18 ms·

Extensions in Firefox 59

496 points by ac29 9y ago

cirowrc 9y ago
This is very cool: > Extensions can now override the proxy settings in the browser which has been another highly requested feature I see that there's an opportunity here to improve the experience of using SOCKS in the browser. Pretty cool.
- pedrocr 9y ago
  I built an extension to make SOCKS as simple as possible without a bunch of scary permissions: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/proxyswitcheroo/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/proxyswitcher... I'll probably be updating it in 59 to use this new API though. It almost completely removes the need for a settings page and should allow you to set all the complex proxy config you want using the firefox UI. It does seem to need a broader permission than I would have liked though.
npongratz 9y ago
I find this pretty exciting for (hopefully; someday) wider adoption of alternative protocols: Starting with Firefox 59, several protocols that support decentralized architectures are available for use by extensions. The white-listed protocols are: + Dat Project (dat://) + IPFS (dweb:// ipfs:// ipns://) + Secure Scuttlebutt (ssb://)
- pfraze 9y ago
  Yeah this is pretty great. AFAIK it's limited to only redirecting to a handler website, but that's a big step forward for using these protocols in links and etc. We're still hoping to get full protocol-handling with an API similar to https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/v1.8.2-beta.3/docs/api/protocol.md#protocolregisterstreamprotocolscheme-handler-completion https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/v1.8.2-beta.3/docs...
  - fenwick67 9y ago
    Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it sounds like they've made it so you can develop a webextension that handles DAT:// or IPFS:// URLs. They didn't make IPFS:// URLs redirect to http://ipfs.io/ipfs/$hash http://ipfs.io/ipfs/$hash.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - classichasclass 9y ago
      Sort of. I think this is based on the `registerProtocolHandler()` means, and if so, you can redirect this to an internal page in your extension. See https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/overbitewx/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/overbitewx/ (disclaimer: authored by yours truly). The more pressing concern is how you would speak these protocols because there's still no direct socket support. In my case, the addon just acts as a history and redirect shim and my server does the actual server access and translation. I'm actually thinking of cobbling together a native messaging-based extension as a stopgap since obviously this is suboptimal.
      - soapdog 9y ago
        Hi, I did just like you said using Native Messaging API[1] to communicate with a local companion app using standard input/output shell calls, this app can handle the socket communication, that is how I am handling it for the scuttlebutt experiments I am doing (I mentioned them above with some URLs if you want to check), I hope to start a conversation soon on the add-ons list about the needs of having UDP and TCP available for WebExtensions. It is suboptimal but it works today...
        classichasclass 9y ago
        Is this bug 1247628?
        9y ago
- kodablah 9y ago
  Why does it require a whitelist? If I make my own, do I have to contact Mozilla or is the user prompted when first access is attempted?
  - classichasclass 9y ago
    The protocol handler support is restricted to a whitelist to prevent an addon from taking over, say, "http://" http://" (or other protocols which could be used to insinuate unsafe content).
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      [How] do they handle collisions of apps that can manage the whitelisted protocols then?
      - soapdog 9y ago
        When you navigate to a custom protocol URL there is a popup asking how to handle it, it will show all the add-ons in a list (and maybe native apps too). You can select you're chosen one and tell it "not to ask again".
    - inlined 9y ago
      It still seems safe though to set up rules where domain ownership could automatically grant ownership for a protocol. E.g. Facebook.com:// or just Facebook:// if .coms were allowed to be dropped.
  - hobofan 9y ago
    I think the whitelist on what you can register as protocol handlers is a security measure. E.g. if Paypal uses "paypal:" links which are handled by a OS native application, you can't write a extension that hijacks those links.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      So how do I make an extension that supports Firefox 57 or later and does mycustomprotocol:// without prefix? Do I have to Rowhammer my access through Firefox' code? I do not see how it is in Mozilla's right to restrict what a user can do with the user's browser.
- soapdog 9y ago
  Hey! I made that patch! :-D so basically the explanation is simple. There is a whitelist of protocols you can have your WebExtension take over. If the protocol you want to control is not on that whitelist such as an hypothetical "catgifs:" protocol, you need to prefix it like: "web+catgifs" or "ext+catgifs" depending if it will be used from the Add-on or by redirection to another Web page. This makes it inconvenient to use with lots of decentralization protocols because in many other clients we are already using urls such as "ssb:" and "dat:" (eg, check out beaker browser). In essence this allows us to implement many new cool decentralization features as add-ons now that we can take over protocols, so, you could be in Firefox browsing the normal web and suddenly see a "dat:" link, normally you'd need to switch clients to a dat enabled app, now, you can have an add-on display that content in the current user-agent you're using. Still, there is another feature that we need before we can start really implementing decentralization protocols as pure WebExtensions, we need both TCP and UDP APIs like we had in Firefox OS (as an example, Scuttlebutt uses UDP to find peers in LAN and its own muxrpc TCP protocol to exchange data, DAT also uses UDP/TCP instead of HTTP). I have been building little experiments in Firefox for interfacing with Scuttlebutt which can be seen at: https://viewer.scuttlebot.io/%25csKtp9VmxTjJoKy17O7GA6%2F3S8ou9Y9XLi8pZ%2FQgwKs%3D.sha256 https://viewer.scuttlebot.io/%25csKtp9VmxTjJoKy17O7GA6%2F3S8... https://viewer.scuttlebot.io/%25uBev5w8m8iZGVbQDo9fpr%2BCXLBtth0xngs4uUF%2FLFAk%3D.sha256 https://viewer.scuttlebot.io/%25uBev5w8m8iZGVbQDo9fpr%2BCXLB... I hope to start a conversation in the add-ons list about TCP and UDP APIs for WebExtensions soon :-)
  - poopslide 9y ago
    Please excuse the inappropriate question, but this one has been bugging me for many years: will there ever be some kind of session manager on Firefox Mobile that can save and recall your browsing session (a group of tabs) to/from a local file, similar to how OneTab or MySessions are working?
  - madez 9y ago
    Decentralization and safer protocols are needed. Plain HTTP and even HTTPS are really not the best one could come up with. There are better alternatives, but using them is not always easy. So, thanks a lot for your work on making that easier!
- fiatjaf 9y ago
  Honest question: who's using ssb://?
  - soapdog 9y ago
    Secure Scuttlebutt, check it out at http://scuttlebutt.nz http://scuttlebutt.nz
    - fiatjaf 9y ago
      My question was actually: who's using Secure Scuttlebutt?
      - staltz 9y ago
        I'm using, daily. Also about ~2300 other people, but that's just how much my own local installation holds, they may be more that I'm not aware of.
kibwen 9y ago
Happy to see that Mozilla was serious about their intentions to extend the WebExtensions API in post-57 Firefox. I'm also happily surprised at the section about user notification of extension overrides; having a nice UI for this sort of thing is a difficult yet worthwhile problem (and I'm also a big fan of the new Preferences tab in general, it works far better than the old popup window). Hopefully some of this will make it in time for the next ESR so that people who are still on Firefox 52 ESR due to unsupported extensions will have the option to upgrade (though I don't see anything that will satisfy the vimperator users, I'm encouraged by the new mouse gesture APIs). Kudos to Mozilla for conducting this process with an eye towards keeping the security threat of addons reasonably manageable, even if the overall process is slower than we'd otherwise like.
