10 ms·

I've been using firebug pretty much since it came out. Firebug was an amazing leap forward in web development. I totally understand why its being deprecated but

I've been using firebug pretty much since it came out. Firebug was an amazing leap forward in web development. I totally understand why its being deprecated but we can all tip our hats for the innovation that it brought. It really can't be understated. As an aside I always kind of wondered why all browsers started including developer tools by default as they are not of use to 99.9% of users. Maybe because it's just easier than making them optional extensions? Does anyone know about what year this started?

nachtigall 10y ago
> As an aside I always kind of wondered why all browsers started including developer tools by default as they are not of use to 99.9% of users. AFAIK the firefox devtools team has plans/ideas that the devtools could just used like a normal Web App (loaded from a server). Currently, they are migrating XUL based components over to normal html what would make this possible. As an example, just like debugger.html which can even be used from any browser in a not-builtin way: https://github.com/devtools-html/debugger.html https://github.com/devtools-html/debugger.html
- ComodoHacker 10y ago
  >the firefox devtools team has plans/ideas that the devtools could just used like a normal Web App (loaded from a server) Someone from the old Opera team must have joined them, no less!
  - nachtigall 10y ago
    I don't understand. Can you elaborate? Have there been previous plan like this by old Opera?
    - gsnedders 10y ago
      Dragonfly[0], Presto's old dev tools, was essentially a web app (and, IIRC, although cached was loaded as if any other web app), though it had access to some APIs normal websites did not, to be able to communicate with the browser through the Scope protocol[1]. [0]: https://github.com/operasoftware/dragonfly https://github.com/operasoftware/dragonfly [1]: https://operasoftware.github.io/scope-interface/ https://operasoftware.github.io/scope-interface/
      - frik 10y ago
        Safari/Webkit DevTools (a fork also in Chome) is a web app as well and older.
      - fetbaffe 10y ago
        I miss Dragonfly. One of the best.
- cmg 10y ago
  Back in the IE 6 days, I used Firebug Lite [0] by adding a script tag in my HTML that would recreate the Firebug interface and most of its capabilities as a panel injected into the page. [0] https://getfirebug.com/firebuglite https://getfirebug.com/firebuglite
- clarkbw 10y ago
  Yes, in 2017 we'll be shipping DevTools outside of Firefox. At first it will probably be an add-on and we'll evolve from there. But it should mean less time between features and fixes and deliver to developers.
hh2222 10y ago
This started with Netscape. They had a fairly awesome built in web page editor. My guess is to make the web and creating web pages an inclusive experience for all users.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Hrm... my apologizes, I stand corrected then. I started getting into web development after Netscape was, for all intents and purposes, dead and IE6 was king.
  - nol13 10y ago
    Well you're in luck, check out SeaMonkey composer today! http://www.seamonkey-project.org/ http://www.seamonkey-project.org/
  - Sharlin 10y ago
    MS used to bundle a similar WYSIWYG editor with IE as well, Frontpage Express (a stripped-down version of the commercial MS Frontpage).
    - nommm-nommm 10y ago
      Well a WYSIWYG editor built in is not really comparable with the features of Firebug.
      - Sharlin 10y ago
        Sure, but Netscape Composer was a WYSIWYG editor as well, not a web page inspector/debugger like Firebug. Honestly, there was not much to inspect or debug in web pages at the time...
- niftich 10y ago
  This is true but not even close to the same way. The Netscape had a distribution called Communicator that shipped the browser 'Navigator' alongside a mediocre but serviceable WYSIWYG editor 'Composer'. Other products were included too: an email client, and for a while, a Calendar; the codebase lives on as Mozilla Seamonkey. This was a play towards small businesses, and not an 'Inspect Element' hook. Meanwhile, integrated devtools started with Chrome in 2008, two years after Firebug was released in 2006. My guess is Chrome wanted to provide a browser experience that was noticeably superior to a variety of demographics, and gain marketshare on merits. Meanwhile, IE began a huge effort to prove that they're not an old dinosaur of a browser holding the web back, but they didn't have easily-installable addons, so they built it in. These factors created pressure on Mozilla [1] to improve their devtools and consider shipping them with the browser. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12042767#12044962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12042767#12044962
TeMPOraL 10y ago
I don't know why but I like it this way - I at least have some assurance that what my dev tools show me is what the browser actually sees.
okreallywtf 10y ago
