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Firefox is the most customizable browser available. It's about time they cleaned-up their Preferences panel and leave that stuff for extensions to tackle. I pe

Firefox is the most customizable browser available. It's about time they cleaned-up their Preferences panel and leave that stuff for extensions to tackle. I personally never disabled Javascript from the Preferences panel because I never find anything in that panel. To disable Javascript, I use the Web Developer toolbar, which is much more convenient, although not convenient enough - since one might want to enable/disable Javascript automatically on a domain basis, which is why this should be best handled by extensions that are free to innovate the UI. And while we are at it, I wish Firefox would add a search box in that Preferences panel. Its usefulness has been demonstrated in Chrome's Settings and Windows' Control Panel. Also, Firefox rocks and I'm so happy to see it improve.

hnha 13y ago
Have you tried opera (not the latest Chrome-bastard but earlier versions)? I'd challenge your statement, opera seems much more customizable to me.
- bad_user 13y ago
  When I said "customizable" I didn't mean in terms of settings, but it terms of what you can do with Extensions/Add-ons. Name another browser where the Firebug-like functionality is an extension and not something built-in.
  - lmm 13y ago
    That's a very arbitrary line to draw. Some "alternative browsers" exist that wrap the IE rendering engine in a different UI (and some of those include their own firebug-like functionality), does that mean IE is more customizable than firefox (which, after all, forces you to use GTK for your UI)?
    - bad_user 13y ago
      Wrapping the IE rendering engine in a different UI is a different browser, but further than that, you can also embed Gekko, Firefox's rendering engine in a custom UI. Examples of browsers that embedded Gekko: Camino (a Firefox fork for OS X that happened in a time when Firefox wasn't as polished for OS X), Flock and K-Meleon. Google's Picassa for Linux was also using Gekko. Also, Firefox's UI toolkit is not GTK, but rather XUL+XPCOM, abstracting over the various native toolkits: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XUL https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XUL Only Firefox on Linux uses GTK. Even on Linux, there have been previous attempts at supporting Qt as the backend for KDE, but all failed because of the easiness with which you can make GTK look like whatever KDE theme you've got selected - not perfect, but the flaws where not enough to gather interest in further development. There's even XULRunner, for easily building and packaging XUL+XPCOM standalone apps: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/XULRunner https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/XULRunner This isn't to say that XUL/Gekko are perfect as their complexity was often the subject of criticism, which is why Mozilla replaced XUL completely with HTML5 in Firefox OS and will probably do so in future Firefox versions - as they are also working on Servo, a next-gen rendering engine that doesn't do XUL anymore: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/research/projects/ http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/research/projects/ Imagine a browser who's every facet and functionality is customizable by HTML5/Javascript extensions that you can install with one click. That's what Firefox already is - the Emacs of browsers. For example, if my Firebug example wasn't enough, when Chrome was released, many people loved the light download progress functionality that wasn't opening an annoying modal window. Pretty soon an extension called the Download Statusbar happened: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/download-statusbar/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/download-stat...
      - lmm 13y ago
        >Wrapping the IE rendering engine in a different UI is a different browser, but further than that, you can also embed Gekko, Firefox's rendering engine in a custom UI. >Examples of browsers that embedded Gekko: Camino (a Firefox fork for OS X that happened in a time when Firefox wasn't as polished for OS X), Flock and K-Meleon. Google's Picassa for Linux was also using Gekko. True, but only goes to show my point - if firefox's extension mechanism made it so super-customizable, surely there would be no need for such browsers? >Firefox's UI toolkit is not GTK, but rather XUL+XPCOM Fair enough, but the point stands; when writing extensions you're restricted to using the XUL toolkit. Contrast with e.g. activex-based add-ons in Internet Explorer, where AIUI you get the standard windows API and can thus use any toolkit you like. >Imagine a browser who's every facet and functionality is customizable by HTML5/Javascript extensions that you can install with one click. I'm happy to believe that Firefox is the browser that's easiest to customize in HTML5/Javascript, I just think that's a very arbitrary line to draw. IE addons can be any language you like (because again they're just using the standard APIs) and can be installed with one click. There are plenty of good things about firefox, but I don't think you can say it's more or less customizable than the alternatives without defining customizability in a very arbitrary way. All browsers have a succession of methods of customization, from simple userjs to custom extension formats to embedding the engine in a new executable, with the power and complexity increasing at each step. That firefox's "extensions" lie at a bit more powerful and complex point along the line than chrome's is not the basis for this blanket claim of greater customizability.
    - lucian1900 13y ago
      Yes, Firefox is still more embeddable than IE (although that is changing, since almost no one does). And it doesn't force you to use GTK for your UI.
      - bad_user 13y ago
        Mozilla is working on it. Firefox OS for example no longer uses XUL and they've got an awesome research project called Servo - a Gekko replacement that addresses its short-comings.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    What can FF extensions do that Opera extensions can't?
    - PavlovsCat 13y ago
      I'll take no answer as an answer then =^.^=
__david__ 13y ago
I agree--the global Javascript disable is pointless in this day and age. As for enabling it by domain, check out the "noscript" extension. I've been running it for a couple years and it (a) lets you see from which domains a page is loading Javascript files and (b) lets you enable/disable Javascript from particular domains. I've never enabled facebook.com, for instance, since I don't have an account there and I don't like the idea that every page out there with a "like" button is tracking me.

