6 ms·

I like Firefox. A lot. And I think there are a number of ways that the core (i.e. non-extension based) functionality is superior to that of e.g. Chrome. That sa

I like Firefox. A lot. And I think there are a number of ways that the core (i.e. non-extension based) functionality is superior to that of e.g. Chrome. That said...the reverse is also very much true. When Firefox loses the extensions which require XUL (whether fundamentally or merely to avoid rewrites) I doubt its upsides will outweigh its downsides for me anymore. They may surprise me, and even if they don't they still might increase usage with other people, but right now I am sad.

RubyPinch 11y ago
Surely any maintained XUL related addons will survive this change, due to being maintained, no?
- steve-howard 11y ago
  It's possible that maintainers are willing to make small changes to keep up with recent versions of firefox but are not interested in a ground-up rewrite to accommodate a deprecated framework.
- mnarayan01 11y ago
  I've heard Tree Style Tabs won't be possible. Given my limited knowledge this strikes me as plausible, but I haven't investigated it at all so don't take my word for it.
  - Osmose 11y ago
    See https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions#Additional_APIs https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions#Additional_APIs There's valid criticisms against WebExtensions, but the biggest misconception is that the capabilities of WebExtensions are set in stone and that X or Y addon "won't be possible". The entire point of announcing WebExtensions so early was to start getting feedback on what needs to be supported to make major and useful addons possible, and to start work on a way for experimentation outside of the officially supported spec to still happen.
    - mnarayan01 11y ago
      On one hand, that link provides pretty strong (implicit) evidence that plenty of stuff won't be possible after the switch away from XUL, whether or not Tree Style Tabs is possible. On the other hand, Tree Style Tabs is far and away the biggest extension I care about, so that link does provide me with some level of hope. For which I genuinely thank you. On the third hand, my cynical take is that apparently Mozilla really does take community feedback into consideration. When making a wish list of things that could potentially happen in the future to put on a wiki page. I've also heard that it's possible that Pocket could be moved to an extension.
      - Osmose 11y ago
        > On one hand, that link provides pretty strong (implicit) evidence that plenty of stuff won't be possible after the switch away from XUL, whether or not Tree Style Tabs is possible. From the FAQ, there's a proposal for a way to do things that require the same level of access that the browser chrome has here: https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/proposal-native-js-to-embrace-extend-the-webextensions-api/3457/3 https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/proposal-native-js... To me it seems like a decent way to say "Hey, here's an explicitly unstable way to do things that aren't possible with WebExtensions, and hopefully we can eventually get those things into WebExtensions, or you can just live your life as you do now with no hard promises about compatibility." > On the other hand, Tree Style Tabs is far and away the biggest extension I care about, so that link does provide me with some level of hope. For which I genuinely thank you. You're welcome! :D > On the third hand, my cynical take is that apparently Mozilla really does take community feedback into consideration. When making a wish list of things that could potentially happen in the future to put on a wiki page. I could talk about this _forever_, but the short version would be: That's not a false criticism of Mozilla in recent times, but it's also not entirely true. Hacker News, r/firefox, and others are very vocal minorities compared to our greater userbase. Sometimes we really need to listen more and change our plans and be more open than we have been, but sometimes the people doomsaying everything we do might have a different opinion if they had all the details and metrics and info (knowing how to navigate Mozilla to find info about something is a skill in itself). > I've also heard that it's possible that Pocket could be moved to an extension. I dunno if we've specifically made that decision yet, but it is certainly one of the primary candidates for Go Faster: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Go_Faster https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Go_Faster
greyskull 11y ago
> And I think there are a number of ways that the core (i.e. non-extension based) functionality is superior to that of e.g. Chrome Like what? Genuinely curious.
- reitanqild 11y ago
  Awesomebar for one. Being able to just type in the random things you remember from a url / title (I think it combines them) and have FF narrow down the alternatives, -fast, is something I haven't found in any other mainstream browser. Another aspect is it doesn't automatically send everything you type to google (I don't worry to much but it is a nice touch.) Maybe the average user is confused by having a separate search field in addition to the address bar but I like it. (And yes, you can search from awesomebar as well, although there is no suggest feature.)
  - _yy 11y ago
    > Being able to just type in the random things you remember from a url / title (I think it combines them) and have FF narrow down the alternatives, -fast, is something I haven't found in any other mainstream browser. Chrome has exactly the same feature. You can disable Google Instant, too, but it's actually a really useful feature.
    - reitanqild 11y ago
      Common misconception I guess[0]: Chromes version is not the same. (Unless I am seriously wrong.) Try to type new com <part of title of something you read on hn today> to test. On FF and PM this just works but on Chrome I still don't think it works. [0]: which might explain why not everyone is using the better browser :-P
      - ino 11y ago
        That has always worked for me on Chrome. On the other hand, chrome lets me use the websites own search without setting up anything. For example: you [tab] searches on youtube. news [tab] searches hn. I've never set it up and works with almost every site I've performed a search on.
abcd_f 11y ago
Firefox is not from Google. This is its biggest upside and I suspect that I'm not the only one who sticks to FF pretty much exclusively because of it. I am even willing to look past their shenanigans with Pocket, EME, Loop, featured tiles and all other "for the sake of our users" crap Mozilla keep on stuffing into the browser. One thing is pretty obvious though - Mozilla now don't really give a damn about "community". They do what they want to do and the only deterrent is a risk of lash back from said community, rather than their approval.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - tatterdemalion 11y ago
    This hasn't been true for almost a year. https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-and-innovation-on-the-web/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-an...
  - jgraham 11y ago
    No, they don't. At the end of the last contract with Google, Mozilla chose to change their default search provider to Yahoo in the US, and to various other providers in the rest of the world.
    - huhtenberg 11y ago
      I'm guessing that [deleted] was about Google being the Firefox default search provider. While it is not longer true, Firefox still uses them for SafeBrowsing, download scanning, geolocation, Loop authentication and as a source of jQuery for DevTools. If you are concerned about Firefox leaking information to Google, the tie-ins are still there. PS. Just go to about:config and type "google".
      - wsha 11y ago
        I believe Google is also still the default for some locales including most of Europe.