>As an aside I always kind of wondered why all browsers started including developer tools by default as they are not of use to 99.9% of users. Maybe because it's just easier than making them optional extensions? Does anyone know about what year this started? This is total conjecture but I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with competitive advantage. The best browsers to develop for have a better chance to become the browsers of choice because when things were less standardized (or browsers adhered to standards less) webpages could run better in one browser than another (if they even worked in multiple browsers at all). IE kind of breaks that theory but they had other ways to push IE that did not depend on quality or ease of development.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Good point, less development friction gets web developers to "sign up" for your browser. Web developers who are using your browser to develop make sites that work well in your browser! This makes perfect sense! I can't believe I didn't think of that. Personally, I absolutely love that developer tools are included in all browsers. I think its absolutely fantastic, just surprising to me it ended up that way.
  - radicalbyte 10y ago
    It's basic marketing, appeal to the thought leaders. It's how Google marketed Chrome. The other vendors were just playing catch-up, especially Microsoft. Plus it was handy for their own devs and aligned with their strategy (make the web awesome because more web is more Google ads).
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - chriswarbo 10y ago
    > Personally, I absolutely love that developer tools are included in all browsers. I think its absolutely fantastic, just surprising to me it ended up that way. Only one of the browsers I regularly use contains dev tools (Firefox); there are no dev tools built in to w3m, dillo, conkeror or lynx. There were also no dev tools in eww, w3, konqueror, arora, midori, links, elinks or netsurf last time I used them. In fact, I've only ever seen dev tools in two browsers, Firefox and Chromium, although my observations are biased since I only use Free Software ;)
digi_owl 10y ago
Best i can tell, at least Mozilla still adhere to the notion that the web empowered individuals by allowing anyone to publish something online.
ComodoHacker 10y ago
Let me [not] cite Steve Ballmer...
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs
johnward 10y ago
Firebug has plug ins that I live by and aren't offered in the other browser tools. Firepath is one.
kibwen 10y ago
In Mozilla's case, some of the rationale for including devtools by default is that part of their mission is to make the web accessible to everyone, rather than erect a wall between users and developers (though this does potentially cause some problems). Was Firefox the first browser to make "View Source" a default option in the right-click context menu?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- jeffehobbs 10y ago
  This was standard in Netscape 4.x on, if I remember correctly.
  - interfixus 10y ago
    You do. It was standard in Netscape & IE 2. First thing I used, about 30 seconds into viewing my first webpage ever.
    - z3t4 10y ago
      i also remember netscape having a built in web editor. I built my first web page in it, consisting of gif animations, links to friends web sites, a link to download duke3d-demo and a big "in construction" sign.
      - my_ghola 10y ago
        > and a big "in construction" sign Those were the days
- carussell 10y ago
  No. View Source far predates Firefox, which is relatively new with respect to the history of the web. The ideal that the Web shouldn't be write-only is not new, either—it's been around around since the birth of the Web; Tim Berners Lee included features to publish pages in the first browser, WorldWideWeb. The idea of built-in devtools in Firefox also isn't new. Firebug's predecessor DOM Inspector was shipping in Mozilla Application Suite and in Firefox up until Firefox 3. For Firefox 3, the team decided that DOM Inspector's utility to the masses didn't justify its costs. Mozilla Corp was a lot smaller then—150 or so employees. It was a common theme at that time to challenge every part of the browser both because of the QA involved and the ideal of shipping a light, focused product was still something that the team was aiming for. The DOM Inspector code was already mostly self-contained, so it was built and released through addons.mozilla.org as an extension. The main reason the built-in devtools got included in Firefox aren't so much rooted in user-focused principles as it was convenience for the devtools team. Someone might appear in this thread to dispute this (I half expect Rob Campbell to show up), but it's truer than the idealism line. Bundling the new devtools into Firefox gave two advantages for the people working on it: 1. You're automatically given a big install base, i.e., you don't have to convince people to download your extension. 2. Maintaining features as an extension introduces some work that you don't have to deal with if you just shove your code into the mozilla-central codebase. In 2010, extension authoring sucked. If Gecko couldn't do what you needed or browser.js didn't have hooks for you, you just roll those things into the same patch that introduces (or fixes) the feature you're working on. Fun fact: The number of years that Firefox has shipped with a built-in inspector actually outnumbers the years that it was without one. Firefox 3 was the first release that didn't include DOM Inspector. That was 2008. A couple years later the devtools project was announced, and it was slotted to ship in Firefox 4—which ended up delayed for 6 months or so. (If I recall correctly, devtools either ended up still missing the boat, or it shipped with parts turned off because they weren't mature/stable enough yet and they were reenabled within the next few releases after Firefox had switched to the rolling release cycle.) EDIT wrt your comment about no distinction between "developers and users": Firefox Developer Edition's existence is a contradiction
