to see the logic.

    However, the most unnerving part of this for me is that it’s unclear which functions provided by my current add-ons can be built in WebExtensions (such that I just have to wait for someone to produce a viable alternative) and which will simply never be available again (e.g., because they present the kinds of security issues that, as I understand it, are causing FF to move away from XUL in the first place).

    For example, three add-ons I’ll have a hard time getting by without are OpenDownload2, Dorando Keyconfig, and Puzzle Bars (the latter is already deprecated and it’s been a serious loss—I mean, in a very first-world-problems kind of way).

    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/opendownload-10902/

    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dorando-keyconfig/

    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/puzzle-toolbars/

    Based on what the developers have said, it sounds like it’s simply impossible to recreate their add-ons on the WebExtensions platform in anything like its current state. I’m curious to know: Is that by design—i.e., do these extensions do exactly the kinds of things that Mozilla doesn’t want add-ons to do anymore? Or is it just that implementing the APIs that would be required to perform those functions is low on the list of priorities, and I’ll just have to wait a few months or a few years before those functions are feasible again?

13. olds97_lss wrote on November 11, 2017 at 9:20 pm:

    Add-ons I use that I’m unable to find a FF57+ alternate for:

    Dorando Keyconfig-used to change what a few default ctrl+ keys do

    NetVideoHunter – have tried 20 other versions, but none work as well. this one opens in a popup and if you open 2+ videos multiple background tabs, it catches those and gives you the ability to download them. It also uses the title of the video vs the hashed file name that most sites use.

    Multi Links Plus – found a few potential alternatives, but none work as effortlessly as this to copy the link text and link in the mouse for a bunch of links on a page. I use this hourly at work to save time. Now I will have to copy the text, pasted it, copy the link, paste it… for every single link, one at a time. On build days, this is going to add an hour of work to my day.

    Status4Evar-just really like having a status bar that gives me the info this does.

    StatusbarEx-same as above

    xPathchecker-used this every day at work to write scripts. There are other variations of it, but this one worked well and easily

    Then a big one, that I use every hour of every day at work that hasn’t worked since build 56:
    Selenium IDE (and a bunch of add-ons to make this more powerful/easy to use)

    I don’t have a java/web background and I used SeleniumIDE to build hundreds of scripts that I run daily that are all now garbage. I’ve gone so far as to install a portable version of FF54 because without this tool, I’d need 10 more people doing manual testing.

    Having FF quantum to have a browser be “30% faster” is useless to me. If I wanted to have a browser that was fast, I’d just use MS Edge or Chrome. If I am unable to find replacements for all the above, then I have no use for firefox.

14. willie wrote on November 13, 2017 at 6:54 pm:

    unfortunately having the addons i use stop working is simply a show-stopper.

    tab groups simply does not and will not have a port for webextensions so i will simply never upgrade past FF 56(nothing prevents me from doing that, and nothing will break either, nor any new browsing tech will come out that won’t work on FF56 for years to come)

    not to mention session manager, tab mix plus, downthemall(FULL, not the watered down lite version that will be in 57+) and full ABP.

15. Bill Beers wrote on November 13, 2017 at 9:12 pm:

    I note looking at Add On Manger that the majority of the Add-Ons that I use are marked Legacy. I gather that means they are going away. Classic Theme Restorer is one I need to keep my FF looking like I want it , not like some bean counter at Mozilla thinks I should want it. I saw a remark on one of the tech forums couple nights back that was right on IMO: “problem with Mozilla is they make changes to the software that nobody likes or wants”. Certainly fits with my experience.

    So I and some of my friends for whom I maintain their systems are going to be looking at the good alternatives to FF. After what recently happened to Xmarks, I don’t hold much hope for going on with FF.

    My two cents.
    bill

16. Roman wrote on November 14, 2017 at 6:26 am:

    Goodbye firegestures

    1. Caitlin Neiman wrote on November 15, 2017 at 12:55 pm:

       Firegestures may not update, but it looks like you can keep some of the functionality with FoxyGestures.

       https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/foxy-gestures/?src=ss

    2. Alex Haan wrote on November 15, 2017 at 12:56 pm:

       There is indeed no full replacement for FireGestures. For a lot of my extensions I can accept a drop in functionality. But I do use the gestures even on the extensions ‘page’.

       Firefox57 W:E is NOT feature complete and you’re destroying an extension community!

17. Michael wrote on November 14, 2017 at 7:19 am:

    Don’t kill off keyconfig!!!