RubyPinch 11y ago

Surely any maintained XUL related addons will survive this change, due to being maintained, no?

steve-howard 11y ago
It's possible that maintainers are willing to make small changes to keep up with recent versions of firefox but are not interested in a ground-up rewrite to accommodate a deprecated framework.
mnarayan01 11y ago
I've heard Tree Style Tabs won't be possible. Given my limited knowledge this strikes me as plausible, but I haven't investigated it at all so don't take my word for it.
- Osmose 11y ago
  See https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions#Additional_APIs https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions#Additional_APIs There's valid criticisms against WebExtensions, but the biggest misconception is that the capabilities of WebExtensions are set in stone and that X or Y addon "won't be possible". The entire point of announcing WebExtensions so early was to start getting feedback on what needs to be supported to make major and useful addons possible, and to start work on a way for experimentation outside of the officially supported spec to still happen.
  - mnarayan01 11y ago
    On one hand, that link provides pretty strong (implicit) evidence that plenty of stuff won't be possible after the switch away from XUL, whether or not Tree Style Tabs is possible. On the other hand, Tree Style Tabs is far and away the biggest extension I care about, so that link does provide me with some level of hope. For which I genuinely thank you. On the third hand, my cynical take is that apparently Mozilla really does take community feedback into consideration. When making a wish list of things that could potentially happen in the future to put on a wiki page. I've also heard that it's possible that Pocket could be moved to an extension.
    - Osmose 11y ago
      > On one hand, that link provides pretty strong (implicit) evidence that plenty of stuff won't be possible after the switch away from XUL, whether or not Tree Style Tabs is possible. From the FAQ, there's a proposal for a way to do things that require the same level of access that the browser chrome has here: https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/proposal-native-js-to-embrace-extend-the-webextensions-api/3457/3 https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/proposal-native-js... To me it seems like a decent way to say "Hey, here's an explicitly unstable way to do things that aren't possible with WebExtensions, and hopefully we can eventually get those things into WebExtensions, or you can just live your life as you do now with no hard promises about compatibility." > On the other hand, Tree Style Tabs is far and away the biggest extension I care about, so that link does provide me with some level of hope. For which I genuinely thank you. You're welcome! :D > On the third hand, my cynical take is that apparently Mozilla really does take community feedback into consideration. When making a wish list of things that could potentially happen in the future to put on a wiki page. I could talk about this _forever_, but the short version would be: That's not a false criticism of Mozilla in recent times, but it's also not entirely true. Hacker News, r/firefox, and others are very vocal minorities compared to our greater userbase. Sometimes we really need to listen more and change our plans and be more open than we have been, but sometimes the people doomsaying everything we do might have a different opinion if they had all the details and metrics and info (knowing how to navigate Mozilla to find info about something is a skill in itself). > I've also heard that it's possible that Pocket could be moved to an extension. I dunno if we've specifically made that decision yet, but it is certainly one of the primary candidates for Go Faster: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Go_Faster https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Go_Faster

