Firefox Moves Away From XUL-based Addons In Favor Of WebExtentions

[LAwLz]

 

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.

 

Source: Mozilla's Blog

 

 

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What does this mean for me and millions of other Firefox users? Our addons will now be broken unless they are updated, and if they are updated they will lose a significant amount of functionality.

Do you like the way you can make Firefox look however you want with the help of addons? Most likely gone.

Do you like DownThemAll? Won't be able to use that anymore.

Isn't GreaseMonkey awesome with all the useful UserScripts that exist for it? Too bad that won't work anymore.

 

DownThemAll has a very good blog post about it:

 

The likely end of DownThemAll?

 

Mozilla just announced their intent to deprecate so called XUL-based add-ons in favor of what they call the WebExtensions API within the next year or two. The WebExtensions API is supposed to be mostly compatible to Chrome/Safari extension APIs.

 

What does this mean for DownThemAll!? Well, for starters, DownThemAll! will be dead if XUL-based add-ons with XPCOM access are gone. Simple as that. The new APIs would only allow for a severely limited in functionality, severely stripped down DownThemAll! at best.

 

Gone with DownThemAll! will be add-ons that e.g. let you change major bits about the Firefox user interface (e.g. tabs tree add-ons), add-ons that allow you to do more “advanced” stuff than just showing or slightly altering websites, such as e.g. restarting the browser upon click (unless mozilla kindly provides an API for that, which won’t be compatible with Chrome, of course). Add-ons like NoScript will be severely limited in their feature set as well. Say byebye to Greasemonkey and hello to Tampermonkey, with it’s limitations. Want that add-on that lets you change the new tab page for something else or enhances that page? Maybe it will be available, maybe not, depending on if and when mozilla kindly provides WebExtensions APIs for such things. And of course, depending on if there will be an author creating this entirely new add-on from scratch.

 

What this also means: Almost all your existing add-ons will be broken, entirely, save for some Add-on SDK add-ons, namely those that don’t do anything fancy. Sure, even today, lots of add-ons break, and some add-ons will not get updated when they do and there are no suitable replacements. However, with this change, almost every add-on will be completely broken and in need of major updating by the extension authors. Good luck with that.

 

It is safe to say, that Firefox will not be Firefox anymore as far as extensions go, but instead will become yet another Chrome-clone.

 

To be clear: I was furious when the extension signing stuff was announced and then actually implemented, which effectively created yet another Walled Garden, but regarding this announcement I am just sad. Right now, it feels like I just learned my dear old friend Firefox is going to die.

Source: DownThemAll

 

 

RIP Firefox

You're abandoning one of your biggest differentiating features just so that you can become more like your competitors. Very bad move.

[Nineshadow]

Oh Mozila D:

 

Luckily it is open source, so people will definitely find a way around it, but probably not in a package from mozilla.

[Trik'Stari]

Why did I see the title and think Zuul?

[colonel_mortis]

The addon sdk, which is what the LTT Notifier for Firefox, and a considerable number of other extensions, uses, is fairly powerful, and would almost certainly support a greasemonkey-like architecture. However, some features of it will be removed with these changes, so it looks like the LTT notifier will no longer be able to automatically inject amazon affiliate tags (or it won't be as seamless and neat as it is now, where it just injects it into the outgoing HTTP request).

Hopefully the new web extensions will be powerful enough to replace the features that are being lost (or the addon sdk is improved even more), otherwise it's not going to work out very well for Mozilla.

[Joshndroid]

Oh dear, hoping there will be a fork of the source and become a true open source browser or I'll just have to switch to something else, anyone have a recommendation?

[ChineseChef]

This reminds me of the old days when firefox started doing the fast updates, and it broke addons every single time.  Just started getting used to losing an addon every update.

[KemoKa]

Oh dear, hoping there will be a fork of the source and become a true open source browser or I'll just have to switch to something else, anyone have a recommendation?

If Waterfox is doing this, then the only other option I could suggest is Pale Moon. I personally don't like it, but.. there it is. I'm sure there are other Firefox derivatives, but I'm not that well-versed in that sort of thing.

MOZILLA, WHAT THE HELL.

[Biggerisbetter]

I abandon Firefox 2 years ago because of bad support for add-ons and crappy youtube video quality. Recently I've read firefox/mozilla was changing their browser for privacy reasons and was really looking forward to changing. Now I read this and its like WTF. Why is mozilla constantly shooting themselves in the the big toe. I hate chrome and I'm stuck with it atm

[LAwLz]

The addon sdk, which is what the LTT Notifier for Firefox, and a considerable number of other extensions, uses, is fairly powerful, and would almost certainly support a greasemonkey-like architecture. However, some features of it will be removed with these changes, so it looks like the LTT notifier will no longer be able to automatically inject amazon affiliate tags (or it won't be as seamless and neat as it is now, where it just injects it into the outgoing HTTP request).