18. R0n1n wrote on November 14, 2017 at 8:16 am:

    Having a customizable browser that removes customization is frustrating to say the least. I trusted and used firefox enough to allow it to auto-update. Now my add-ons are gone with no way to roll back to a previous version and export things like my feed from bamboo to load back into the suggested replacement that is nowhere near as user friendly. To say that I, and from the comments above other users, am disappointed is an understatement.

19. FerFoxSake wrote on November 14, 2017 at 8:49 am:

    According to the people at Mozilla, I am NOT among “most users” – that is, I am not too pleased with the brand new browser update.
    My customized browser is a mess and will take me some frustrating time to sort out, but worst of all:
    You took away my favourite add-on, Video Download Helper by mig!
    When I’m perfectly happy with something, I don’t want any random replacements “chosen for me” – I prefer to make my own choices.
    Please don’t bother to answer me, telling me Mozilla have hundreds of similar add-ons: I know that.

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on November 14, 2017 at 9:03 am:

       I’ll bother, anyway. Video DownloadHelper should be ported today (or soon, if not). We have been in touch with the developer about this.

20. Lyn Smith wrote on November 14, 2017 at 11:56 am:

    So I understand that this means scrapbook is gone and OneNote will replace it. My question is how do I access all of my scrapbook information that I previously saved and used on a daily basis for my job?

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on November 14, 2017 at 1:22 pm:

       There is some troubleshooting information here: http://www.xuldev.org/scrapbook/misc.php. There’s also some information about it in the tutorial PDF. The developer might know of other ways to convert the data.

       1. Lyn Smith wrote on November 14, 2017 at 2:00 pm:

          Thanks. I will check it out. I will be devastated if all of that is gone forever!

21. Dennis Luell wrote on November 14, 2017 at 12:25 pm:

    I’m an Firefox avid user for over 15 years. Sorry to go to Chrome, but 90% of my addons won’t work now. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to alert the developers of the individual addons in advance? The new version of Firefox should have been delayed until the majority of addons worked.

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on November 14, 2017 at 1:23 pm:

       Add-on developers have been informed about this on a regular basis for the past 2+ years. Many add-ons have been abandoned along the years, and others just can’t be converted to the new API.

       1. Alex Haan wrote on November 15, 2017 at 12:57 pm:

          The new API isn’t feature complete yet. Should not have made this step yet.

22. Tina Hamaker wrote on November 14, 2017 at 2:43 pm:

    I see Colorful Tabs is gone. Could anyone recommend something similar, or at least something that makes each tab more eye-catching? Since I don’t know of a way to make the font or tabs themselves larger, I’m finding the top of my screen very difficult to read. It’s not easy to see which tab is active. I’d like my whole toolbar to have larger font also.

    1. Caitlin Neiman wrote on November 17, 2017 at 11:17 am:

       Hi Tina, it looks like Colorful Tabs has a compatible version available: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/_colorfultabs/

       Hope that helps!

23. Derald McPhate wrote on November 14, 2017 at 5:33 pm:

    Is there effort underway to reconfigure your own product REMINDERFOX for the new browser????

    1. Caitlin Neiman wrote on November 15, 2017 at 1:36 pm:

       Reminderfox was developed and maintained by folks outside of Mozilla, and unfortunately it will not be updated to work with Firefox 57. 🙁

       However, the developers wanted to offer the following recommendations for Reminderfox users:

       1) You can sync your current reminders with a remote calendar service, such as Google Calendar: http://www.reminderfox.org/remote-calendar-n/

       2) You can also export your calendar file and import into another calendar (like Outlook or Mozilla Lightning: http://www.reminderfox.org/documentation-user-guide-sharing-reminders/

       https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/reminderfox/ZX3Hsm3R1jU

24. Nicholas wrote on November 14, 2017 at 5:58 pm:

    Flem add-on is a must have.

    Worked perfectly in Firefox 56. Now will not work at all.

    Very, very bad.

25. dove wrote on November 14, 2017 at 8:27 pm:

    I experimented with many add-ons before I found my two
    favorites Video DownloadHelper and UnMHT which I use
    almost daily.

    I don’t want to experiment again, can I just keep the
    version of firefox I am using now so I can keep using these add-ons?

26. Nick wrote on November 14, 2017 at 9:08 pm:

    My Theme and Font Size add-on doesn’t work any more. Is this feature gone forever?

    1. Caitlin Neiman wrote on November 15, 2017 at 1:29 pm:

       That extension just updated to be compatible yesterday! If you did not receive an automatic update, let us know.

27. addon wrote on November 14, 2017 at 10:02 pm:

    Hey

    My highly used extension is not working anymore. This is ridiculous and i need my extension working again.

    1. Caitlin Neiman wrote on November 15, 2017 at 12:59 pm:

       Hey there, which extension was this?