greyskull 11y ago

> And I think there are a number of ways that the core (i.e. non-extension based) functionality is superior to that of e.g. Chrome Like what? Genuinely curious.

reitanqild 11y ago
Awesomebar for one. Being able to just type in the random things you remember from a url / title (I think it combines them) and have FF narrow down the alternatives, -fast, is something I haven't found in any other mainstream browser. Another aspect is it doesn't automatically send everything you type to google (I don't worry to much but it is a nice touch.) Maybe the average user is confused by having a separate search field in addition to the address bar but I like it. (And yes, you can search from awesomebar as well, although there is no suggest feature.)
- _yy 11y ago
  > Being able to just type in the random things you remember from a url / title (I think it combines them) and have FF narrow down the alternatives, -fast, is something I haven't found in any other mainstream browser. Chrome has exactly the same feature. You can disable Google Instant, too, but it's actually a really useful feature.
  - reitanqild 11y ago
    Common misconception I guess[0]: Chromes version is not the same. (Unless I am seriously wrong.) Try to type new com <part of title of something you read on hn today> to test. On FF and PM this just works but on Chrome I still don't think it works. [0]: which might explain why not everyone is using the better browser :-P
    - ino 11y ago
      That has always worked for me on Chrome. On the other hand, chrome lets me use the websites own search without setting up anything. For example: you [tab] searches on youtube. news [tab] searches hn. I've never set it up and works with almost every site I've performed a search on.

abcd_f 11y ago

Firefox is not from Google. This is its biggest upside and I suspect that I'm not the only one who sticks to FF pretty much exclusively because of it. I am even willing to look past their shenanigans with Pocket, EME, Loop, featured tiles and all other "for the sake of our users" crap Mozilla keep on stuffing into the browser. One thing is pretty obvious though - Mozilla now don't really give a damn about "community". They do what they want to do and the only deterrent is a risk of lash back from said community, rather than their approval.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- tatterdemalion 11y ago
  This hasn't been true for almost a year. https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-and-innovation-on-the-web/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-an...
- jgraham 11y ago
  No, they don't. At the end of the last contract with Google, Mozilla chose to change their default search provider to Yahoo in the US, and to various other providers in the rest of the world.
  - huhtenberg 11y ago
    I'm guessing that [deleted] was about Google being the Firefox default search provider. While it is not longer true, Firefox still uses them for SafeBrowsing, download scanning, geolocation, Loop authentication and as a source of jQuery for DevTools. If you are concerned about Firefox leaking information to Google, the tie-ins are still there. PS. Just go to about:config and type "google".
    - wsha 11y ago
      I believe Google is also still the default for some locales including most of Europe.