- JohnTHaller 9y ago
  It's funny that vimperator is mentioned every single time Firefox extensions are brought up on HN even though it only has about 11,000 users out of the hundreds of millions that use Firefox.
  - kibwen 9y ago
    In my defense, one of my own housemates is one of those who has refused to update for want of vimperator. :P
    - imiric 9y ago
      Same here. I've tried alternatives like Waterfox and Pale Moon, but Waterfox is incompatible with some sites, and Pale Moon is dog slow, so I reverted back to Firefox 56. Not upgrading a browser is a scary situation to be in, but I just can't sacrifice the usability of Vimperator.
      - sundarurfriend 9y ago
        > I've tried alternatives like Waterfox and Pale Moon, but Waterfox is incompatible with some sites Oh, I haven't experienced that in a few months of usage. What kind of incompatibilities did you come across? I was initially reluctant about trying Waterfox and made several backups of my then-Firefox profile, but it's been a smooth sail and an easy switch so far.
shmerl 9y ago
Mozilla should fix no exit confirmation for Ctrl+Q. It's just too easy to close the browser this way, and extensions that offered this feature aren't working anymore. It's really a problem in general, there is no way to make an extension that customizes browser behavior itself (rather than page behavior), since WebExtensions can't do that.
- kzrdude 9y ago
  I thought the gaining philosophy here was to make "destructive" operations easy to undo, rather than having warnings and confirmations before carrying them out? Quitting Firefox and then starting again and restoring all tabs fits well with easy to undo.
  - shmerl 9y ago
    I don't see how it can undo everything, if you'll lose data in the process. Not every open page is static and some can have user input and what not. Exiting the browser will wipe it all out, and restarting it isn't going to help. So confirmation for Ctrl+Q is a must, there is no question about it. And if you don't want it - they can make an option that can turn it off.
    - kzrdude 9y ago
      If the page you're on would show a warning on close tab, it will show the same one if you hit Quit. HN doesn't use those warnings. This reply was first written, then I quit and restored, and now I'll hit Send.
      - icebraining 9y ago
        Simple HTML pages will be preserved, but if the form is created using JS, good luck. Yes, they probably should show a warning, but browsers developers know very well they can't rely on websites to always follow the best practices.
    - pmoriarty 9y ago
neuland 9y ago
> ... one of the most requested features has been the ability to hide tabs with the WebExtensions API. It was a key element of some very popular legacy add-ons ... It's weird that they are not mentioning Tree Style Tabs by name. But, at least they're listening the the user requests. I don't use the plugin myself, but I heard that one of the gripes of the new WebExtensions version is that it still shows the normal horizontal tabs.
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  Seems reasonable to not mention a specific one by name so as not to play favorites going forward if someone else wants to make a competitor. Or maybe a Grid Style Tabs, or who knows what. I imagine it's the same tone they use for discussion of adblocker related features, "we need this for content blocking addons" rather than "we need this to support uBlock Origin." Hiding the top tabs can be done in current versions but you have to go digging through settings folders and set up a css file with some rules. There's also a built-in header on the sidebar than can be hidden by similar means. Hopefully they'll also let us hide that header (it lets you switch to other sidebar views like Bookmarks and History that I don't want to use in the sidebar) so I can avoid the css setup in the future. https://i.imgur.com/mMlrU1n.png https://i.imgur.com/mMlrU1n.png
  - neuland 9y ago
    Definitely reasonable. Just struck me as odd. Maybe there are some other extensions that they have in mind, too. If someone was looking back at this post, they'd be missing part of the story.
  - labster 9y ago
    > Or maybe a Grid Style Tabs, or who knows what. Gangnam Style Tabs. I'd install it. But yeah, no need to make an extension seem "official" to Firefox by mentioning it by name. Unless it's Pocket, obviously.
- gogoengie 9y ago
  They are referring to hiding individual tabs, not hiding the horizontal tab bar. The legacy extension they are referring to is Tab Groups [0]. It allowed you to separate the tabs of a single session into groups. Selecting the active group would hide the other tabs. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-groups-panorama/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-groups-pa...
joemccall86 9y ago
> To better support mouse gestures, browserSettings.contextMenuShowEvent() has been added in this version. This new API can be set to “mouseup” or “mousedown” by extensions to determine when context menus should be shown. Looking forward to using FireGestures in Linux again.
- nebalee 9y ago
  You'll have to look for an alternative as the dev of FG wont port his addons to WebExtensions: https://github.com/gomita/firegestures/issues/170#issuecomment-348765675 https://github.com/gomita/firegestures/issues/170#issuecomme...
- contravariant 9y ago
  Now if only they could come up with something that means I don't have to wait for a page to load before regaining control with custom hotkeys / gestures.
vzola 9y ago
They mention tab groups. Mozilla, why do you play with my feelings?
- kbenson 9y ago
  What are you referring to? The containers addon does grouping, sorting, color coding, auto group association, and sandboxed cookies. Is there something else you're looking for?
  - maccam94 9y ago
    I want the same login sessions across my groups (I use them for organization, not isolation).
  - orev 9y ago
    No, the old Tab Groups extension does something different. It allows you to switch between different groups like you can switch between virtual desktops.
    - nicoburns 9y ago
      I beleive the additions in this release should enable that... there's an extension called konex (or is it conex) which I believe does just this.
      - maccam94 9y ago
        conex does use the new API now, but it's built on Firefox Containers, so the groups have their own cookie sandboxes.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    There doesn't seem to be an easy way to assign an open tab to a specific container.
    - kbenson 9y ago
onewhonknocks 9y ago
Bring back tag groups plz
- halfjoking 9y ago
  Bring back Components.classes["@mozilla.org/inspector/dom-utils;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.inIDOMUtils) PLZ
scrollaway 9y ago
Anyone working on this reading the thread? Can we ever expect an extension that will allow the far better tab management that Chrome has? Namely: Being able to scroll between tabs with the scroll wheel, and being able to select multiple tabs with shift/ctrl to drag them/merge them/close them/etc. It's crazy to me that Firefox's original selling point was tab management, and today Chrome's is so much better.
- floatboth 9y ago
  I think you could always scroll between tabs with the wheel in Firefox? TIL about ctrl selection in Chrome. I bet most people didn't know that either.
  - scrollaway 9y ago
    You used to be able to, yeah. Then they switched to gtk3 I believe and that went away.
    - floatboth 9y ago
      Ah I'm booted into Windows right now. But I think it works on GTK3 too…
- zbraniecki 9y ago
  There's a bug filed to allow for multitab operations and it got assigned not long ago - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=566510 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=566510 I doubt it'll be in Fx60, but maybe son after? :)
  - scrollaway 9y ago
    Sweet! Thanks for that heads up. It really is one of the things I miss the most from chrome.