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
WorldMaker 10y ago
View Source has been around since the beginning, so it's not entirely new. What's new seems to be all the work on making the dev tools comprehensive and "IDE-like", and I think that has as much to do with it is as useful to the companies building the browsers as the users of the browser. Such that Chrome probably added them in directly to save Google developer time and needing a separate IDE/toolkit/extension install, and the rest of the browsers followed. It's interesting too in that Edge now uses the Dev Tools as a way to tier the user experience, such as the traditional View Source, out of the base experience. If you open the Dev Tools Edge asks if you are a developer and lights up a bunch of functionality that "ordinary" users don't need to see, like View Source.
- gsnedders 10y ago
  I believe WorldWideWeb.app didn't originally have View Source: it provided a WYSIWYG editor which was intended to be the main way to edit pages, AIUI.
armandososa 10y ago
Also, let's all be thankful to Joe Hewitt for his work on Firebug and the huge change it brought to web development.
throwaway161220 10y ago
> As an aside I always kind of wondered why all browsers started including developer tools by default as they are not of use to 99.9% of users. I wish this wasn't the case, but I use built-in devtools inspector to work around bad websites that impose invisible ad overlays which are somehow not caught by the combo of uMatrix+uBlockOrigin. I have to use the Inspector to select and delete the overlay so that I can use such sites. Thus DevTools serve a purpose to non-development browser sessions.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Oh yea, for sure, I do the same. I especially modify the DOM to get around "lol, no copying into this form field." That's not really the point I'm trying to make though, 99.9% of users don't have the know-how to do this. You pretty much have to be a web developer to be able to use the browser this way.
  - mgbmtl 10y ago
    I agree, although it helps lower the barrier to entry, so that 99% might become 95% or 90%. More than a few times, I showed people a few simple tricks in the Inspector. They felt empowered and it encouraged some of them to continue digging on their own. Sure, they could install an addon, but that can be very intimidating if they have never done so. If I "wanted to show them a quick trick", I would have already lost their attention completely by the time the addon is installed.
erikb 10y ago
It's a pattern to keep in mind. Develop your tools not just for users bot for developers as well, and you'll also have strong engineering ressources targeted at improving your tools and brand.
petre 10y ago
I still use Firebug daily and find it better and easier to use than the Firefox Devtools which in turn is slicker than Chrome Devtools, although the latter enables you to easily develop directly on Android devices connected by USB. I hope they retain the layout and most of the functionality.
clarkbw 10y ago
> As an aside I always kind of wondered why all browsers started including developer tools by default as they are not of use to 99.9% of users. That percentage is actually pretty close to correct. For that reason and user studies of regular users Edge has already turned off their DevTools by default ( https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2016/11/22/balancing-user-friendliness-and-developer-convenience/ https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2016/11/22/balancing-use... ). Firefox is currently pursuing moving the DevTools out of the browser and will likely use a similar system to Edge / Safari for activating them. Going the extension route does have complexity drawbacks but being able to ship fixes faster, to a wider audience will be a greater benefit. Additionally as all browsers adopt WebExtensions this could mean that any Firefox panel developed as a WebExtension will be available for use within Chrome or Edge.
- nachtigall 10y ago
  That would be a welcome change. I even say so as a Developer. You can't imagine how often I hit some keys by accident and some DevTools panel turns up - I wonder how that must feel to "normal" users (thinking of my mother here ;)
fencepost 10y ago
> I always kind of wondered why all browsers started including developer tools by default as they are not of use to 99.9% of users. Not of use to many, but I'm still glad that Chrome includes them - I needed to upload several GB of data the other day, and having both an available web interface and the bandwidth limiting feature in the Dev Tools Network section let me do that upload without impacting other users at the office for the 30-40 minutes that it would have taken when unthrottled.

