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Is Mozilla really trying to juxtapose themselves here against another browser that removes support for power user customization like they don't do it? That's wi

Is Mozilla really trying to juxtapose themselves here against another browser that removes support for power user customization like they don't do it? That's wild. Is there no one left at Moz that remembers them throwing away the entire ecosystem of XUL based extensions that allowed for many things that current Firefox builds don't re: blocking and UI customization. Mozilla literally did this back in the version 37 and only Firefox forks remain to support the full set of extension features. I guess we're all amnesiacs or the pot is just being boiled slowly enough to not notice.

bugmen0t 4y ago
the old APIs were actually the only existing, internal and synchronous APIs which does not work in a multi-process, site-isolation architecture. The internal APIs also had to go. What else would you do?
- noisem4ker 4y ago
  Unfortunately not many seem to remember that brief period when the old add-on APIs were being ported and made to work with a multi-process architecture, as part of the effort known as Electrolysis [1], with appreciable results, before being completely killed in favor of WebExtensions. I'm sure there were significant technical challenges, but let's not use these to hide the political reasons behind such a drastic move. [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis
  - bugmen0t 4y ago
    These APIs were synchronous and thus blocking. People blamed Firefox being slow when in fact, it was mostly extension APIs and the extension code.
  - sfink 4y ago
    Electrolysis was an easier thing to handle, and some APIs would still have been lost. Fission (process-per-origin) came later and would have broken many, many more. So people would have still been pissed off at Mozilla (the difference between levels of breakage would have been lost), and Mozilla would still be on the hook for supporting a barely supportable API. Without the resources that would require.
pGuitar 4y ago
Mozilla blocks most extensions by default on Firefox Mobile... they created cumbersome collections for people that really want to install them. Sometime I wonder if their main sponsor is/isn't asking them to make some of those changes.
- jonas-w 4y ago
  I just create my own collection with the extensions i like and go on with the day.
  - pGuitar 4y ago
    It's just a lot more of a pain then it used to be to install non-approved extensions, most people probably don't bother.
lapcat 4y ago
> Is Mozilla really trying to juxtapose themselves here against another browser that removes support for power user customization like they don't do it? No. Firefox is adding Manifest 3 support, and people naturally have questions about whether they'll follow Chrome's lead in killing the blocking API.
latexr 4y ago
> the pot is just being boiled slowly enough to not notice. That metaphor is based on a myth¹: > While some 19th-century experiments suggested that the underlying premise is true if the heating is sufficiently gradual, according to modern biologists the premise is false: a frog that is gradually heated will jump out. Furthermore, a frog placed into already boiling water will die immediately, not jump out. Changing location is a natural thermoregulation strategy for frogs and other ectotherms, and is necessary for survival in the wild. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
- DoctorOW 4y ago
  My least favorite Hacker News trope is pretending not to understand what a metaphor is to nitpick an inaccuracy in the literal interpretation.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I would bet that latexr knows what a metaphor is. They are simply pointing out that the usage of that specific metaphor makes no sense. And the incorrect usage of the metaphor may give people, such as superkuh, an incorrect model of the world where frogs do not jump out of water that is gradually made more and more uncomfortable. I like when others make my model of the world more accurate by notifying me of errors.
    - latexr 4y ago
      That is absolutely correct.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - latexr 4y ago
    I don’t understand how you can see someone specifically call something a metaphor and think they are pretending not to understand what one is. My least favourite Hacker News trope is when someone assumes ill-intent instead of understanding a comment for what it says. I did not make a comment on the OP’s larger point, nor do I think their use of the metaphor invalidates their comment.
Matl 4y ago
> Is Mozilla really trying to juxtapose themselves here against another browser that removes support for power user customization like they don't do it? That's wild. Is there no one left at Moz that remembers them throwing away the entire ecosystem of XUL based extensions that allowed for many things that current Firefox builds don't re: blocking and UI customization. Dropping XUL wasn't some 'hahah, own the power users' thing, it was a move to allow the Firefox architecture to modernize, with XUL this wasn't possible. I have plenty of criticisms of Mozilla, but simplifying things to the point of removing all important context is not the way to do it imo.
- superkuh 4y ago
  Dropping WebRequest API wasn't some 'hahah, own the power users' thing, it was a move to allow the Chrome architecture to modernize, with WebRequest API this wasn't possible. I have plenty of criticisms of Chrome, but simplifying things to the point of removing all important context is not the way to do it imo. See what I mean?
M1ch431 4y ago
UI customization is fortunately still alive in the wake of XUL extensions. A /r/firefoxcss mod has a wonderful collection of code snippets that they maintain, which you can browse here: https://mrotherguy.github.io/firefox-csshacks/ https://mrotherguy.github.io/firefox-csshacks/ and they created a userChrome.js loader here: https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/fx-autoconfig https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/fx-autoconfig My favorite customization repository is https://github.com/aminomancer/uc.css.js https://github.com/aminomancer/uc.css.js - which really tests the limits of what is and isn't possible with userChrome.css and .js. My favorite feature is the implementation vertical tabs, without the use of extensions. Some legacy extensions are maintained and can be found here: https://github.com/xiaoxiaoflood/firefox-scripts/tree/master/extensions https://github.com/xiaoxiaoflood/firefox-scripts/tree/master... (although you will need to use xiaoxiaoflood's userChrome.js loader AFAIK). Honorable mention goes to the Firefox CSS Store, which can be found here: https://trickypr.github.io/FirefoxCSS-Store.github.io/ https://trickypr.github.io/FirefoxCSS-Store.github.io/ Moving to WebExtensions was the logical choice for Firefox, technical/security reasons aside, as they are not alienating extension developers that target Chromium-based browsers. Yes, they alienated their own extension developers. Yes, they could've handled the transition better, and worked harder towards supporting some of the many APIs/functionalities that extension developers needed (or still need) for their extensions to work in the WebExtensions ecosystem. I myself was quite mad for a very long time at how they handled the switch, but I think overall it's been a success - my own personal feelings aside.
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  I still miss Tab Mix Plus. Having no way to properly save/manage sessions feels like I'm one crash away from losing my (way too many) tabs, although luckily that hasn't happened to me for a long time. And no, I don't want to be told that I should be closing tabs. I have 64Gb RAM and I can search tabs by typing "%" into the url bar. Why should I ever have to close a tab if I don't want to?
  - jaharios 4y ago
    It is still developed but you have to enable userchrome.js scripting support to install it. https://github.com/onemen/TabMixPlus https://github.com/onemen/TabMixPlus
unixbane 4y ago
[flagged]
- dang 4y ago
  We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