- msujaws 9y ago
  I am the project mentor for the Google Summer of Code project to implement multi-select tabs. See the bottom of the table at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Community:SummerOfCode18 https://wiki.mozilla.org/Community:SummerOfCode18 for more info and please apply if you want to see this added to Firefox! :)
nathcd 9y ago
I have a tangential question for anyone who might know more about tab stuff than me. Awhile ago, I looked into making Firefox not do any tab management. Basically, always have one tab per window, middle click always opens a new window, normal click always opens a page in the current tab. (I'd like to do tab management with my window manager instead of browser so I can have a consistent tabbing interface across all of my applications.) The few results I found googling around seemed to be mostly along the lines of "change these 14 prefs in about:preferences, install this addon to stop target:_blank, add these userstyles to hide the tabbar, don't open any internal FF pages, and check back with every new browser version". Am I missing something that would make this easier, or is this really a thing that's just not really feasible? I can certainly understand that it's not a priority since almost no one needs to disable tabbing, but it also doesn't seem like that farfetched of a use case, nor would I imagine it would require much work to support.
- Ciantic 9y ago
  I have not done it but it's probably doable with extension too. When `tabs.onCreated` event is triggered, move the tab out of the window if it has more than one tab. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/tabs/onCreated https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/AP... (onCreated) https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/windows/create https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/AP... (windows.create see tabId param)
- hartator 9y ago
  Interesting. What do you use for tab management on the OS level?
  - rrix2 9y ago
    Probably a tiling window manager
  - Steltek 9y ago
    (Not OP but...) A long time ago, I used Fluxbox which had a neat arbitrary window tabbing feature. Middle-mouse dragging one window title bar on to another created a tabbed window. There were keybinds for rotating through tabs vs windows. I found it novel but with most WMs, I found myself basically doing a very small number of fullscreen windows per workspace. This led me to my current Sway/i3 setup which seems to be working pretty well. Downside is gkrellm, which used to live in the dock (OpenBox), doesn't really fit in the new world order.
seanwilson 9y ago
If you have an existing Chrome extension that relies on just the WebRequest API, how much effort is it to port to Firefox? Do things generally work without significant modifications? Are there lots of gotchas and small differences?
- jopsen 9y ago
  Take a look at MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions The API docs all have browser compatibility tables.
- floatboth 9y ago
  Yes, most Chrome extensions work as is. There's even an extension for downloading extensions from the Chrome store: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-foxified/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-...
dbdr 9y ago
> pageActions can now be shown and/or hidden automatically for specific pages via pattern matching using the “hide_matches” and “show_matches” manifest properties. This is a nice performance win for users. When writing an extension that shows a page action only for certain domains/URLs, this allows to replace about 15 lines of javascript code with a single line in manifest.json. Nice!
paul7986 9y ago
Does this mean tabmix plus is now once again compatible? An add on I used for ten years.
- RussianCow 9y ago
  There are still tons of APIs missing from WebExtensions that are required for many features of Tab Mix Plus. For instance, there is no way to get click events of any kind on tabs, so things like "reload tab on double-click" are not possible. You also can't control things like whether a new "window" opens in a tab or an actual window (to implement TMP's "open popups in tabs" feature), where tabs open (to have new tabs open next to the active one), what shows in their right-click context menus, etc. So no, we're quite a long ways away from having a real Tab Mix Plus replacement. Having said that, I have faith that we will eventually get there, and hopefully be able to implement at least half of the functionality of TMP using WebExtensions within the next two years.
  - brokenmachine 9y ago
    So I'll remain stuck on Firefox 56 for two years...
    - RussianCow 9y ago
      You probably don't want to keep using a version of Firefox that isn't going to get security updates... If keeping Tab Mix Plus is that important to you, try Waterfox[0] instead. It's a fork of Firefox 56 with security patches backported and a few small changes. Personally, I've installed add-ons for the bits of functionality that are possible with WebExtensions, and otherwise learned to deal with it. The performance and stability improvements are worth it. [0]: https://www.waterfoxproject.org/ https://www.waterfoxproject.org/
      - brokenmachine 9y ago
        Thanks, I'll check it out. Tab Mix Plus is pretty much essential for me. I have over 900 tabs at the moment, and all other tab extensions I've tried have been very ordinary in comparison.
rocky1138 9y ago
As a technical user who values choice and customisability, I am totally fine with their choice of disabling tab hiding until you flip a bit in the configs. It's the best of both worlds: customisability for power users and security for regular folks.
- superkuh 9y ago
  Or it would be if it stayed this way. It was this way for a while with extensions. You could install extensions you wanted freely. Then there was a config bit to make it so you could install extensions without Mozilla approval. Then they decided grandma was more important and completely removed the ability to install extensions not approved by Mozilla. The only way around it is to run a beta version or use the unpackaged unbranded versions manually. I wouldn't count on power user features remaining for long given Mozilla's current target demographic.
  - rocky1138 9y ago
    I'm very interested to see if they make the same mistake twice.
  - Sylos 9y ago
    The config bit for allowing unsigned extensions was temporary from the start. They did not later redecide that they wanted to remove it, they knew from the beginning that it did not offer the security that they wanted to achieve. Because any extension or sufficiently capable malware on your system can change about:config values, meaning that if Mozilla ever makes a mistake in the extension approval process and lets a malicious extension slip through, or you get such malware on your PC, then that extension/malware would be able to flip that config bit and open the flood gates for all malicious extensions. Mozilla would also not be able to change that config bit back in any trivial way, if they notice that they let a malicious extension through. Only moving that configuration to the compilation step is able to prevent this for sure and most definitely is the sensible choice not just for Granny, but for most tech-savvy users as well, as even only a fraction of those care about unsigned extensions. Months of public discussions have been held on if this can be done in a more (power-)user-friendly way without comprising security for the vast majority of users, who really do not care for unsigned extensions either. Yes, these discussions would have concluded differently, if those 0.1% users who actually care about unsigned extensions made up 80% of Firefox users, but acting like this decision with a motivation that goes well beyond just wanting to not do as much maintenance is somehow indicative of how much Mozilla cares for its power users, is just ridiculous. And just look at the malware fest that is the Chrome Store. This is what Mozilla was able to prevent by requiring extensions to be signed. Lastly, specifically because they now have a functioning way of controlling malware, they can actually be a bit more liberal in what they allow to be configured via about:config and there is now no real use case anymore where it would make sense to move an about:config value to a compile flag.