28. bob wrote on November 14, 2017 at 11:40 pm:

    Ho to export session manager sessions to a valid replacement? more than 90% of my addons are Legacy, many for translation no replacements……
    1+ for a 56 ESR, with all this commotion, I don’t get why it’s not done…

29. wlserwis wrote on November 15, 2017 at 12:19 am:

    Goodbye Theme Font & Size Changer…

    1. Caitlin Neiman wrote on November 15, 2017 at 1:30 pm:

       It updated yesterday and should be working now! Let us know if you did not receive the update.

30. Jekys wrote on November 15, 2017 at 1:59 am:

    My speed dial DEAD. Is not ok this, update fast dial please.

    1. Caitlin Neiman wrote on November 17, 2017 at 11:19 am:

       Hi there! It looks like Speed Dial [FVD] is now available here: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/fvd-speed-dial/

31. Janet wrote on November 15, 2017 at 2:01 am:

    I’d like to know why Moz estentions keeps taking the place of my Google homepage. I believe I’m being messed around with because I don’t allow the updates. Am I?????

32. Roger Harris wrote on November 15, 2017 at 2:24 am:

    I lost almost all of my extensions in this upgrade tonight, one of which was FireFTP, and you don’t seem to have any replacement. I depended on that to maintain a half-dozen sites, and now I’m literally up in the middle of the night with a problem to fix, trying to find a stand-alone FTP program and remember all the logins I lost in my FireFTP configuration file. I understand that sometimes you have to do improvements that won’t allow continued support of old standards, but you seem to have handled this MAJOR change VERY badly. In particular it seems you didn’t give enough time for existing extensions to upgrade, and you certainly could have given a more prominent warning that so many extensions were going to be incompatible and to check for replacements BEFORE upgrading. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in this release that I just couldn’t wait a month or two for, rather than be inconvenienced like this.

33. Derek wrote on November 15, 2017 at 3:07 am:

    Why…oh why….oh why have the powers that be made this change? I have now lost my speed dial access, with the new version being a poor substitute. In the original version you were able to set up folders to locate your most used sites. As I run online businesses this was invaluable to me and many other self emplyed people. Now it’s a nightmare!

    Well thank you Firefox for screwing things up. After many years of supporting you, you do this to us. I will have to search around for another way to access my sites. And I will DEFINITELY be dumping Firefox in favour of a site that hopefully thinks of its users!

34. Mike wrote on November 15, 2017 at 5:51 am:

    THERE IS NO MORE DOWN THEM ALL IN 57 … SO I WILL STICK WITH 56.2 THE LAST UPDATE BEFORE 57. AND THERE IS NOT ONE REPLACEMENT THAT WILL REPLACE DOWN THEM ALL. SO THE HELL WITH FIREFOX 57. NOT UNLESS DOWN THEM ALL CONTINUES TO WORK WITH MOZILLA. THERE IS NOTHING BETTER THAN DOWN THEM ALL … FOR MY NEEDS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I WOULD DO SOMETHING AND COMPLY. EVEN IF FIREFOX IS 57 IS FASTER WHICH IT IS. IT’S A EYESORE. AND LIKE I SAY I USE DOWN THEM ALL ON A DAILY BASIS.

    THANK YOU AND LOOKS LIKE 56.2 WILL BE A MAINSTAY.

    M

35. Jan Burger wrote on November 15, 2017 at 6:05 am:

    I have lost a lot of valuable information – some irretrievable – that was stored in QuickNote. A warning of this loss should have been given before inducing me to update. Is there a way to recover it?

36. Audre wrote on November 15, 2017 at 6:10 am:

    Unhappy surprise this AM with new Firefox version. The font size on tabs, address bar etc is too light and small for me to see. Further, double toolbar is gone and tool bar itself cannot be banished and summoned as necessary. After many years of satisfaction with Firefox, I am now lost without the add-ons.

37. LJ88 wrote on November 15, 2017 at 6:29 am:

    Am low vision. Having great difficulty navigating online now without “Theme Font and Size Changer.”
    Can no longer read my bookmarks. Or the bookmark toolbar. Can barely use the Internet now.

    “No Squint Plus” helps with web pages, but my bookmarks are now useless. Checked your handicapped accessible page online, and it still refers low vision people to Theme Font and Size Changer.

    I need the Internet for my job.

    Help us please, Firefox.

    1. David Bolter wrote on November 15, 2017 at 1:18 pm:

       Hi! The Firefox UI should respond to desktop settings. So for example on Windows 10 you can adjust “Settings > System > Display > Change the size of text, apps and other items”. It sounds like for web content, you’ve solved that part already. I hope this helps.

