What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Chat about Linux in general
Forum rules
Do not post support questions here. Before you post read the forum rules. Topics in this forum are automatically closed 6 months after creation.
Houchou

What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by Houchou »

In case you didn't know already. Firefox will drop support for traditional addons this November, and replace them with web extensions (Chrome extensions). I really mean addons(adblock, flashblock...), not plugins (flash, java....). Web extensions are less powerful then traditional Firefox addons, and this framework is incompatible with the old addons. So it's NOT a small change, all your Firefox addons will simply cease to function. Worse, the web extensions of Firefox will be a bit incompatible with chrome extensions, many requiring fixing to be used in Firefox, you'll not be able to seamlessly install chrome extensions. And many addons developers said they would not bother porting their addons to web extensions.

Sooooo..... A lot of people are furious about all this, me included.....
The powerful addons, is the most important reason i'm using Firefox.

What i'll do....

I'll stay with Firefox until November, then jump to the ESR version.
Then pray that some one successfully forks Firefox before the ESR becomes end of life. If this doesn't happen..... then i'll move to an other browser, maybe chromium i.... i'll see then.

Palemoon: I don't believe this project will succeed. The project is run by jerks, they simply can't cooperate with others. I think Torvalds is a nice guy even if a bit rude ("openBSD are a bunch of masturbating monkeys" :/ i'm not making this up...). See, when i say jerks, i really mean it, it's not over sensitive PC crap. I don't see then been able to successfully navigate the politics of an open source project.

Seamonkey: They said they will not maintain the old addons, because they don't have the man power.

Waterfox: That seams interesting. The waterfox dev plans on trying to start a startup in order to fork Firefox..... We'll see.
https://www.ghacks.net/2017/03/13/water ... e-browser/

EDIT:
Here's an unofficial ppa to install firefox esr

Code: Select all

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/firefox-esr
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firefox-esr
You can install waterfox from here (no 32bit version, seams functionally identical to ESR)
https://www.waterfoxproject.org/

also a UNOFFICIAL waterfox repository

Code: Select all

echo "deb https://dl.bintray.com/hawkeye116477/waterfox-deb release main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
curl https://bintray.com/user/downloadSubjectPublicKey?username=hawkeye116477 | sudo apt-key add - 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install waterfox
Classic Add-Ons Archive is a new add-on for the Firefox web browser that can be best described as a local catalog of classic Firefox add-ons.
https://www.ghacks.net/2017/11/10/firef ... s-archive/
https://github.com/JustOff/ca-archive/releases
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 5 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
User avatar
Pjotr
Level 23
Level 23
Posts: 19886
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2011 10:18 am
Location: The Netherlands (Holland) 🇳🇱
Contact:

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by Pjotr »

Missed that news, so thanks for the alert....

But I see no immediate reason for concern. I think we can expect the web extensions to mature, so that loss of features will be minimal. In itself, some unification between browsers is a good thing; that reduces developer efforts. In the beginning it might be a bit rough, as always with novelties. But after a year or so, I expect things will have settled.

Note that there are other reasons besides addons, which make Firefox a good web browser.... I've been using both Firefox and Chrome for years, each for its specific purposes. I like them both. :)
Tip: 10 things to do after installing Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia
Keep your Linux Mint healthy: Avoid these 10 fatal mistakes
Twitter: twitter.com/easylinuxtips
All in all, horse sense simply makes sense.
User avatar
Pierre
Level 21
Level 21
Posts: 13192
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2008 5:33 am
Location: Perth, AU.

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by Pierre »

in the same way that Opera dropped it's old system in favour of WebExtensions,
so now is Fire fox going down the same route.

this maybe their answer, to the fact that Chrome is so much more popular,
than either Opera or Firefox.

Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome are both based on open-source web browser engines,
(although Google Chrome is not entirely open source) but there are some significant differences between them:
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Firefo ... gle_Chrome

An up-and-comer that needs to grow: Vivaldi
https://vivaldi.com/download/
Image
Please edit your original post title to include [SOLVED] - when your problem is solved!
and DO LOOK at those Unanswered Topics - - you may be able to answer some!.
Houchou

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by Houchou »

web extensions and addons are not equivalent.
addons go deep in gecko and do stuff.
stuff that blink/webkit doesn't allow.
User avatar
Dngrsone
Level 5
Level 5
Posts: 574
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 12:18 pm

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by Dngrsone »

Well, hell. I use five different Firefox profiles, each with its own set of add-ons, some of which are rare.

I guess I will hold on as long as I can until I find workarounds or equivalents...
Try politeness; people will like you for it.
User avatar
karlchen
Level 23
Level 23
Posts: 18173
Joined: Sat Dec 31, 2011 7:21 am
Location: Germany

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by karlchen »

Hi, guys.

I am a bit amazed that Palemoon has not been mentioned in this thread as a potential alternative to Firefox so far.
I am even more amazed that the only comment about Palemoon is so negative. Based on which facts, if any?
Houchou wrote:Palemoon: I don't believe this project will succeed. The project is run by <offending term removed>, they simply can't cooperate with others.
I am in no position of commenting on the qualification of those developers who currently maintain and develop Palemoon, neither in a positive way, nor in any negative way; and definitely not based on my feelings.

Palemoon runs remarkably well on my Windows systems as well as on my Linux systems. And if there is a browser which looks and behaves like I would expect Firefox to look and behave, then it is Palemoon.

If I am concerned about Palemoon, then it is about the question whether the Palemoon guys may not have bitten off more than they will be able to chew by starting to fork xul as well. I do not know how many developers are involved in Palemoon development and how this number will evolve.
Another question is whether there will be a substantial number of developers who offered their xul based addons for Firefox, who will move over to Palemoon in the future.

Time will tell.

Best regards,
Karl
Image
The people of Alderaan have been bravely fighting back the clone warriors sent out by the unscrupulous Sith Lord Palpatine for 762 days now.
Lifeline
User avatar
Schultz
Level 9
Level 9
Posts: 2935
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:57 pm

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by Schultz »

I also run Pale Moon as my main browser. Started using it back when I ran Windows. It's kind of funny when someone says it won't succeed when it's been around for over 5 years. But to get back on topic, since I use FF as my backup browser, when FF 57 lands I'll switch to the ESR version. Also I believe that the Waterfox developer is going to try (for a while at least) keeping support for XUL by forking FF ESR 52 (I may not have the details quite right). Also, the Pale Moon developer is also planning a second fork of FF that I believe will support both XUL and WE, called Basilisk, but I have no idea how close he is to that as I don't see even an alpha of it anywhere.
H.Remedy

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by H.Remedy »

(I should mention: this thread should have been posted to the open chat section, not Linux chat.)

Lots of changes have arrived / are coming soon to Firefox this year. Version 53 was the first to use Mozilla's new state-of-the-art Rust programming language in part of the Firefox development. Rust is going to be a big part of Firefox's future, and may well lead to Mozilla's experimental Servo rendering engine eventually being put into Firefox. (Mozilla just released an experimental Servo build earlier this month. Apparently it's freaking amazing.)

The current version 54 is a big milestone because it enables multiprocess support for everyone (check your task manager - you'll see a Firefox process and one or more "Web Content" processes). Looking at the summary data at https://www.arewee10syet.com, it seems a lot of add-ons probably have been made obsolete from the multiprocess transition alone.

In terms of WebExtensions, yes, version 57 is the big milestone where WebExtensions will be required (unless Mozilla decides to postpone, but I don't think this is happening). Around 3200 add-ons have been transitioned to WebExtensions, but that still leaves >16000 that are not yet transitioned. Some of these will make the shift with no loss of functionality, others with some loss; but a large number inevitably will just be abandoned by their developers because of the effort needed to re-code.