hendersoon 9y ago
Minor note, the mouse gesture config flag they speak about in this article, allowing mouse gestures to work on Linux and MacOS, was actually added in Firefox v58.
joveian 9y ago
I hope FavTab will be able to work again. That is the one thing that has really messed up my usage of Firefox (I'm using AutoPinTab to pin everything as a replacement, but it causes flashing when it overlaps the favicon bookmarks I have to the right of the tabs and makes Ctrl-w not work).
- Sylos 9y ago
  Have you tried the userChrome.css edits that the author lists on the add-on page? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/favtab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/favtab/
  - joveian 9y ago
    Thank you! That text wasn't there when I looked. It is still too wide but at least much better than AutoPinTab and with a few adjustments I got something that behaves a little strangely but uses less space.
YTGRK 9y ago
https://youtu.be/I2l8xkjTUh4 https://youtu.be/I2l8xkjTUh4
- djsumdog 9y ago
  Why do you keep spamming this video on unrelated posts?
noloblo 9y ago
its painful see most of the extensions don't work yet in latest firefox keychain access manager ublock and others why do every Firefox version break extensions ?
- oblio 9y ago
  uBlock works, it always worked. They had a WebExtensions version early. And the point of WebExtensions is to provide a stable API and prevent the constant breakage.
randomString1 9y ago
Too bad the new model to not review and approve extensions made me stop installing and experimenting with them (except uBlock and a couple more). Same BS as Chrome but what can you do. My browser is very boring now.
virtualwhys 9y ago
Was hoping to see Web SQL make its way back into Firefox. Yes, it's been deprecated for years, but that hasn't stopped the browser makers with majority of market share (Google > Chrome, Apple > Safari) from continuing to ship it along with the strictly worse alternative (IndexedDb). Now that pretty much every language compiles to Javascript it's a shame to lose SQL functionality on the client. Shared model, shared validation, shared SQL layer, etc. -- it could all be a unified whole, but no, now one has to wait for sqlite-lite to be built on top of IndexedDb; that or throw everything out and go NoSQL on client and server.
- neil_macintyre 9y ago
  Is IndexDB slow at querying a database or is it just a pain to implement?
  - virtualwhys 9y ago
    Totally different API, Sqlite is SQL based while IndexedDb is a key/value store with indexing and transaction capabilities (essentially the bare minimum on which a relational database could be built, the irony). If your model is highly relational then it doesn't matter that querying for one entity is fast when what you really need is to, for example, efficiently join together multiple entities, grouping on N columns to produce some aggregate result. This is completely straightforward in SQL, but a convoluted inefficient, error prone mess in the alternative.
    - littlestymaar 9y ago
      > IndexedDb is a key/value store with indexing and transaction capabilities (essentially the bare minimum on which a relational database could be built, the irony). It's not ironic at all, it's just a good application of the extensible web manifesto : the browser support minimum necessary building blocs and then libraires can enhance the developer experience. In that case, you have this https://google.github.io/lovefield/ https://google.github.io/lovefield/
- fiatjaf 9y ago
baby 9y ago
Is tree style tab integrated by default in firefox now?
- severine 9y ago
  I don't think so, what makes you say that?
  - baby 9y ago
    I'm waiting for them to include something like tree-style tabs by default in a future version :o
    - oblio 9y ago
      That'll never happen. Some casual users are confused by tab bars. And casual users understand trees even less.
      - baby 9y ago
        I’m confident that it will happen. It’s actually easier to understand tabs on the side for new users. And it makes more sense in general.
        oblio 9y ago
        None of the other browsere seems to support it, so there's that. On the other hand, "never say never", right? :)
        baby 9y ago
        That's probably where the next evolution of browser will come from :) but I'm just trying to guess, who knows right
fro0116 9y ago
Not really related to extensions, but one thing I've been curious of for a while now: Does the Firefox team have any plans to implement something like Chrome's expensive background timers throttling feature? https://blog.chromium.org/2017/03/reducing-power-consumption-for.html https://blog.chromium.org/2017/03/reducing-power-consumption... It seems more and more relevant these days with the advent of cryptocurrency miners.
- clouddrover 9y ago
  Yes, Firefox 58 has background tab throttling: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/01/firefox-58-the-quantum-era-continues/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/01/firefox-58-the-quantum-era...
  - fro0116 9y ago
    Ah thank you! That's great to hear. Looks like I just couldn't find the right search terms to find it.
geekamongus 9y ago
I went all in with 57 (the first 'Quantum' release) after having been a Chrome user for quite a while. I really haven't missed Chrome at all since I made the move, and in fact, am continually impressed by the little things in Firefox that I keep discovering. Not to mention the speed. These changes look like they will eventually make things better, especially for extension developers and those of us who get to reap their benefits. Keep up the good work, Mozilla.
nercht12 9y ago
Here's wondering how soon we'll see ActivityPub added, now that it's in the standards.[1] [1] https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/
- floatboth 9y ago
  How is it even related to browsers? o_0
eklavya 9y ago
No keychain support in mac, still can’t use firefox :(
gkgicccj 9y ago
I'm still annoyed by some fx changes that are purely out of chrome jealousy. The address bar suggestions used to be 2-lines and were so readable until someone just blindly copied the unreadable version of chrome.
- cstdr 9y ago
  You mean like this <https://i.imgur.com/6ZXAchD.png> https://i.imgur.com/6ZXAchD.png>? You can get the old look back via userChrome.css. Relevant styles from mine: #PopupAutoCompleteRichResult .ac-separator { page-break-before: always; width: 47px; } #PopupAutoCompleteRichResult .ac-separator-text { display: none !important; } #PopupAutoCompleteRichResult richlistitem { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; align-items: center; height: auto; padding-bottom: 5px; }
  - gkgicccj 9y ago
    Yes, thank you!
  - gkgicccj 9y ago
    You created an account just to answer me? Thank you! I forgot to upvote earlier.
ilaksh 9y ago
Is there a list of Web extensions APIs that are also compatible with Chrome?
- soapdog 9y ago
  At MDN you have a browser compatibility chart for each API entry documented at the end of the page describing and there is also this page here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Browser_support_for_JavaScript_APIs https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Br...
dnsco 9y ago
I just tried to read this on mobile: Found there were About three words laid out in the Column so I flipped My phone for a less Arduous reading Experience but there Was just more padding And I found the eye Tracking experience Exhausting so I stopped reading.
5_minutes 9y ago
The only thing I’m missing in FF is the easiness of Google Translate, baked into Chrome. I know there are a few extensions, but it’s less smooth. Other than that, Chrome became bloated.
lillesvin 9y ago
I recently tried to switch back to Firefox from Chrome because I was missing how Vimperator was able to hide all of the UI and just give me a small statusbar at the bottom like in Vim. However, I found that's no longer possible with WebExtensions, so now I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions if I want a browser with absolutely minimal UI and Vim controls? Seems like we're getting closer with this version though. I might just have to be patient.