    2. Eitan wrote on November 15, 2017 at 2:09 pm:

       Hi!

       Yeah. What David said.. Also, it looks “Theme Font and Size Changer” was updated for Quantum, unfortunately it won’t enlarge the fonts in the bookmarks pane. Another option for enlarging fonts in the actual user interface is by adding a file called `userChrome.css` to your profile. You can read about that here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Tech/XUL/Tutorial/Modifying_the_Default_Skin#Customize_with_userChrome.css

       I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some files out there that you can incorporate for your own needs.

       1. Eitan wrote on November 15, 2017 at 2:11 pm:

          Here is an example of a simple rule that will make every label in the interface 20px:

          * {
          font-size: 20px;
          }

38. Earthbound_X wrote on November 15, 2017 at 6:35 am:

    Every time I try to load the addons page to find replacements, it’s just doesn’t load. The addons website is general just no longer loads anywhere I try the URL.

    Need something to replace Toomanytabs.

39. Earthbound_X wrote on November 15, 2017 at 6:37 am:

    Clicking on the links in Mark’s post above for example, the pages just don’t load.

    1. Caitlin Neiman wrote on November 15, 2017 at 1:25 pm:

       addons.mozilla.org was down for about an hour this morning. 🙁 It’s back up again — want to try accessing those links again?

       There is no direct 1:1 replacement for Toomanytabs at the moment, but you might find an extension to help manage tabs in this collection: https://mzl.la/2zBk6ur

       Improving the tabs API is a priority in the upcoming months. We hope to offer more functionality for tabs management soon.

40. Fabio Peios wrote on November 15, 2017 at 7:40 am:

    Firefox strength are the vast number of add-ons & extensions.

    No extensions no Firefox.

41. Ultrium64 wrote on November 15, 2017 at 7:58 am:

    there are no valid add-on alternatives to:
    downthemall
    scrapbook
    session manager
    sqlite manager
    tamper data

    …. I always think more about leaving firefox

    1. Caitlin Neiman wrote on November 17, 2017 at 11:27 am:

       Hi there,

       For Scrapbook, you might want to try OneNote: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/onenote-clipper/

       For Session Manager, you might want to try Tab Session Manager (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tab-session-manager/) or My Sessions (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/my-sessions/)

       For SQlite Manager, would SeLite SQLite Connection Manager meet your needs? https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/selite-sqlite-connection-mg/

       For Tamper Data, would Modify Header Value work? https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/modify-header-value/

       DownThemAll may come back in a lighter version: http://www.downthemall.net/delays/

42. Greg Lee wrote on November 15, 2017 at 8:06 am:

    Add-ons lost: 17
    Replacements found so far: none
    irritation level: high

43. Greg Fein wrote on November 15, 2017 at 9:04 am:

    Every time Firefox makes changes that disable key Add-Ons, I stay on old versions. I have 12 legacy add-ons, several of which are absolutely essential for my browsing. I updated and tried the “Find a Replacement” feature, and it was useless. I plan to stay on Firefox 56 as long as it still works. If it ever breaks, I’ll probably migrate to Chrome or Opera. I’m not sure why Mozilla would wish to encourage users to stay on outdated, possibly dangerous software.

    1. Amy Tsay wrote on November 15, 2017 at 9:55 am:

       Hi Greg, would you mind telling us which 12 legacy add-ons you are using?

       1. Alex Haan wrote on November 15, 2017 at 1:17 pm:

          I’m not Greg, but for me:
          – Fire Gestures (‘replacements’ only allow gestures on webpages)
          – Theme: FT DeepDark (API not feature complete). Manually editing userChrome is not an alternative!
          – Tab Groups
          – The big cuts in functionality GreaseMonkey had to do converting to a WebExtension which impacts me as a userscript writer and the people using my scripts quite a lot.
          – I don’t see “Open In Browser”‘s new version yet: https://github.com/spasche/openinbrowser/issues/23
          – Not enough control over shortcuts:
          – Shortcut for LastPass only works when focus in webpace
          – Disable Ctrl-Q (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1325692)

          – Ps. On that firefox-webext-list: LastPass is now a WE.