This is a major year of change for Firefox but let's not jump to pessimistic conclusions yet. Most of the "major" add-ons will survive. Loss of functionality will come only to those that affected Firefox's inner workings (which are now off-limits to third party add-ons). In the end, you will still have an open-source browser (with all the advantages this entails), with lower resource usage than Chrome and all kinds of exciting technology coming down the road.

If you want to jump ship, then I agree with you that the Firefox forks are not very appealing! (Pale Moon, by the way, is not made by a team of developers but by a single guy who thinks he can keep his browser secured without transitioning to the new Firefox technology as a base. Good luck to him.) So if you're looking to leave Firefox, then really you should be looking at those other WebExtension-using browsers, particularly the beautiful Vivaldi or the open-source Chromium it's based on. Personally I'm sticking to Firefox for now.
User avatar
Schultz
Level 9
Level 9
Posts: 2935
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:57 pm

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by Schultz »

H.Remedy wrote:
(Pale Moon, by the way, is not made by a team of developers but by a single guy who thinks he can keep his browser secured without transitioning to the new Firefox technology as a base. Good luck to him.)
More false FUD about Pale Moon. You should read this. https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.ph ... 18&p=50899
User avatar
Night Wing
Level 4
Level 4
Posts: 474
Joined: Wed Dec 25, 2013 10:21 pm
Location: Piney Woods of Southeast Texas

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by Night Wing »

I use Pale Moon in both linux Mint and Windows 7. Performs excellently for me. Pale Moon for Windows was released in October of 2009. I started with windows Pale Moon when it was at version (4.0). Linux Pale Moon was released in January of 2014 and that was when I started with linux Pale Moon.

When windows Pale Moon was released in 2009, there were those on the internet who said it couldn't last. Those same people today in 2017 keep saying Pale Moon can't last. So in the last 8 years of very strong bias against Pale Moon, those same naysayers just can't admit to themselves they were wrong.

As for that one person on the Pale Moon team who caused a lot of bad feelings on the Pale Moon forums site, that person of late hasn't done a lot of posting. My guess is and it is strictly a guess on my part, that person was probably put on a tight and very short leash by the owner of Pale Moon because the problem child hasn't been posting very much for the past two months.

Pale Moon is coming out with another fork because of the Firefox situation with the XUL addons headache which will come out with Firefox 57. That fork will be named "Basilisk". No date for release yet. So there will be Pale Moon and Basilisk. Basilisk will "NOT" replace Pale Moon. How Basilisk will evolve is the "guessing part" and if it causes too much of a workload, I'm guessing it would be dropped and I want to state this is "my opinion".

And the Pale Moon team is a lot bigger than what people think it is.
Linux Mint 21.3 (Virginia) Xfce
MX Linux 23.2 (Libretto) Xfce
Linux Debian 12.5 (Bookworm) Xfce
H.Remedy

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by H.Remedy »

Schultz wrote: More false FUD about Pale Moon. You should read this. https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.ph ... 18&p=50899
Don't throw the FUD term around like it's some kind of argument stopper. I know this is your intention (as it always is when people use it online), but it's not going to get the desired result.

Yes, I read the info on that link - years ago. The info had been posted by Moonchild in response to accusations of exactly what I'm saying - accusations that are widespread to this day. You can dismissively call them FUD, but it's pretty clear from what I've read over the years that the other "team members" are either irregularly active or are only involved with non-tech things like translations. In any case, we're splitting hairs about numbers of team members. My point (which was in parentheses because it was tangential to the topic of Firefox development) was that Pale Moon is a tiny project attempting to keep a big browser alive, and that I do not believe it is a safe bet for general purpose use.
Night Wing wrote: When windows Pale Moon was released in 2009, there were those on the internet who said it couldn't last. Those same people today in 2017 keep saying Pale Moon can't last.
Just to be clear, I didn't say Pale Moon won't last. I said it's doubtful Pale Moon will keep up with changes in technology / bug patching / life in general. (And whoever you talked to in 2009 about this... it wasn't me! :lol: )