Hopefully the new web extensions will be powerful enough to replace the features that are being lost (or the addon sdk is improved even more), otherwise it's not going to work out very well for Mozilla.

We don't know what the API will support but sadly I doubt it will be anywhere near as powerful and feature rich. If it was then it would defeat the purpose of making the move to begin with, which is to make it easier to port addons between Chrome and Firefox.

[colonel_mortis]

Oh dear, hoping there will be a fork of the source and become a true open source browser or I'll just have to switch to something else, anyone have a recommendation?

The browser will still be open sourced - they aren't adding any proprietary code. The only difference is that they are deprecating some old APIs (things that programs can use) that are widely used in some extensions, and they are only doing it because those APIs can't be made compatible with some upcoming changes that are scheduled to release on FIrefox at some point in the future (Electrolysis, where tabs run in a separate process to the browser UI (the browser "chrome"), is coming out in about 6 months time assuming it gets through beta). Electrolysis can be disabled in settings though, whereas the other proposed changes seem to be more fundamental and therefore not disablable in any browser that wants to continue support.

[Arty]

haah get rekt #chromeforthewin

only reason i love firefox.

So google doesn't sit on there asses

[qwertywarrior]

damn it

i guess a fork is in order

 

 

and signed addons

are they serious

[Biggerisbetter]

I would personally pay for a great web browser, I'm getting a bit tired of free constantly broken ones 

[ChineseChef]

I personally pay for a great web browser, I'm getting a bit tired of free constantly broken ones 

 

There are paid browsers?  Do tell.

[Biggerisbetter]

There are paid browsers?  Do tell.

 My bad I worded that incorrectly. I will adjust it

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Time to download the full installer and make notes to remind me to unplug the internet cable until I've turned off the updates.

 

When the dust settles, I'll see if it's worth updating again.

[alpenwasser]

[...] disablable ...

Now that is an awesome word mortis.

I had been using Firefox for several years until very recently, mainly due to Pentadactyl's

awesomeness. But every once in a while I used Chromium (not Chrome, Chromium), and noticed

that it's far less laggy and quicker on its feet. So a few weeks ago I got so fed up with

Firefox being so laggy that I switched to chromium permanently, despite it only having a

castrated extensions system compared to Firefox. I really miss Pentadactyl, but now that

Firefox is probably killing such extensions anyway I might as well get used to Chromium.

Really sucks that there are actually no decent browsers on the market these days. Same as

with Phone operating systems, the only choices seem to be between shitty and shittier.

[SImoHayha]

isn't there a way to prevent firefox updates ?

[EChondo]

I stopped using Firefox years ago when it kept giving me a BSOD whenever flash was used, I wanted to try it again, but since there's gonna be a change as big as this then I guess I'll be waiting a bit more.

 

I've been happy with Opera, no issues whatsoever except the occasional website being broken for whatever reason.

 

Same on mobile, can't find a good browser. I settled on Dolphin for my phone and it's been fine so far.

[alpenwasser]

isn't there a way to prevent firefox updates ?

On my linux distro I could just tell the package manager not to update it. But eventually

I suppose things will probably start breaking, and you're vulnerable to security bugs which

get published and won't be fixed in the old versions.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

isn't there a way to prevent firefox updates ?

Options -> Advanced -> Update tab -> Never check for updates

[Dabombinable]

On my linux distro I could just tell the package manager not to update it. But eventually

I suppose things will probably start breaking, and you're vulnerable to security bugs which

get published and won't be fixed in the old versions.

*sigh* Well that sucks for my laptop-I'm running Opensuse on it with quite a few addons in Firefox (I can go nuts under Linux since 1/4 of the RAM (4GB) isn't being used by just the OS).

[LAwLz]

isn't there a way to prevent firefox updates ?

Yes you can turn off automatic updates very easily. If you want you can even change to the extended support release branch which is about 1 year behind in terms of features but not security updates.

Not updating or moving to the ESR only delays the inevitable though. Sooner or later you will have to update.

[Joshndroid]

The browser will still be open sourced - they aren't adding any proprietary code. The only difference is that they are deprecating some old APIs (things that programs can use) that are widely used in some extensions, and they are only doing it because those APIs can't be made compatible with some upcoming changes that are scheduled to release on FIrefox at some point in the future (Electrolysis, where tabs run in a separate process to the browser UI (the browser "chrome"), is coming out in about 6 months time assuming it gets through beta). Electrolysis can be disabled in settings though, whereas the other proposed changes seem to be more fundamental and therefore not disablable in any browser that wants to continue support.

Yes, so hoping a fork will pickup where they left off when it comes down to the crunch. I don't want to use chrome having a good albeit declining experience withbfirefox (due to recently getting frequent crashes and the like)

[Mooshi]

Firefox lost it's soul the moment it tried to become Chrome and failed. It seems mozilla is even more determined to destroy what made Firefox what it is even further.