hnha 13y ago

Have you tried opera (not the latest Chrome-bastard but earlier versions)? I'd challenge your statement, opera seems much more customizable to me.

bad_user 13y ago
When I said "customizable" I didn't mean in terms of settings, but it terms of what you can do with Extensions/Add-ons. Name another browser where the Firebug-like functionality is an extension and not something built-in.
- lmm 13y ago
  That's a very arbitrary line to draw. Some "alternative browsers" exist that wrap the IE rendering engine in a different UI (and some of those include their own firebug-like functionality), does that mean IE is more customizable than firefox (which, after all, forces you to use GTK for your UI)?
  - bad_user 13y ago
    Wrapping the IE rendering engine in a different UI is a different browser, but further than that, you can also embed Gekko, Firefox's rendering engine in a custom UI. Examples of browsers that embedded Gekko: Camino (a Firefox fork for OS X that happened in a time when Firefox wasn't as polished for OS X), Flock and K-Meleon. Google's Picassa for Linux was also using Gekko. Also, Firefox's UI toolkit is not GTK, but rather XUL+XPCOM, abstracting over the various native toolkits: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XUL https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XUL Only Firefox on Linux uses GTK. Even on Linux, there have been previous attempts at supporting Qt as the backend for KDE, but all failed because of the easiness with which you can make GTK look like whatever KDE theme you've got selected - not perfect, but the flaws where not enough to gather interest in further development. There's even XULRunner, for easily building and packaging XUL+XPCOM standalone apps: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/XULRunner https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/XULRunner This isn't to say that XUL/Gekko are perfect as their complexity was often the subject of criticism, which is why Mozilla replaced XUL completely with HTML5 in Firefox OS and will probably do so in future Firefox versions - as they are also working on Servo, a next-gen rendering engine that doesn't do XUL anymore: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/research/projects/ http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/research/projects/ Imagine a browser who's every facet and functionality is customizable by HTML5/Javascript extensions that you can install with one click. That's what Firefox already is - the Emacs of browsers. For example, if my Firebug example wasn't enough, when Chrome was released, many people loved the light download progress functionality that wasn't opening an annoying modal window. Pretty soon an extension called the Download Statusbar happened: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/download-statusbar/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/download-stat...
    - lmm 13y ago
      >Wrapping the IE rendering engine in a different UI is a different browser, but further than that, you can also embed Gekko, Firefox's rendering engine in a custom UI. >Examples of browsers that embedded Gekko: Camino (a Firefox fork for OS X that happened in a time when Firefox wasn't as polished for OS X), Flock and K-Meleon. Google's Picassa for Linux was also using Gekko. True, but only goes to show my point - if firefox's extension mechanism made it so super-customizable, surely there would be no need for such browsers? >Firefox's UI toolkit is not GTK, but rather XUL+XPCOM Fair enough, but the point stands; when writing extensions you're restricted to using the XUL toolkit. Contrast with e.g. activex-based add-ons in Internet Explorer, where AIUI you get the standard windows API and can thus use any toolkit you like. >Imagine a browser who's every facet and functionality is customizable by HTML5/Javascript extensions that you can install with one click. I'm happy to believe that Firefox is the browser that's easiest to customize in HTML5/Javascript, I just think that's a very arbitrary line to draw. IE addons can be any language you like (because again they're just using the standard APIs) and can be installed with one click. There are plenty of good things about firefox, but I don't think you can say it's more or less customizable than the alternatives without defining customizability in a very arbitrary way. All browsers have a succession of methods of customization, from simple userjs to custom extension formats to embedding the engine in a new executable, with the power and complexity increasing at each step. That firefox's "extensions" lie at a bit more powerful and complex point along the line than chrome's is not the basis for this blanket claim of greater customizability.
  - lucian1900 13y ago
    Yes, Firefox is still more embeddable than IE (although that is changing, since almost no one does). And it doesn't force you to use GTK for your UI.
    - bad_user 13y ago
      Mozilla is working on it. Firefox OS for example no longer uses XUL and they've got an awesome research project called Servo - a Gekko replacement that addresses its short-comings.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  What can FF extensions do that Opera extensions can't?
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    I'll take no answer as an answer then =^.^=

__david__ 13y ago

I agree--the global Javascript disable is pointless in this day and age. As for enabling it by domain, check out the "noscript" extension. I've been running it for a couple years and it (a) lets you see from which domains a page is loading Javascript files and (b) lets you enable/disable Javascript from particular domains. I've never enabled facebook.com, for instance, since I don't have an account there and I don't like the idea that every page out there with a "like" button is tracking me.