nachtigall 10y ago

> As an aside I always kind of wondered why all browsers started including developer tools by default as they are not of use to 99.9% of users. AFAIK the firefox devtools team has plans/ideas that the devtools could just used like a normal Web App (loaded from a server). Currently, they are migrating XUL based components over to normal html what would make this possible. As an example, just like debugger.html which can even be used from any browser in a not-builtin way: https://github.com/devtools-html/debugger.html https://github.com/devtools-html/debugger.html

ComodoHacker 10y ago
>the firefox devtools team has plans/ideas that the devtools could just used like a normal Web App (loaded from a server) Someone from the old Opera team must have joined them, no less!
- nachtigall 10y ago
  I don't understand. Can you elaborate? Have there been previous plan like this by old Opera?
  - gsnedders 10y ago
    Dragonfly[0], Presto's old dev tools, was essentially a web app (and, IIRC, although cached was loaded as if any other web app), though it had access to some APIs normal websites did not, to be able to communicate with the browser through the Scope protocol[1]. [0]: https://github.com/operasoftware/dragonfly https://github.com/operasoftware/dragonfly [1]: https://operasoftware.github.io/scope-interface/ https://operasoftware.github.io/scope-interface/
    - frik 10y ago
      Safari/Webkit DevTools (a fork also in Chome) is a web app as well and older.
    - fetbaffe 10y ago
      I miss Dragonfly. One of the best.
cmg 10y ago
Back in the IE 6 days, I used Firebug Lite [0] by adding a script tag in my HTML that would recreate the Firebug interface and most of its capabilities as a panel injected into the page. [0] https://getfirebug.com/firebuglite https://getfirebug.com/firebuglite
clarkbw 10y ago
Yes, in 2017 we'll be shipping DevTools outside of Firefox. At first it will probably be an add-on and we'll evolve from there. But it should mean less time between features and fixes and deliver to developers.

hh2222 10y ago

This started with Netscape. They had a fairly awesome built in web page editor. My guess is to make the web and creating web pages an inclusive experience for all users.

nommm-nommm 10y ago
Hrm... my apologizes, I stand corrected then. I started getting into web development after Netscape was, for all intents and purposes, dead and IE6 was king.
- nol13 10y ago
  Well you're in luck, check out SeaMonkey composer today! http://www.seamonkey-project.org/ http://www.seamonkey-project.org/
- Sharlin 10y ago
  MS used to bundle a similar WYSIWYG editor with IE as well, Frontpage Express (a stripped-down version of the commercial MS Frontpage).
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    Well a WYSIWYG editor built in is not really comparable with the features of Firebug.
    - Sharlin 10y ago
      Sure, but Netscape Composer was a WYSIWYG editor as well, not a web page inspector/debugger like Firebug. Honestly, there was not much to inspect or debug in web pages at the time...
niftich 10y ago
This is true but not even close to the same way. The Netscape had a distribution called Communicator that shipped the browser 'Navigator' alongside a mediocre but serviceable WYSIWYG editor 'Composer'. Other products were included too: an email client, and for a while, a Calendar; the codebase lives on as Mozilla Seamonkey. This was a play towards small businesses, and not an 'Inspect Element' hook. Meanwhile, integrated devtools started with Chrome in 2008, two years after Firebug was released in 2006. My guess is Chrome wanted to provide a browser experience that was noticeably superior to a variety of demographics, and gain marketshare on merits. Meanwhile, IE began a huge effort to prove that they're not an old dinosaur of a browser holding the web back, but they didn't have easily-installable addons, so they built it in. These factors created pressure on Mozilla [1] to improve their devtools and consider shipping them with the browser. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12042767#12044962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12042767#12044962

TeMPOraL 10y ago

I don't know why but I like it this way - I at least have some assurance that what my dev tools show me is what the browser actually sees.