Hey guys, I'd love to be wrong, believe it or not. if Pale Moon keeps serving it's purpose for some people, I'll be as happy as you.
User avatar
Schultz
Level 9
Level 9
Posts: 2935
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:57 pm

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by Schultz »

H.Remedy wrote:
Don't throw the FUD term around like it's some kind of argument stopper. I know this is your intention (as it always is when people use it online), but it's not going to get the desired result.
Are you a mind reader? Really? :) I simply stated it as a fact (but obviously it's not a fact to you) for others who might read this post. There's no such thing as an argument stopper for people who like to argue (also stated as a fact; I'm not implying you like to argue since I can't read minds like you can).
H.Remedy

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by H.Remedy »

Schultz, I don't understand your comment. I do sense anger and disagreement though. That's cool - where would we be if we all agreed with each other? (Probably running Pale Moon... :lol: Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
User avatar
Schultz
Level 9
Level 9
Posts: 2935
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:57 pm

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by Schultz »

Anger, no. Disagreement, yes. That's cool though. Peace.
User avatar
Schultz
Level 9
Level 9
Posts: 2935
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:57 pm

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by Schultz »

For those interested about Basilisk: https://www.basilisk-browser.org/preview/index.shtml
Houchou

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by Houchou »

You need serious amount of resources to maintain a layout engine.
Apple, google, m$ and Mozilla are all big/biggish corps.

In case you were wondering about KHTML.
The last stable release dates from 2014
User avatar
Portreve
Level 13
Level 13
Posts: 4882
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2011 12:03 am
Location: Within 20,004 km of YOU!
Contact:

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by Portreve »

I don't see Mozilla dropping XUL support affecting me, personally, in any way.
  1. I don't normally customize my web browser all that much. Other than some bookmarks and AdBlock Plus, there's really not much more that I need.
  2. My main browser is Chromium. I just open up Firefox every once in a while.
Flying this flag in support of freedom 🇺🇦

Recommended keyboard layout: English (intl., with AltGR dead keys)

Podcasts: Linux Unplugged, Destination Linux

Also check out Thor Hartmannsson's Linux Tips YouTube Channel
phd21
Level 20
Level 20
Posts: 10103
Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2014 9:42 pm
Location: Florida

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by phd21 »

Hi "Houchou", & Everyone Else Interested in this,

I just read your post and some of the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

This has been reported by Firefox and others for awhile now, even some of the many add-ons that I use for FireFox have already commented on this when updating themselves.

Most of the "active" developers for Firefox add-ons will update those to work with the upcoming newer Firefox, but unfortunately it does look like some older non-maintained (but good add-ons) will become useless and stop working.

Time will tell ...
Phd21: Mint 20 Cinnamon & xKDE (Mint Xfce + Kubuntu KDE) & KDE Neon 64-bit (new based on Ubuntu 20.04) Awesome OS's, Dell Inspiron I5 7000 (7573) 2 in 1 touch screen, Dell OptiPlex 780 Core2Duo E8400 3GHz,4gb Ram, Intel 4 Graphics.
Hoser Rob
Level 20
Level 20
Posts: 11806
Joined: Sat Dec 15, 2012 8:57 am

Re: What you'll do when Firefox drops support for XUL addons?

Post by Hoser Rob »

Pierre wrote:... Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome are both based on open-source web browser engines,
(although Google Chrome is not entirely open source) ...
Firefox is not entirely open source either. SInce HTML5 has DRM embedded within (I think the word they used was 'compatible') they didn't have any choice. A lot of FF users weren't happy with that, and really being FOSS was the ony advantage they had left in the marketplace.

But guess what? Unlike before you can watch netflix and similar streaming sites in the Linux version of FF now. Which most users nowadays would consider pretty basic for a useable browser.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong - H. L. Mencken
Locked

Return to “Chat about Linux”