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The internet could really use a non-profit lobbying for the _open_ web. We already have actors locking browsers down for (according to party line) the user's o

by avaer 9y ago

The internet could really use a non-profit lobbying for the _open_ web. We already have actors locking browsers down for (according to party line) the user's own good. Yet it seems Firefox is on the path to becoming Chrome, and not even extensions functionality will be a differentiation point. So what even is the "why" of Firefox?

eridius 9y ago
I don't understand your comment. Firefox is transitioning to an extensions model that is cross-browser and defined as a W3C draft. Their old extensions were Firefox-specific and could not be used by anyone else. This change seems very much in spirit with the open web.
- avaer 9y ago
  It's not about Firefox-only vs standard, but about control. When your extension does not or cannot work anymore due to lockout by browser consortium agreement, the control isn't with the user or the developer -- it's with the browser vendor. It kind of defeats the essence of extensions in the first place, which started out as a technique to give users and developers power over their user agents, and that's being reversed. If what your user agent can do is dictated entirely by a consensus of a small number of browser vendors, the web becomes less open. Neither users nor developers wanted this.
  - eridius 9y ago
    > Neither users nor developers wanted this. That's a very broad statement to make, and I don't think you're in a position to say something like that. For any extension that can be written with WebEx, this move is unambiguously a good thing. The developer can now just write their extension once and deploy it to multiple browsers. And for their users this is also a good thing, not just because reducing maintenance burden on the developer is more likely to lead to faster development, but also because AIUI WebEx has a much better permissions model than the old extensions. The only real problem is the subset of extensions that cannot be rewritten with WebEx. Losing these extensions sucks, to be sure, but it's a tradeoff. You just can't claim that this move is strictly negative.
sametmax 9y ago
> Yet it seems Firefox is on the path to becoming Chrome, Definitly not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14973424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14973424 And given the last experiments in test pilots such as tab containers and snapshots, I can say they are still trying very hard to innovate. Personally, I LOVE the containers. But just the fact they are creating rust to stay at the top of the line is proof enough they still got it.

by avaer 9y ago

eridius 9y ago

I don't understand your comment. Firefox is transitioning to an extensions model that is cross-browser and defined as a W3C draft. Their old extensions were Firefox-specific and could not be used by anyone else. This change seems very much in spirit with the open web.

avaer 9y ago
It's not about Firefox-only vs standard, but about control. When your extension does not or cannot work anymore due to lockout by browser consortium agreement, the control isn't with the user or the developer -- it's with the browser vendor. It kind of defeats the essence of extensions in the first place, which started out as a technique to give users and developers power over their user agents, and that's being reversed. If what your user agent can do is dictated entirely by a consensus of a small number of browser vendors, the web becomes less open. Neither users nor developers wanted this.
- eridius 9y ago
  > Neither users nor developers wanted this. That's a very broad statement to make, and I don't think you're in a position to say something like that. For any extension that can be written with WebEx, this move is unambiguously a good thing. The developer can now just write their extension once and deploy it to multiple browsers. And for their users this is also a good thing, not just because reducing maintenance burden on the developer is more likely to lead to faster development, but also because AIUI WebEx has a much better permissions model than the old extensions. The only real problem is the subset of extensions that cannot be rewritten with WebEx. Losing these extensions sucks, to be sure, but it's a tradeoff. You just can't claim that this move is strictly negative.

sametmax 9y ago

> Yet it seems Firefox is on the path to becoming Chrome, Definitly not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14973424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14973424 And given the last experiments in test pilots such as tab containers and snapshots, I can say they are still trying very hard to innovate. Personally, I LOVE the containers. But just the fact they are creating rust to stay at the top of the line is proof enough they still got it.