okreallywtf 10y ago

>As an aside I always kind of wondered why all browsers started including developer tools by default as they are not of use to 99.9% of users. Maybe because it's just easier than making them optional extensions? Does anyone know about what year this started? This is total conjecture but I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with competitive advantage. The best browsers to develop for have a better chance to become the browsers of choice because when things were less standardized (or browsers adhered to standards less) webpages could run better in one browser than another (if they even worked in multiple browsers at all). IE kind of breaks that theory but they had other ways to push IE that did not depend on quality or ease of development.

nommm-nommm 10y ago
Good point, less development friction gets web developers to "sign up" for your browser. Web developers who are using your browser to develop make sites that work well in your browser! This makes perfect sense! I can't believe I didn't think of that. Personally, I absolutely love that developer tools are included in all browsers. I think its absolutely fantastic, just surprising to me it ended up that way.
- radicalbyte 10y ago
  It's basic marketing, appeal to the thought leaders. It's how Google marketed Chrome. The other vendors were just playing catch-up, especially Microsoft. Plus it was handy for their own devs and aligned with their strategy (make the web awesome because more web is more Google ads).
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- chriswarbo 10y ago
  > Personally, I absolutely love that developer tools are included in all browsers. I think its absolutely fantastic, just surprising to me it ended up that way. Only one of the browsers I regularly use contains dev tools (Firefox); there are no dev tools built in to w3m, dillo, conkeror or lynx. There were also no dev tools in eww, w3, konqueror, arora, midori, links, elinks or netsurf last time I used them. In fact, I've only ever seen dev tools in two browsers, Firefox and Chromium, although my observations are biased since I only use Free Software ;)

digi_owl 10y ago

Best i can tell, at least Mozilla still adhere to the notion that the web empowered individuals by allowing anyone to publish something online.

ComodoHacker 10y ago

Let me [not] cite Steve Ballmer...

nommm-nommm 10y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs

johnward 10y ago

Firebug has plug ins that I live by and aren't offered in the other browser tools. Firepath is one.

kibwen 10y ago

In Mozilla's case, some of the rationale for including devtools by default is that part of their mission is to make the web accessible to everyone, rather than erect a wall between users and developers (though this does potentially cause some problems). Was Firefox the first browser to make "View Source" a default option in the right-click context menu?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jeffehobbs 10y ago
This was standard in Netscape 4.x on, if I remember correctly.
- interfixus 10y ago
  You do. It was standard in Netscape & IE 2. First thing I used, about 30 seconds into viewing my first webpage ever.
  - z3t4 10y ago
    i also remember netscape having a built in web editor. I built my first web page in it, consisting of gif animations, links to friends web sites, a link to download duke3d-demo and a big "in construction" sign.
    - my_ghola 10y ago
      > and a big "in construction" sign Those were the days
carussell 10y ago
No. View Source far predates Firefox, which is relatively new with respect to the history of the web. The ideal that the Web shouldn't be write-only is not new, either—it's been around around since the birth of the Web; Tim Berners Lee included features to publish pages in the first browser, WorldWideWeb. The idea of built-in devtools in Firefox also isn't new. Firebug's predecessor DOM Inspector was shipping in Mozilla Application Suite and in Firefox up until Firefox 3. For Firefox 3, the team decided that DOM Inspector's utility to the masses didn't justify its costs. Mozilla Corp was a lot smaller then—150 or so employees. It was a common theme at that time to challenge every part of the browser both because of the QA involved and the ideal of shipping a light, focused product was still something that the team was aiming for. The DOM Inspector code was already mostly self-contained, so it was built and released through addons.mozilla.org as an extension. The main reason the built-in devtools got included in Firefox aren't so much rooted in user-focused principles as it was convenience for the devtools team. Someone might appear in this thread to dispute this (I half expect Rob Campbell to show up), but it's truer than the idealism line. Bundling the new devtools into Firefox gave two advantages for the people working on it: 1. You're automatically given a big install base, i.e., you don't have to convince people to download your extension. 2. Maintaining features as an extension introduces some work that you don't have to deal with if you just shove your code into the mozilla-central codebase. In 2010, extension authoring sucked. If Gecko couldn't do what you needed or browser.js didn't have hooks for you, you just roll those things into the same patch that introduces (or fixes) the feature you're working on. Fun fact: The number of years that Firefox has shipped with a built-in inspector actually outnumbers the years that it was without one. Firefox 3 was the first release that didn't include DOM Inspector. That was 2008. A couple years later the devtools project was announced, and it was slotted to ship in Firefox 4—which ended up delayed for 6 months or so. (If I recall correctly, devtools either ended up still missing the boat, or it shipped with parts turned off because they weren't mature/stable enough yet and they were reenabled within the next few releases after Firefox had switched to the rolling release cycle.) EDIT wrt your comment about no distinction between "developers and users": Firefox Developer Edition's existence is a contradiction