bugmen0t 4y ago

the old APIs were actually the only existing, internal and synchronous APIs which does not work in a multi-process, site-isolation architecture. The internal APIs also had to go. What else would you do?

noisem4ker 4y ago
Unfortunately not many seem to remember that brief period when the old add-on APIs were being ported and made to work with a multi-process architecture, as part of the effort known as Electrolysis [1], with appreciable results, before being completely killed in favor of WebExtensions. I'm sure there were significant technical challenges, but let's not use these to hide the political reasons behind such a drastic move. [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis
- bugmen0t 4y ago
  These APIs were synchronous and thus blocking. People blamed Firefox being slow when in fact, it was mostly extension APIs and the extension code.
- sfink 4y ago
  Electrolysis was an easier thing to handle, and some APIs would still have been lost. Fission (process-per-origin) came later and would have broken many, many more. So people would have still been pissed off at Mozilla (the difference between levels of breakage would have been lost), and Mozilla would still be on the hook for supporting a barely supportable API. Without the resources that would require.

pGuitar 4y ago

Mozilla blocks most extensions by default on Firefox Mobile... they created cumbersome collections for people that really want to install them. Sometime I wonder if their main sponsor is/isn't asking them to make some of those changes.

jonas-w 4y ago
I just create my own collection with the extensions i like and go on with the day.
- pGuitar 4y ago
  It's just a lot more of a pain then it used to be to install non-approved extensions, most people probably don't bother.

lapcat 4y ago

> Is Mozilla really trying to juxtapose themselves here against another browser that removes support for power user customization like they don't do it? No. Firefox is adding Manifest 3 support, and people naturally have questions about whether they'll follow Chrome's lead in killing the blocking API.

