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> There's so much to be gained from getting rid of the old extension system for concurrency, extension compatibility, and the health of the ecosystem and indivi

> There's so much to be gained from getting rid of the old extension system for concurrency, extension compatibility, and the health of the ecosystem and individual browser installations. I personally think that while it's clearly great for security and possibly good for Firefox in general, it's also terrible for the extension ecosystem. The set of possible extensions is being reduced from "literally anything computable" to "what the API supports." Sure, (some) popular extensions are basically being grandfathered in by having APIs added just for them, but that doesn't help the extensions that aren't written yet and will now never be written. Essentially, a major selling point of Firefox has been sacrificed in the hope that the increased security, better perf, and greater development velocity leads to greater marketshare. Well, I hope so, but I think the jury will be out on that for a while. Other than that, Quantum seems great. I did lose all my tabs when it updated (boo - that's never happened before), and I think the whole-window-width address bar dropdown is bizarre and ugly, but other than that it's great. I suppose the only long-term concern is that default merger of the address bar and search bar - configurable options have a habit of eventually being dropped, and I think a world of omnibars is less usable and less privacy-conscious.

Tharkun 9y ago
After reading these comments, I basically don't want to upgrade. I've been running Classic Theme Restorer for years to get rid of whatever the latest craze in GUI design is. I like my address bar for addresses and my search bar for searches. I love my tree style tabs. I like having a fair amount of control over my browser. For a few years now, I've had the feeling that Firefox was actively trying to get rid of me as a user. With every new version, the user is less and less in control. It claims to be privacy-conscious, but runs Google Analytics. It tries to gather data behind my back. It's missing so many switches and toggles that I had to install a Privacy Settings extension simply to make the thing behave.
- arnvidr 9y ago
  I also lost my window, but it was in the "recently closed windows" menu, so no big deal. Most of the (all?) changes that you got with Classic Theme Restorer can still be accomplished with userChrome.css. Check this[1] github repo for the quickest way to set it back up the way you like it. [1] https://github.com/Aris-t2/CustomCSSforFx https://github.com/Aris-t2/CustomCSSforFx
- spystath 9y ago
  This is kind of the feeling I have too. I remember firefox in the 2.x and 3.x days when you could do practically anything XUL and XPCOM. I also remember that firefox was dead slow back then. Although I am kind of dissapointed that so much functionality was removed it is inevitable that, in order to get a better and safer browser, some inconveniences are to be expected. I wish there were some kind of middle ground to accomodate power users as well. But Mozilla is not after power users, they can't afford it. It is kind of a shame though.

Tharkun 9y ago

After reading these comments, I basically don't want to upgrade. I've been running Classic Theme Restorer for years to get rid of whatever the latest craze in GUI design is. I like my address bar for addresses and my search bar for searches. I love my tree style tabs. I like having a fair amount of control over my browser. For a few years now, I've had the feeling that Firefox was actively trying to get rid of me as a user. With every new version, the user is less and less in control. It claims to be privacy-conscious, but runs Google Analytics. It tries to gather data behind my back. It's missing so many switches and toggles that I had to install a Privacy Settings extension simply to make the thing behave.

arnvidr 9y ago
I also lost my window, but it was in the "recently closed windows" menu, so no big deal. Most of the (all?) changes that you got with Classic Theme Restorer can still be accomplished with userChrome.css. Check this[1] github repo for the quickest way to set it back up the way you like it. [1] https://github.com/Aris-t2/CustomCSSforFx https://github.com/Aris-t2/CustomCSSforFx
spystath 9y ago
This is kind of the feeling I have too. I remember firefox in the 2.x and 3.x days when you could do practically anything XUL and XPCOM. I also remember that firefox was dead slow back then. Although I am kind of dissapointed that so much functionality was removed it is inevitable that, in order to get a better and safer browser, some inconveniences are to be expected. I wish there were some kind of middle ground to accomodate power users as well. But Mozilla is not after power users, they can't afford it. It is kind of a shame though.