4 ms·

Tools from EFF’s Tech Team

122 points by dsr12 9y ago

Santosh83 9y ago
I'm wondering if HTTPS Everywhere and Privacy Badger are on schedule for transition to the Web Extensions API for Firefox? Or will they stop working on version 57?
- dghughes 9y ago
  I have a feeling of dread about Firefox version 57.
  - saghm 9y ago
    One thing that wasn't clear to me at first was that the point of Web Extensions is ensure that extensions play nice with multiprocessing rather than just to give compatibility with Chrome extensions; viewed in that light, I find it a little less surprising and much more palatable that they're planning to disable legacy extension functionality in a few versions.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
      But old extensions can support e10s?
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  Https Everywhere https://www.eff.org/files/https-everywhere-test/index.html https://www.eff.org/files/https-everywhere-test/index.html Privacybadger's release edition already is.
StavrosK 9y ago
Has anyone else noticed HTTPS Everywhere slowing their Firefox to a crawl? One day I got tired of FF being so slow and started disabling addons one by one, and page loads got ~6 seconds faster when I disabledd HTTPS Everywhere. Yes, it was that slow.
- Santosh83 9y ago
  I haven't measured it, so this is somewhat subjective but yes, I could see a noticeable (although very small - nowhere near ~6 seconds) speed-up after disabling HTTPS Everywhere. In addition it was the most memory hungry of my addons (although I don't use much, just it, NoScript, uBlock Origin, Canvas Blocker, and VideoDownloadHelper), taking about ~12 Mb, as reported by Firefox. Also a significant number of sites broke for me, and disabling the rule for that site would fix the issue. I think it's showing its age, and besides it's becoming less useful in an increasingly https centric Web. Am hoping the rewrite/refactoring necessary for migration to WebExtensions can help improve its performance too.
- dghughes 9y ago
  Are you using the 32-bit version of Firefox? It's the default version that is shown unless you specifically choose the 64-bit version.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    No, I'm on Ubuntu, so it was in the repos (i.e. it was the proper architecture).
- Qrius 9y ago
  I've heard Smart https is more resources efficient than https everywhere.
atonse 9y ago
If Google nudged sites towards HSTS then https everywhere wouldn't be needed anymore, correct?
- lousken 9y ago
  if you mean HSTS preloading then yes
- hiram112 9y ago
  Seems like Google has done a pretty decent job of 'pushing' most sites towards secure sockets. This, along with a lot more companies being hacked, blackmailed, extorted, etc - costing them real money - seems to have solved the problem for 99% of sites. Unless it's a personal blog or something, I won't even use a site not using encryption. Is HttpsEverywhere even needed anymore, or just used out of habit?

122 points by dsr12 9y ago

I'm wondering if HTTPS Everywhere and Privacy Badger are on schedule for transition to the Web Extensions API for Firefox? Or will they stop working on version 57?

dghughes 9y ago
I have a feeling of dread about Firefox version 57.
- saghm 9y ago
  One thing that wasn't clear to me at first was that the point of Web Extensions is ensure that extensions play nice with multiprocessing rather than just to give compatibility with Chrome extensions; viewed in that light, I find it a little less surprising and much more palatable that they're planning to disable legacy extension functionality in a few versions.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
    But old extensions can support e10s?
boomboomsubban 9y ago
Https Everywhere https://www.eff.org/files/https-everywhere-test/index.html https://www.eff.org/files/https-everywhere-test/index.html Privacybadger's release edition already is.

StavrosK 9y ago

Has anyone else noticed HTTPS Everywhere slowing their Firefox to a crawl? One day I got tired of FF being so slow and started disabling addons one by one, and page loads got ~6 seconds faster when I disabledd HTTPS Everywhere. Yes, it was that slow.

Santosh83 9y ago
I haven't measured it, so this is somewhat subjective but yes, I could see a noticeable (although very small - nowhere near ~6 seconds) speed-up after disabling HTTPS Everywhere. In addition it was the most memory hungry of my addons (although I don't use much, just it, NoScript, uBlock Origin, Canvas Blocker, and VideoDownloadHelper), taking about ~12 Mb, as reported by Firefox. Also a significant number of sites broke for me, and disabling the rule for that site would fix the issue. I think it's showing its age, and besides it's becoming less useful in an increasingly https centric Web. Am hoping the rewrite/refactoring necessary for migration to WebExtensions can help improve its performance too.
dghughes 9y ago
Are you using the 32-bit version of Firefox? It's the default version that is shown unless you specifically choose the 64-bit version.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  No, I'm on Ubuntu, so it was in the repos (i.e. it was the proper architecture).
Qrius 9y ago
I've heard Smart https is more resources efficient than https everywhere.

atonse 9y ago

If Google nudged sites towards HSTS then https everywhere wouldn't be needed anymore, correct?

lousken 9y ago
if you mean HSTS preloading then yes
hiram112 9y ago
Seems like Google has done a pretty decent job of 'pushing' most sites towards secure sockets. This, along with a lot more companies being hacked, blackmailed, extorted, etc - costing them real money - seems to have solved the problem for 99% of sites. Unless it's a personal blog or something, I won't even use a site not using encryption. Is HttpsEverywhere even needed anymore, or just used out of habit?