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Because Firefox is very plugin driven, and its current design disables plugins that aren't compatible. It is not in the best interest of users to have their pl

by alttag 15y ago

Because Firefox is very plugin driven, and its current design disables plugins that aren't compatible. It is not in the best interest of users to have their plugins disabled automatically as a "feature".

thatjoshguy 15y ago
Can't they just stop making changes that cause plugins and extensions to break? I know that would be easier said than done, but Chrome seems to do a good job of it.
- jerf 15y ago
  AFAIK, Chrome plugins still have much less access and power than Firefox plugins, which makes it easier for Chrome.
- starwed 15y ago
  Firefox addons are traditionally written using the same API the browser itself uses. That's what makes them much more powerful than Chrome extensions, but clearly more fragile to breakage. They're starting to offer a separate extension SDK (formerly called Jetpack) that allows extensions to ignore the internal API and build against something more stable. Such add-ons can be installed without requiring a restart, and should be much easier to update, but many important extensions need more power than currently provided. (Ad block is a good example.)
  - SkyMarshal 15y ago
    As is vimperator and pentadactyl.
- mcpherrinm 15y ago
  In short: Not with the old API. In this recent newsgroup post, you can see a list of the things that could break an extension, and it's a lot. http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.planning/browse_thread/thread/dafd0bc59b587e27# http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.planning/browse_t... The work to solve that is mentioned in the thread.
kalid 15y ago
This is the tail wagging the dog. The plugins are going to be broken whether the update from 3 to 4 happens manually or automatically (and, if anything, discourages manual updating despite all the popups). Windows has had binary compatibility for decades. Why not just version the internal browser API? (Extension XYZ was built against FireFox 3.6).
- eurleif 15y ago
  >Windows has had binary compatibility for decades. Extensions don't just run on top of Firefox, though; they modify Firefox's UI in arbitrary ways. >Why not just version the internal browser API? Firefox already does this, and automatically disables incompatible extensions.

by alttag 15y ago

thatjoshguy 15y ago

Can't they just stop making changes that cause plugins and extensions to break? I know that would be easier said than done, but Chrome seems to do a good job of it.

jerf 15y ago
AFAIK, Chrome plugins still have much less access and power than Firefox plugins, which makes it easier for Chrome.
starwed 15y ago
Firefox addons are traditionally written using the same API the browser itself uses. That's what makes them much more powerful than Chrome extensions, but clearly more fragile to breakage. They're starting to offer a separate extension SDK (formerly called Jetpack) that allows extensions to ignore the internal API and build against something more stable. Such add-ons can be installed without requiring a restart, and should be much easier to update, but many important extensions need more power than currently provided. (Ad block is a good example.)
- SkyMarshal 15y ago
  As is vimperator and pentadactyl.
mcpherrinm 15y ago
In short: Not with the old API. In this recent newsgroup post, you can see a list of the things that could break an extension, and it's a lot. http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.planning/browse_thread/thread/dafd0bc59b587e27# http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.planning/browse_t... The work to solve that is mentioned in the thread.

kalid 15y ago

This is the tail wagging the dog. The plugins are going to be broken whether the update from 3 to 4 happens manually or automatically (and, if anything, discourages manual updating despite all the popups). Windows has had binary compatibility for decades. Why not just version the internal browser API? (Extension XYZ was built against FireFox 3.6).

eurleif 15y ago
>Windows has had binary compatibility for decades. Extensions don't just run on top of Firefox, though; they modify Firefox's UI in arbitrary ways. >Why not just version the internal browser API? Firefox already does this, and automatically disables incompatible extensions.