496 points by ac29 9y ago

This is very cool: > Extensions can now override the proxy settings in the browser which has been another highly requested feature I see that there's an opportunity here to improve the experience of using SOCKS in the browser. Pretty cool.

pedrocr 9y ago
I built an extension to make SOCKS as simple as possible without a bunch of scary permissions: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/proxyswitcheroo/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/proxyswitcher... I'll probably be updating it in 59 to use this new API though. It almost completely removes the need for a settings page and should allow you to set all the complex proxy config you want using the firefox UI. It does seem to need a broader permission than I would have liked though.

npongratz 9y ago

I find this pretty exciting for (hopefully; someday) wider adoption of alternative protocols: Starting with Firefox 59, several protocols that support decentralized architectures are available for use by extensions. The white-listed protocols are: + Dat Project (dat://) + IPFS (dweb:// ipfs:// ipns://) + Secure Scuttlebutt (ssb://)

pfraze 9y ago
Yeah this is pretty great. AFAIK it's limited to only redirecting to a handler website, but that's a big step forward for using these protocols in links and etc. We're still hoping to get full protocol-handling with an API similar to https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/v1.8.2-beta.3/docs/api/protocol.md#protocolregisterstreamprotocolscheme-handler-completion https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/v1.8.2-beta.3/docs...
- fenwick67 9y ago
  Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it sounds like they've made it so you can develop a webextension that handles DAT:// or IPFS:// URLs. They didn't make IPFS:// URLs redirect to http://ipfs.io/ipfs/$hash http://ipfs.io/ipfs/$hash.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - classichasclass 9y ago
    Sort of. I think this is based on the `registerProtocolHandler()` means, and if so, you can redirect this to an internal page in your extension. See https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/overbitewx/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/overbitewx/ (disclaimer: authored by yours truly). The more pressing concern is how you would speak these protocols because there's still no direct socket support. In my case, the addon just acts as a history and redirect shim and my server does the actual server access and translation. I'm actually thinking of cobbling together a native messaging-based extension as a stopgap since obviously this is suboptimal.
    - soapdog 9y ago
      Hi, I did just like you said using Native Messaging API[1] to communicate with a local companion app using standard input/output shell calls, this app can handle the socket communication, that is how I am handling it for the scuttlebutt experiments I am doing (I mentioned them above with some URLs if you want to check), I hope to start a conversation soon on the add-ons list about the needs of having UDP and TCP available for WebExtensions. It is suboptimal but it works today...
      - classichasclass 9y ago
        Is this bug 1247628?
        9y ago
kodablah 9y ago
Why does it require a whitelist? If I make my own, do I have to contact Mozilla or is the user prompted when first access is attempted?
- classichasclass 9y ago
  The protocol handler support is restricted to a whitelist to prevent an addon from taking over, say, "http://" http://" (or other protocols which could be used to insinuate unsafe content).
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    [How] do they handle collisions of apps that can manage the whitelisted protocols then?
    - soapdog 9y ago
      When you navigate to a custom protocol URL there is a popup asking how to handle it, it will show all the add-ons in a list (and maybe native apps too). You can select you're chosen one and tell it "not to ask again".
  - inlined 9y ago
    It still seems safe though to set up rules where domain ownership could automatically grant ownership for a protocol. E.g. Facebook.com:// or just Facebook:// if .coms were allowed to be dropped.
- hobofan 9y ago
  I think the whitelist on what you can register as protocol handlers is a security measure. E.g. if Paypal uses "paypal:" links which are handled by a OS native application, you can't write a extension that hijacks those links.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    So how do I make an extension that supports Firefox 57 or later and does mycustomprotocol:// without prefix? Do I have to Rowhammer my access through Firefox' code? I do not see how it is in Mozilla's right to restrict what a user can do with the user's browser.
soapdog 9y ago
Hey! I made that patch! :-D so basically the explanation is simple. There is a whitelist of protocols you can have your WebExtension take over. If the protocol you want to control is not on that whitelist such as an hypothetical "catgifs:" protocol, you need to prefix it like: "web+catgifs" or "ext+catgifs" depending if it will be used from the Add-on or by redirection to another Web page. This makes it inconvenient to use with lots of decentralization protocols because in many other clients we are already using urls such as "ssb:" and "dat:" (eg, check out beaker browser). In essence this allows us to implement many new cool decentralization features as add-ons now that we can take over protocols, so, you could be in Firefox browsing the normal web and suddenly see a "dat:" link, normally you'd need to switch clients to a dat enabled app, now, you can have an add-on display that content in the current user-agent you're using. Still, there is another feature that we need before we can start really implementing decentralization protocols as pure WebExtensions, we need both TCP and UDP APIs like we had in Firefox OS (as an example, Scuttlebutt uses UDP to find peers in LAN and its own muxrpc TCP protocol to exchange data, DAT also uses UDP/TCP instead of HTTP). I have been building little experiments in Firefox for interfacing with Scuttlebutt which can be seen at: https://viewer.scuttlebot.io/%25csKtp9VmxTjJoKy17O7GA6%2F3S8ou9Y9XLi8pZ%2FQgwKs%3D.sha256 https://viewer.scuttlebot.io/%25csKtp9VmxTjJoKy17O7GA6%2F3S8... https://viewer.scuttlebot.io/%25uBev5w8m8iZGVbQDo9fpr%2BCXLBtth0xngs4uUF%2FLFAk%3D.sha256 https://viewer.scuttlebot.io/%25uBev5w8m8iZGVbQDo9fpr%2BCXLB... I hope to start a conversation in the add-ons list about TCP and UDP APIs for WebExtensions soon :-)
- poopslide 9y ago
  Please excuse the inappropriate question, but this one has been bugging me for many years: will there ever be some kind of session manager on Firefox Mobile that can save and recall your browsing session (a group of tabs) to/from a local file, similar to how OneTab or MySessions are working?
- madez 9y ago
  Decentralization and safer protocols are needed. Plain HTTP and even HTTPS are really not the best one could come up with. There are better alternatives, but using them is not always easy. So, thanks a lot for your work on making that easier!
fiatjaf 9y ago
Honest question: who's using ssb://?
- soapdog 9y ago
  Secure Scuttlebutt, check it out at http://scuttlebutt.nz http://scuttlebutt.nz
  - fiatjaf 9y ago
    My question was actually: who's using Secure Scuttlebutt?
    - staltz 9y ago
      I'm using, daily. Also about ~2300 other people, but that's just how much my own local installation holds, they may be more that I'm not aware of.

kibwen 9y ago

Happy to see that Mozilla was serious about their intentions to extend the WebExtensions API in post-57 Firefox. I'm also happily surprised at the section about user notification of extension overrides; having a nice UI for this sort of thing is a difficult yet worthwhile problem (and I'm also a big fan of the new Preferences tab in general, it works far better than the old popup window). Hopefully some of this will make it in time for the next ESR so that people who are still on Firefox 52 ESR due to unsupported extensions will have the option to upgrade (though I don't see anything that will satisfy the vimperator users, I'm encouraged by the new mouse gesture APIs). Kudos to Mozilla for conducting this process with an eye towards keeping the security threat of addons reasonably manageable, even if the overall process is slower than we'd otherwise like.

