5 ms·

I'm really not sure and curious how much extensions are actually used in practice. Personally, I use Chrome with 1password, that's it. Extensions scare me. The

I'm really not sure and curious how much extensions are actually used in practice. Personally, I use Chrome with 1password, that's it. Extensions scare me. They're a huge potential invasion of privacy, especially with recent hijackings of Chrome extensions in the store. I'm also more confident that Mozilla will always listen to users, and give us the necessary opt-outs. I really don't trust Google as much.

vortico 9y ago
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2011/06/21/firefox-4-add-on-users/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2011/06/21/firefox-4-add-on-... Here's an article from 2011 claiming that 85% of Firefox users have extensions installed and will thus be bothered by the change, and on average, users have 5 addons installed. It is my gut estimate that half of these addons have no replacement or a worse replacement. As for the opt outs, this may be true for most things, but I am not able to opt entirely out of Pocket's "Recommended by Pocket" trending adverts, nor am I able to turn off Firefox's addon signing requirement to develop or try new addons from GitHub, unless I download a tweaked build version of Firefox.
- zbraniecki 9y ago
  I do not have numbers for how many users use extensions, but my gut feeling is that it's much lower than it was in 2011. We've been moving to e10s over last months enabling it for users who don't have legacy addons (so, they either don't have addons or they have e10s modern addons). I found a status update from the e10s meeting from Jun 2nd - https://wiki.mozilla.org/E10s/Status/June2 https://wiki.mozilla.org/E10s/Status/June2 It indicates that over 60% of beta users had e10s activated which can only be activated for users who don't use old extensions. Based on the telemetry data it seems that only 3% were not eligible. I'm not involved in e10s project so I don't know the details and updates, but I believe that the number of users affected is actually quite low (which doesn't mean irrelevant, just that majority of users won't be affected). > As for the opt outs, this may be true for most things, but I am not able to opt entirely out of Pocket's "Recommended by Pocket" trending adverts In the home tab? The icon on the top-right corner allows you to uncheck the "Recommended by Pocket" and "extensions.pocket.enabled" about:config option allows you turn off pocket completely. Now, that we own Pocket, I hope we'll merge it more seamlessly into Firefox Accounts because I feel like the sole fact that it uses it's own brand name makes it feel like Firefox comes with a separate piece of software bundled.
  - fuckyouzilla 9y ago
    > I do not have numbers for how many users use extensions, but my gut feeling is that it's much lower than it was in 2011. No shit, Sherlock. After crapzilla removed/maimed most of the APIs - who'd even think that extensions'd degrade as well?
  - vortico 9y ago
    `extensions.pocket.enabled = false` does not disable the "Recommended by Pocket" checkbox. I was not expecting Pocket telemetry to continue to work with this set to off.
    - zbraniecki 9y ago
      Interesting. It does for me. It's not only disabling it, The "Recommended by Pocket" doesn't even show up in the about:home sidebar. Can you try restarting the browser, and if it doesn't help, file a bug pls?
      - vortico 9y ago
        Filed: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1396336 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1396336
        zbraniecki 9y ago
        thank you! :)

vortico 9y ago

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2011/06/21/firefox-4-add-on-users/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2011/06/21/firefox-4-add-on-... Here's an article from 2011 claiming that 85% of Firefox users have extensions installed and will thus be bothered by the change, and on average, users have 5 addons installed. It is my gut estimate that half of these addons have no replacement or a worse replacement. As for the opt outs, this may be true for most things, but I am not able to opt entirely out of Pocket's "Recommended by Pocket" trending adverts, nor am I able to turn off Firefox's addon signing requirement to develop or try new addons from GitHub, unless I download a tweaked build version of Firefox.

zbraniecki 9y ago
I do not have numbers for how many users use extensions, but my gut feeling is that it's much lower than it was in 2011. We've been moving to e10s over last months enabling it for users who don't have legacy addons (so, they either don't have addons or they have e10s modern addons). I found a status update from the e10s meeting from Jun 2nd - https://wiki.mozilla.org/E10s/Status/June2 https://wiki.mozilla.org/E10s/Status/June2 It indicates that over 60% of beta users had e10s activated which can only be activated for users who don't use old extensions. Based on the telemetry data it seems that only 3% were not eligible. I'm not involved in e10s project so I don't know the details and updates, but I believe that the number of users affected is actually quite low (which doesn't mean irrelevant, just that majority of users won't be affected). > As for the opt outs, this may be true for most things, but I am not able to opt entirely out of Pocket's "Recommended by Pocket" trending adverts In the home tab? The icon on the top-right corner allows you to uncheck the "Recommended by Pocket" and "extensions.pocket.enabled" about:config option allows you turn off pocket completely. Now, that we own Pocket, I hope we'll merge it more seamlessly into Firefox Accounts because I feel like the sole fact that it uses it's own brand name makes it feel like Firefox comes with a separate piece of software bundled.
- fuckyouzilla 9y ago
  > I do not have numbers for how many users use extensions, but my gut feeling is that it's much lower than it was in 2011. No shit, Sherlock. After crapzilla removed/maimed most of the APIs - who'd even think that extensions'd degrade as well?
- vortico 9y ago
  `extensions.pocket.enabled = false` does not disable the "Recommended by Pocket" checkbox. I was not expecting Pocket telemetry to continue to work with this set to off.
  - zbraniecki 9y ago
    Interesting. It does for me. It's not only disabling it, The "Recommended by Pocket" doesn't even show up in the about:home sidebar. Can you try restarting the browser, and if it doesn't help, file a bug pls?
    - vortico 9y ago
      Filed: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1396336 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1396336
      - zbraniecki 9y ago
        thank you! :)