       2. Greg Fein wrote on November 15, 2017 at 3:30 pm:

          The most important ones, that are keeping me from switching to Firefox 57 are:

          Add to Search Bar
          Classic Theme Restorer
          Custom Tab Width
          F.B. Purity
          rarchive
          Reddit Inbox Revamp
          Remove It Permanently
          Session Manager
          Thumbnail Zoom Plus

          1. Amy Tsay wrote on November 15, 2017 at 4:16 pm:

             Hi Greg, I see you’re in that situation where most of the add-ons you use do things the new API limits :-/ There’s additional tab APIs coming in Firefox 58 and 59 that will help more tab extension developers migrate. In the meantime, the only two I have recommendations for are Session Manager (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tab-session-manager/) and Thumbnail Zoom Plus (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/imagus/). Sorry I can’t be of more help. 🙁

             1. Greg Fein wrote on November 15, 2017 at 5:30 pm:

                Thank you for these suggestions. Unfortunately, Session Manager is broken according to the reviews.

                More generally, what you described is exactly the problem with this new Firefox update: it just doesn’t have the features that users want. I would love to get the speed of FF57, but I’m not willing to sacrifice flexibility to get it. Chrome has always been faster than Firefox, but the flexibility and customizability of Firefox are what have kept me with the browser for over a decade. I’ll never understand why Mozilla would deliberately take important features and options away from users.

                I’ve been getting a sinking feeling about Firefox ever since they removed “browser.newtab.url” from about:config, thereby requiring me to download yet another add-on. Then it got much worse when they started requiring that all add-ons be signed; I stayed on an outdated version of Firefox for over a year just to keep functionality of my unsigned extensions. Just recently, I gave in and updated to FF56, thinking at least I could finally have the latest software. And now I’m stuck with old software again for the foreseeable future, because for some reason, they just keep on destroying the options their users love. It’s incredibly confusing and frustrating.

44. Bernard wrote on November 15, 2017 at 10:53 am:

    Firefox Quantum 57.0 (64-Bit)

    Hallo:
    Hello:

    Firefox kann keine Verbindung zu dem Server unter addons.mozilla.org aufbauen.
    Firefox can’t establish a connection to the server at addons.mozilla.org.

    Das ist erst seit heute 15.11.2017 seit ich Firefox auf release 57.0 ein update gemacht habe.
    It is since today 15.11.2017, since I did an update to Firefox release 57.0.

    Addons lassen sich nicht öffnen.
    Addons can not be opened.

    Addons lassen sich nicht installieren.
    Addons will not install.

    https://addons.mozilla.org/

    https://noscript.net/ lässt sich auch nicht mehr verwenden und nicht neu installieren.
    https://noscript.net/ you can also no longer use and not reinstall.

    Vielen Dank!
    Thank you very much!

    Mit freundlichen Grüßen
    Sincerely yours

    1. Caitlin Neiman wrote on November 15, 2017 at 1:05 pm:

       Thanks, Bernard! Sorry about this — addons.mozilla.org was down for about an hour this morning. It’s back up again.

       NoScript should be updating to be compatible with Firefox 57 in just a few days. https://hackademix.net/2017/11/14/double-noscript/

45. David Busch wrote on November 15, 2017 at 12:15 pm:

    HELP! Firefox updated itself and deactivated my Password Manager. I have lost hundreds of passwords and can’t find them! How do I get Password Manager reactivated so I can at least read my passwords?

46. Arjen wrote on November 15, 2017 at 12:32 pm:

    I am sorry to see that the “Find a Replacement” button and the Extension Finder can’t find any of my vanished add-ons or an alternative. Are these working?

    1. Caitlin Neiman wrote on November 15, 2017 at 1:03 pm:

       They are working, but we might not have a recommended replacement for the particular extension(s) you are looking for just yet. :/

       Could you let us know what you had installed? We can try to help find some replacements and get those loaded into the tools.

47. KSA wrote on November 15, 2017 at 12:40 pm:

    WHY is the font size in the tabs sooooo small. I can’t read it and now I cant find any add-on that will change it. What am I missing??

    1. Caitlin Neiman wrote on November 16, 2017 at 2:48 pm:

       Hey KSA, sorry to hear about this! I’ve noted a few workarounds in this comment: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/10/26/helping-find-compatible-extensions/comment-page-2/#comment-224760

48. Alex Haan wrote on November 15, 2017 at 1:20 pm:

    I hope this setting still works:
    https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1003777

    As I wrote somewhere else; some core extensions/themes aren’t ready yet.

49. Feng wrote on November 15, 2017 at 3:05 pm:

    I was using FireGestures (by Gomita) and Speed Dial (Josep del Rio) and they have been deactivated. Finding replacements is trivial. But how can I retrieve all my settings of those extensions?

50. Feng wrote on November 15, 2017 at 5:01 pm:

    I was wrong. It’s not easy to find a replacement…

    When using Speed Dial, I could press Ctrl + numpad #/##/### to open my favorite sites. I didn’t find any similar feature in the recommended replacement. Could you please recommend another extension?

More comments:1 2 3 Next »