JohnTHaller 9y ago
It's funny that vimperator is mentioned every single time Firefox extensions are brought up on HN even though it only has about 11,000 users out of the hundreds of millions that use Firefox.
- kibwen 9y ago
  In my defense, one of my own housemates is one of those who has refused to update for want of vimperator. :P
  - imiric 9y ago
    Same here. I've tried alternatives like Waterfox and Pale Moon, but Waterfox is incompatible with some sites, and Pale Moon is dog slow, so I reverted back to Firefox 56. Not upgrading a browser is a scary situation to be in, but I just can't sacrifice the usability of Vimperator.
    - sundarurfriend 9y ago
      > I've tried alternatives like Waterfox and Pale Moon, but Waterfox is incompatible with some sites Oh, I haven't experienced that in a few months of usage. What kind of incompatibilities did you come across? I was initially reluctant about trying Waterfox and made several backups of my then-Firefox profile, but it's been a smooth sail and an easy switch so far.

shmerl 9y ago

Mozilla should fix no exit confirmation for Ctrl+Q. It's just too easy to close the browser this way, and extensions that offered this feature aren't working anymore. It's really a problem in general, there is no way to make an extension that customizes browser behavior itself (rather than page behavior), since WebExtensions can't do that.

kzrdude 9y ago
I thought the gaining philosophy here was to make "destructive" operations easy to undo, rather than having warnings and confirmations before carrying them out? Quitting Firefox and then starting again and restoring all tabs fits well with easy to undo.
- shmerl 9y ago
  I don't see how it can undo everything, if you'll lose data in the process. Not every open page is static and some can have user input and what not. Exiting the browser will wipe it all out, and restarting it isn't going to help. So confirmation for Ctrl+Q is a must, there is no question about it. And if you don't want it - they can make an option that can turn it off.
  - kzrdude 9y ago
    If the page you're on would show a warning on close tab, it will show the same one if you hit Quit. HN doesn't use those warnings. This reply was first written, then I quit and restored, and now I'll hit Send.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      Simple HTML pages will be preserved, but if the form is created using JS, good luck. Yes, they probably should show a warning, but browsers developers know very well they can't rely on websites to always follow the best practices.
  - pmoriarty 9y ago

neuland 9y ago

> ... one of the most requested features has been the ability to hide tabs with the WebExtensions API. It was a key element of some very popular legacy add-ons ... It's weird that they are not mentioning Tree Style Tabs by name. But, at least they're listening the the user requests. I don't use the plugin myself, but I heard that one of the gripes of the new WebExtensions version is that it still shows the normal horizontal tabs.

wlesieutre 9y ago
Seems reasonable to not mention a specific one by name so as not to play favorites going forward if someone else wants to make a competitor. Or maybe a Grid Style Tabs, or who knows what. I imagine it's the same tone they use for discussion of adblocker related features, "we need this for content blocking addons" rather than "we need this to support uBlock Origin." Hiding the top tabs can be done in current versions but you have to go digging through settings folders and set up a css file with some rules. There's also a built-in header on the sidebar than can be hidden by similar means. Hopefully they'll also let us hide that header (it lets you switch to other sidebar views like Bookmarks and History that I don't want to use in the sidebar) so I can avoid the css setup in the future. https://i.imgur.com/mMlrU1n.png https://i.imgur.com/mMlrU1n.png
- neuland 9y ago
  Definitely reasonable. Just struck me as odd. Maybe there are some other extensions that they have in mind, too. If someone was looking back at this post, they'd be missing part of the story.
- labster 9y ago
  > Or maybe a Grid Style Tabs, or who knows what. Gangnam Style Tabs. I'd install it. But yeah, no need to make an extension seem "official" to Firefox by mentioning it by name. Unless it's Pocket, obviously.
gogoengie 9y ago
They are referring to hiding individual tabs, not hiding the horizontal tab bar. The legacy extension they are referring to is Tab Groups [0]. It allowed you to separate the tabs of a single session into groups. Selecting the active group would hide the other tabs. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-groups-panorama/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-groups-pa...

joemccall86 9y ago

> To better support mouse gestures, browserSettings.contextMenuShowEvent() has been added in this version. This new API can be set to “mouseup” or “mousedown” by extensions to determine when context menus should be shown. Looking forward to using FireGestures in Linux again.

nebalee 9y ago
You'll have to look for an alternative as the dev of FG wont port his addons to WebExtensions: https://github.com/gomita/firegestures/issues/170#issuecomment-348765675 https://github.com/gomita/firegestures/issues/170#issuecomme...
contravariant 9y ago
Now if only they could come up with something that means I don't have to wait for a page to load before regaining control with custom hotkeys / gestures.

vzola 9y ago

They mention tab groups. Mozilla, why do you play with my feelings?

kbenson 9y ago
What are you referring to? The containers addon does grouping, sorting, color coding, auto group association, and sandboxed cookies. Is there something else you're looking for?
- maccam94 9y ago
  I want the same login sessions across my groups (I use them for organization, not isolation).
- orev 9y ago
  No, the old Tab Groups extension does something different. It allows you to switch between different groups like you can switch between virtual desktops.
  - nicoburns 9y ago
    I beleive the additions in this release should enable that... there's an extension called konex (or is it conex) which I believe does just this.
    - maccam94 9y ago
      conex does use the new API now, but it's built on Firefox Containers, so the groups have their own cookie sandboxes.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  There doesn't seem to be an easy way to assign an open tab to a specific container.
  - kbenson 9y ago

onewhonknocks 9y ago

Bring back tag groups plz

halfjoking 9y ago
Bring back Components.classes["@mozilla.org/inspector/dom-utils;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.inIDOMUtils) PLZ

scrollaway 9y ago

Anyone working on this reading the thread? Can we ever expect an extension that will allow the far better tab management that Chrome has? Namely: Being able to scroll between tabs with the scroll wheel, and being able to select multiple tabs with shift/ctrl to drag them/merge them/close them/etc. It's crazy to me that Firefox's original selling point was tab management, and today Chrome's is so much better.