latexr 4y ago

> the pot is just being boiled slowly enough to not notice. That metaphor is based on a myth¹: > While some 19th-century experiments suggested that the underlying premise is true if the heating is sufficiently gradual, according to modern biologists the premise is false: a frog that is gradually heated will jump out. Furthermore, a frog placed into already boiling water will die immediately, not jump out. Changing location is a natural thermoregulation strategy for frogs and other ectotherms, and is necessary for survival in the wild. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

DoctorOW 4y ago
My least favorite Hacker News trope is pretending not to understand what a metaphor is to nitpick an inaccuracy in the literal interpretation.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I would bet that latexr knows what a metaphor is. They are simply pointing out that the usage of that specific metaphor makes no sense. And the incorrect usage of the metaphor may give people, such as superkuh, an incorrect model of the world where frogs do not jump out of water that is gradually made more and more uncomfortable. I like when others make my model of the world more accurate by notifying me of errors.
  - latexr 4y ago
    That is absolutely correct.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- latexr 4y ago
  I don’t understand how you can see someone specifically call something a metaphor and think they are pretending not to understand what one is. My least favourite Hacker News trope is when someone assumes ill-intent instead of understanding a comment for what it says. I did not make a comment on the OP’s larger point, nor do I think their use of the metaphor invalidates their comment.

Matl 4y ago

> Is Mozilla really trying to juxtapose themselves here against another browser that removes support for power user customization like they don't do it? That's wild. Is there no one left at Moz that remembers them throwing away the entire ecosystem of XUL based extensions that allowed for many things that current Firefox builds don't re: blocking and UI customization. Dropping XUL wasn't some 'hahah, own the power users' thing, it was a move to allow the Firefox architecture to modernize, with XUL this wasn't possible. I have plenty of criticisms of Mozilla, but simplifying things to the point of removing all important context is not the way to do it imo.

superkuh 4y ago
Dropping WebRequest API wasn't some 'hahah, own the power users' thing, it was a move to allow the Chrome architecture to modernize, with WebRequest API this wasn't possible. I have plenty of criticisms of Chrome, but simplifying things to the point of removing all important context is not the way to do it imo. See what I mean?

M1ch431 4y ago

UI customization is fortunately still alive in the wake of XUL extensions. A /r/firefoxcss mod has a wonderful collection of code snippets that they maintain, which you can browse here: https://mrotherguy.github.io/firefox-csshacks/ https://mrotherguy.github.io/firefox-csshacks/ and they created a userChrome.js loader here: https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/fx-autoconfig https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/fx-autoconfig My favorite customization repository is https://github.com/aminomancer/uc.css.js https://github.com/aminomancer/uc.css.js - which really tests the limits of what is and isn't possible with userChrome.css and .js. My favorite feature is the implementation vertical tabs, without the use of extensions. Some legacy extensions are maintained and can be found here: https://github.com/xiaoxiaoflood/firefox-scripts/tree/master/extensions https://github.com/xiaoxiaoflood/firefox-scripts/tree/master... (although you will need to use xiaoxiaoflood's userChrome.js loader AFAIK). Honorable mention goes to the Firefox CSS Store, which can be found here: https://trickypr.github.io/FirefoxCSS-Store.github.io/ https://trickypr.github.io/FirefoxCSS-Store.github.io/ Moving to WebExtensions was the logical choice for Firefox, technical/security reasons aside, as they are not alienating extension developers that target Chromium-based browsers. Yes, they alienated their own extension developers. Yes, they could've handled the transition better, and worked harder towards supporting some of the many APIs/functionalities that extension developers needed (or still need) for their extensions to work in the WebExtensions ecosystem. I myself was quite mad for a very long time at how they handled the switch, but I think overall it's been a success - my own personal feelings aside.

brokenmachine 4y ago
I still miss Tab Mix Plus. Having no way to properly save/manage sessions feels like I'm one crash away from losing my (way too many) tabs, although luckily that hasn't happened to me for a long time. And no, I don't want to be told that I should be closing tabs. I have 64Gb RAM and I can search tabs by typing "%" into the url bar. Why should I ever have to close a tab if I don't want to?
- jaharios 4y ago
  It is still developed but you have to enable userchrome.js scripting support to install it. https://github.com/onemen/TabMixPlus https://github.com/onemen/TabMixPlus

unixbane 4y ago

[flagged]

dang 4y ago
We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html