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

WorldMaker 10y ago

View Source has been around since the beginning, so it's not entirely new. What's new seems to be all the work on making the dev tools comprehensive and "IDE-like", and I think that has as much to do with it is as useful to the companies building the browsers as the users of the browser. Such that Chrome probably added them in directly to save Google developer time and needing a separate IDE/toolkit/extension install, and the rest of the browsers followed. It's interesting too in that Edge now uses the Dev Tools as a way to tier the user experience, such as the traditional View Source, out of the base experience. If you open the Dev Tools Edge asks if you are a developer and lights up a bunch of functionality that "ordinary" users don't need to see, like View Source.

gsnedders 10y ago
I believe WorldWideWeb.app didn't originally have View Source: it provided a WYSIWYG editor which was intended to be the main way to edit pages, AIUI.

armandososa 10y ago

Also, let's all be thankful to Joe Hewitt for his work on Firebug and the huge change it brought to web development.

throwaway161220 10y ago

> As an aside I always kind of wondered why all browsers started including developer tools by default as they are not of use to 99.9% of users. I wish this wasn't the case, but I use built-in devtools inspector to work around bad websites that impose invisible ad overlays which are somehow not caught by the combo of uMatrix+uBlockOrigin. I have to use the Inspector to select and delete the overlay so that I can use such sites. Thus DevTools serve a purpose to non-development browser sessions.

nommm-nommm 10y ago
Oh yea, for sure, I do the same. I especially modify the DOM to get around "lol, no copying into this form field." That's not really the point I'm trying to make though, 99.9% of users don't have the know-how to do this. You pretty much have to be a web developer to be able to use the browser this way.
- mgbmtl 10y ago
  I agree, although it helps lower the barrier to entry, so that 99% might become 95% or 90%. More than a few times, I showed people a few simple tricks in the Inspector. They felt empowered and it encouraged some of them to continue digging on their own. Sure, they could install an addon, but that can be very intimidating if they have never done so. If I "wanted to show them a quick trick", I would have already lost their attention completely by the time the addon is installed.

erikb 10y ago

It's a pattern to keep in mind. Develop your tools not just for users bot for developers as well, and you'll also have strong engineering ressources targeted at improving your tools and brand.

petre 10y ago

I still use Firebug daily and find it better and easier to use than the Firefox Devtools which in turn is slicker than Chrome Devtools, although the latter enables you to easily develop directly on Android devices connected by USB. I hope they retain the layout and most of the functionality.

clarkbw 10y ago

> As an aside I always kind of wondered why all browsers started including developer tools by default as they are not of use to 99.9% of users. That percentage is actually pretty close to correct. For that reason and user studies of regular users Edge has already turned off their DevTools by default ( https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2016/11/22/balancing-user-friendliness-and-developer-convenience/ https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2016/11/22/balancing-use... ). Firefox is currently pursuing moving the DevTools out of the browser and will likely use a similar system to Edge / Safari for activating them. Going the extension route does have complexity drawbacks but being able to ship fixes faster, to a wider audience will be a greater benefit. Additionally as all browsers adopt WebExtensions this could mean that any Firefox panel developed as a WebExtension will be available for use within Chrome or Edge.

nachtigall 10y ago
That would be a welcome change. I even say so as a Developer. You can't imagine how often I hit some keys by accident and some DevTools panel turns up - I wonder how that must feel to "normal" users (thinking of my mother here ;)

fencepost 10y ago

> I always kind of wondered why all browsers started including developer tools by default as they are not of use to 99.9% of users. Not of use to many, but I'm still glad that Chrome includes them - I needed to upload several GB of data the other day, and having both an available web interface and the bandwidth limiting feature in the Dev Tools Network section let me do that upload without impacting other users at the office for the 30-40 minutes that it would have taken when unthrottled.