floatboth 9y ago
I think you could always scroll between tabs with the wheel in Firefox? TIL about ctrl selection in Chrome. I bet most people didn't know that either.
- scrollaway 9y ago
  You used to be able to, yeah. Then they switched to gtk3 I believe and that went away.
  - floatboth 9y ago
    Ah I'm booted into Windows right now. But I think it works on GTK3 too…
zbraniecki 9y ago
There's a bug filed to allow for multitab operations and it got assigned not long ago - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=566510 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=566510 I doubt it'll be in Fx60, but maybe son after? :)
- scrollaway 9y ago
  Sweet! Thanks for that heads up. It really is one of the things I miss the most from chrome.
msujaws 9y ago
I am the project mentor for the Google Summer of Code project to implement multi-select tabs. See the bottom of the table at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Community:SummerOfCode18 https://wiki.mozilla.org/Community:SummerOfCode18 for more info and please apply if you want to see this added to Firefox! :)

nathcd 9y ago

I have a tangential question for anyone who might know more about tab stuff than me. Awhile ago, I looked into making Firefox not do any tab management. Basically, always have one tab per window, middle click always opens a new window, normal click always opens a page in the current tab. (I'd like to do tab management with my window manager instead of browser so I can have a consistent tabbing interface across all of my applications.) The few results I found googling around seemed to be mostly along the lines of "change these 14 prefs in about:preferences, install this addon to stop target:_blank, add these userstyles to hide the tabbar, don't open any internal FF pages, and check back with every new browser version". Am I missing something that would make this easier, or is this really a thing that's just not really feasible? I can certainly understand that it's not a priority since almost no one needs to disable tabbing, but it also doesn't seem like that farfetched of a use case, nor would I imagine it would require much work to support.

Ciantic 9y ago
I have not done it but it's probably doable with extension too. When `tabs.onCreated` event is triggered, move the tab out of the window if it has more than one tab. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/tabs/onCreated https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/AP... (onCreated) https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/windows/create https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/AP... (windows.create see tabId param)
hartator 9y ago
Interesting. What do you use for tab management on the OS level?
- rrix2 9y ago
  Probably a tiling window manager
- Steltek 9y ago
  (Not OP but...) A long time ago, I used Fluxbox which had a neat arbitrary window tabbing feature. Middle-mouse dragging one window title bar on to another created a tabbed window. There were keybinds for rotating through tabs vs windows. I found it novel but with most WMs, I found myself basically doing a very small number of fullscreen windows per workspace. This led me to my current Sway/i3 setup which seems to be working pretty well. Downside is gkrellm, which used to live in the dock (OpenBox), doesn't really fit in the new world order.

seanwilson 9y ago

If you have an existing Chrome extension that relies on just the WebRequest API, how much effort is it to port to Firefox? Do things generally work without significant modifications? Are there lots of gotchas and small differences?

jopsen 9y ago
Take a look at MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions The API docs all have browser compatibility tables.
floatboth 9y ago
Yes, most Chrome extensions work as is. There's even an extension for downloading extensions from the Chrome store: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-foxified/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-...

dbdr 9y ago

> pageActions can now be shown and/or hidden automatically for specific pages via pattern matching using the “hide_matches” and “show_matches” manifest properties. This is a nice performance win for users. When writing an extension that shows a page action only for certain domains/URLs, this allows to replace about 15 lines of javascript code with a single line in manifest.json. Nice!

paul7986 9y ago

Does this mean tabmix plus is now once again compatible? An add on I used for ten years.

RussianCow 9y ago
There are still tons of APIs missing from WebExtensions that are required for many features of Tab Mix Plus. For instance, there is no way to get click events of any kind on tabs, so things like "reload tab on double-click" are not possible. You also can't control things like whether a new "window" opens in a tab or an actual window (to implement TMP's "open popups in tabs" feature), where tabs open (to have new tabs open next to the active one), what shows in their right-click context menus, etc. So no, we're quite a long ways away from having a real Tab Mix Plus replacement. Having said that, I have faith that we will eventually get there, and hopefully be able to implement at least half of the functionality of TMP using WebExtensions within the next two years.
- brokenmachine 9y ago
  So I'll remain stuck on Firefox 56 for two years...
  - RussianCow 9y ago
    You probably don't want to keep using a version of Firefox that isn't going to get security updates... If keeping Tab Mix Plus is that important to you, try Waterfox[0] instead. It's a fork of Firefox 56 with security patches backported and a few small changes. Personally, I've installed add-ons for the bits of functionality that are possible with WebExtensions, and otherwise learned to deal with it. The performance and stability improvements are worth it. [0]: https://www.waterfoxproject.org/ https://www.waterfoxproject.org/
    - brokenmachine 9y ago
      Thanks, I'll check it out. Tab Mix Plus is pretty much essential for me. I have over 900 tabs at the moment, and all other tab extensions I've tried have been very ordinary in comparison.

rocky1138 9y ago

As a technical user who values choice and customisability, I am totally fine with their choice of disabling tab hiding until you flip a bit in the configs. It's the best of both worlds: customisability for power users and security for regular folks.

superkuh 9y ago
Or it would be if it stayed this way. It was this way for a while with extensions. You could install extensions you wanted freely. Then there was a config bit to make it so you could install extensions without Mozilla approval. Then they decided grandma was more important and completely removed the ability to install extensions not approved by Mozilla. The only way around it is to run a beta version or use the unpackaged unbranded versions manually. I wouldn't count on power user features remaining for long given Mozilla's current target demographic.
- rocky1138 9y ago
  I'm very interested to see if they make the same mistake twice.
- Sylos 9y ago
  The config bit for allowing unsigned extensions was temporary from the start. They did not later redecide that they wanted to remove it, they knew from the beginning that it did not offer the security that they wanted to achieve. Because any extension or sufficiently capable malware on your system can change about:config values, meaning that if Mozilla ever makes a mistake in the extension approval process and lets a malicious extension slip through, or you get such malware on your PC, then that extension/malware would be able to flip that config bit and open the flood gates for all malicious extensions. Mozilla would also not be able to change that config bit back in any trivial way, if they notice that they let a malicious extension through. Only moving that configuration to the compilation step is able to prevent this for sure and most definitely is the sensible choice not just for Granny, but for most tech-savvy users as well, as even only a fraction of those care about unsigned extensions. Months of public discussions have been held on if this can be done in a more (power-)user-friendly way without comprising security for the vast majority of users, who really do not care for unsigned extensions either. Yes, these discussions would have concluded differently, if those 0.1% users who actually care about unsigned extensions made up 80% of Firefox users, but acting like this decision with a motivation that goes well beyond just wanting to not do as much maintenance is somehow indicative of how much Mozilla cares for its power users, is just ridiculous. And just look at the malware fest that is the Chrome Store. This is what Mozilla was able to prevent by requiring extensions to be signed. Lastly, specifically because they now have a functioning way of controlling malware, they can actually be a bit more liberal in what they allow to be configured via about:config and there is now no real use case anymore where it would make sense to move an about:config value to a compile flag.

hendersoon 9y ago

Minor note, the mouse gesture config flag they speak about in this article, allowing mouse gestures to work on Linux and MacOS, was actually added in Firefox v58.

joveian 9y ago

I hope FavTab will be able to work again. That is the one thing that has really messed up my usage of Firefox (I'm using AutoPinTab to pin everything as a replacement, but it causes flashing when it overlaps the favicon bookmarks I have to the right of the tabs and makes Ctrl-w not work).

Sylos 9y ago
Have you tried the userChrome.css edits that the author lists on the add-on page? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/favtab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/favtab/
- joveian 9y ago
  Thank you! That text wasn't there when I looked. It is still too wide but at least much better than AutoPinTab and with a few adjustments I got something that behaves a little strangely but uses less space.

YTGRK 9y ago

https://youtu.be/I2l8xkjTUh4 https://youtu.be/I2l8xkjTUh4

djsumdog 9y ago
Why do you keep spamming this video on unrelated posts?

noloblo 9y ago

its painful see most of the extensions don't work yet in latest firefox keychain access manager ublock and others why do every Firefox version break extensions ?

oblio 9y ago
uBlock works, it always worked. They had a WebExtensions version early. And the point of WebExtensions is to provide a stable API and prevent the constant breakage.

randomString1 9y ago

Too bad the new model to not review and approve extensions made me stop installing and experimenting with them (except uBlock and a couple more). Same BS as Chrome but what can you do. My browser is very boring now.

virtualwhys 9y ago

Was hoping to see Web SQL make its way back into Firefox. Yes, it's been deprecated for years, but that hasn't stopped the browser makers with majority of market share (Google > Chrome, Apple > Safari) from continuing to ship it along with the strictly worse alternative (IndexedDb). Now that pretty much every language compiles to Javascript it's a shame to lose SQL functionality on the client. Shared model, shared validation, shared SQL layer, etc. -- it could all be a unified whole, but no, now one has to wait for sqlite-lite to be built on top of IndexedDb; that or throw everything out and go NoSQL on client and server.

neil_macintyre 9y ago
Is IndexDB slow at querying a database or is it just a pain to implement?
- virtualwhys 9y ago
  Totally different API, Sqlite is SQL based while IndexedDb is a key/value store with indexing and transaction capabilities (essentially the bare minimum on which a relational database could be built, the irony). If your model is highly relational then it doesn't matter that querying for one entity is fast when what you really need is to, for example, efficiently join together multiple entities, grouping on N columns to produce some aggregate result. This is completely straightforward in SQL, but a convoluted inefficient, error prone mess in the alternative.
  - littlestymaar 9y ago
    > IndexedDb is a key/value store with indexing and transaction capabilities (essentially the bare minimum on which a relational database could be built, the irony). It's not ironic at all, it's just a good application of the extensible web manifesto : the browser support minimum necessary building blocs and then libraires can enhance the developer experience. In that case, you have this https://google.github.io/lovefield/ https://google.github.io/lovefield/
fiatjaf 9y ago

baby 9y ago

Is tree style tab integrated by default in firefox now?

severine 9y ago
I don't think so, what makes you say that?
- baby 9y ago
  I'm waiting for them to include something like tree-style tabs by default in a future version :o
  - oblio 9y ago
    That'll never happen. Some casual users are confused by tab bars. And casual users understand trees even less.
    - baby 9y ago
      I’m confident that it will happen. It’s actually easier to understand tabs on the side for new users. And it makes more sense in general.
      - oblio 9y ago
        None of the other browsere seems to support it, so there's that. On the other hand, "never say never", right? :)
        baby 9y ago
        That's probably where the next evolution of browser will come from :) but I'm just trying to guess, who knows right

fro0116 9y ago

Not really related to extensions, but one thing I've been curious of for a while now: Does the Firefox team have any plans to implement something like Chrome's expensive background timers throttling feature? https://blog.chromium.org/2017/03/reducing-power-consumption-for.html https://blog.chromium.org/2017/03/reducing-power-consumption... It seems more and more relevant these days with the advent of cryptocurrency miners.

clouddrover 9y ago
Yes, Firefox 58 has background tab throttling: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/01/firefox-58-the-quantum-era-continues/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/01/firefox-58-the-quantum-era...
- fro0116 9y ago
  Ah thank you! That's great to hear. Looks like I just couldn't find the right search terms to find it.

geekamongus 9y ago

I went all in with 57 (the first 'Quantum' release) after having been a Chrome user for quite a while. I really haven't missed Chrome at all since I made the move, and in fact, am continually impressed by the little things in Firefox that I keep discovering. Not to mention the speed. These changes look like they will eventually make things better, especially for extension developers and those of us who get to reap their benefits. Keep up the good work, Mozilla.

nercht12 9y ago

Here's wondering how soon we'll see ActivityPub added, now that it's in the standards.[1] [1] https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/

floatboth 9y ago
How is it even related to browsers? o_0

eklavya 9y ago

No keychain support in mac, still can’t use firefox :(

gkgicccj 9y ago

I'm still annoyed by some fx changes that are purely out of chrome jealousy. The address bar suggestions used to be 2-lines and were so readable until someone just blindly copied the unreadable version of chrome.

cstdr 9y ago
You mean like this <https://i.imgur.com/6ZXAchD.png> https://i.imgur.com/6ZXAchD.png>? You can get the old look back via userChrome.css. Relevant styles from mine: #PopupAutoCompleteRichResult .ac-separator { page-break-before: always; width: 47px; } #PopupAutoCompleteRichResult .ac-separator-text { display: none !important; } #PopupAutoCompleteRichResult richlistitem { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; align-items: center; height: auto; padding-bottom: 5px; }
- gkgicccj 9y ago
  Yes, thank you!
- gkgicccj 9y ago
  You created an account just to answer me? Thank you! I forgot to upvote earlier.

ilaksh 9y ago

Is there a list of Web extensions APIs that are also compatible with Chrome?

soapdog 9y ago
At MDN you have a browser compatibility chart for each API entry documented at the end of the page describing and there is also this page here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Browser_support_for_JavaScript_APIs https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Br...

dnsco 9y ago

I just tried to read this on mobile: Found there were About three words laid out in the Column so I flipped My phone for a less Arduous reading Experience but there Was just more padding And I found the eye Tracking experience Exhausting so I stopped reading.

5_minutes 9y ago

The only thing I’m missing in FF is the easiness of Google Translate, baked into Chrome. I know there are a few extensions, but it’s less smooth. Other than that, Chrome became bloated.

lillesvin 9y ago

I recently tried to switch back to Firefox from Chrome because I was missing how Vimperator was able to hide all of the UI and just give me a small statusbar at the bottom like in Vim. However, I found that's no longer possible with WebExtensions, so now I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions if I want a browser with absolutely minimal UI and Vim controls? Seems like we're getting closer with this version though. I might just have to be patient.