If Firefox 57 would be released today, 2273 add-ons would be compatible

Martin Brinkmann
Apr 27, 2017
Updated • Apr 28, 2017
Firefox
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84

The Firefox web browser is in a bit of a moving state right now in regards to the browser's add-on system and add-ons that are available for it.

Mozilla plans to make Firefox 57 the first version of the browser that supports only WebExtensions. WebExtensions in plain old English are very similar to Google Chrome extensions, only that the Firefox version supports more powerful add-ons than Google Chrome does once Mozilla reaches feature parity with Chrome.

Note that "plans" means that Mozilla may postpone the cut. Development may not be ready when Firefox 57 is going to be released -- on November 14, 2017 if the schedule holds -- or there may be other things that forces Mozilla to postpone the change.

When the change happens, legacy add-ons will become incompatible with that version of Firefox. Legacy add-ons are all add-ons that are not WebExtensions.

Tip: Legacy add-on or WebExtension? Find out if your add-ons are compatible.

Some developers have ported their add-ons to the WebExtensions format already, and those will continue to work. Others are still in the development phase, and some won't port their add-ons for reasons such as that WebExtensions don't support the functionality of the add-on, or of time commitments.

It is difficult to assess the situation right now, as WebExtensions functionality is still being worked on. It is unclear right now for instance if Firefox users will end up with thousands, or more than ten thousand extensions after the switch.

We tried to shed some light in Top Firefox Add-ons and their WebExtensions status, but even with very popular add-ons, it is sometimes not possible to tell whether they will remain compatible after the switch.

As far as the overall number of WebExtensions compatible add-ons is concerned: there is no definitive number, but you can get an approximation of it.

What we know is that Firefox 57 is the release target for WebExtensions exclusivity.  So, all we have to do is filter the add-ons on Mozilla's AMO website by a special tag to list the WebExtensions add-ons for the browser.

So, if you point your browser at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/tag/firefox57 you will get 2273 add-ons right now

To put this into perspective: Mozilla AMO lists 18814 add-ons right now. Not all of those are compatible with the current version of Firefox, Firefox 53 at the time of writing.

A part of those add-ons will be turned into WebExtensions by their developers, or by users who forked a particular extension so that it remains available for a WebExtensions exclusive Firefox browser.

What one has to consider as well is that support for WebExtensions opens up the Chrome Web Store for Firefox. While not all Chrome extensions will work in Firefox, once Mozilla reaches feature parity, a large part will.

Summary
If Firefox 57 would be released today, 2274 add-ons would be compatible
Article Name
If Firefox 57 would be released today, 2274 add-ons would be compatible
Description
When Firefox 57 gets released in November 2017, Firefox will drop its old add-on system in favor of the relatively new WebExtensions system.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Bill C. said on November 23, 2017 at 11:29 am
    Reply

    Stay with FF56 or roll back to FF56. Then quit FF forever if ever FF56 is forcibly blocked out by FF developers.

  2. Javier R said on November 17, 2017 at 5:27 am
    Reply

    It is as simple as this: Of the 20 extensions I use, only two work now after the change. The two I don’t really need. Now I simply can not work with Firefox 57 anymore, simply beacuse the session manager with all the pages I had is gone. Good bye Firefox.

    1. Yphastos said on November 30, 2017 at 1:02 am
      Reply

      Consider using the Firefox ESR version, which is equivalent to version 52.5, but with extended support.
      It will not force you to update to at least ~June 2018. and you can keep on using “legacy” addons.
      https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all/

      At least while most addons are updated to work with 57+ (or someone makes decent replacements). That’s what I plan to do.

      greetings!

  3. 4,994 add-ons compatible 8th October 2017 said on October 8, 2017 at 3:13 am
    Reply

    click this link to check
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/tag/firefox57

    its the same as the one given in the article

  4. Kshitij Chawla said on September 26, 2017 at 5:40 pm
    Reply

    Wasn’t finding or holding on to anyone. Interface preferences are personal and subjective.

    1. Swede said on November 10, 2017 at 9:32 pm
      Reply

      That’s why they are customizable, right?

  5. Kshitij Chawla said on September 26, 2017 at 3:46 pm
    Reply

    That link (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/tag/firefox57) now shows 4606 Compatible addons.
    I disagree with the negative outlook being shared here. Workflow breaking changes are not desirable.

    However, everyone has been upset about Firefox being slow, janky , wasting RAM, crashing, and not updating their tech stack for many years. Firefox addon tech is 15yr old, created for another time. It is impossible to deliver great software with 15yr old tech.

    15yrs ago:
    – processors improved performance by increasing single thread processing speeds and CPU frequencies, instead of keeping frequencies constant and splitting tasks among multiple cores.
    – Multi-core processors in consumer devices were not even conceived,
    – OS’ were all 32bit and incapable of concurrent tasks for consumer applications, RAM was 256-512MB max,
    – the web was not omnipresent and a cornerstone of our lives,
    – cyber-crime not as rampant and devastating as it is today, and
    – most of our critical info was silo’d and only used digitally for very specific and infrequent tasks.
    – Browsers showed webpages most of the time, not act like execution platforms for Desktop quality apps constantly open in a tab.

    A great browser out of the box is far more foundational and experience improving than some addons we have grown to love. Most of those addons’ functionality will be available in the browser sooner rather than later, either via updated versions or replacements.

    I have been using Fx57 nightly-like builds as my primary browser for many weeks now, on Desktop & Android.

    Oh man! Mozilla has done an excellent, tremendous job!!
    In my actual use perception, everything is BLAZING fast, stable, quick. I never had to use the task manager to force close it, it never blocked the rest of my system’s responses (something Chrome still does, inexplicably). Keeping a huge number of tabs did not bog down all my memory, Firefox generously made room for any new app I started, (Chrome is greedy). The UI is a delight to look at.
    On the Desktop, I have found good WebExt based replacements for almost all the addons I use. This will differ from person to person of course, I believe that most users can make a near seamless transition.

    The addons never caused the browser to slow down or crash! This is tremendous!

    There’s no way to make a great modern, stable secure browser today without isolating the processes and putting some constraints on what the addons framework can and cannot access.

    The XUL framework is 15yrs old, 3 generations at least in technology time.

    Many of the currently still incompatible addons have Chrome counterparts which are WebExt and multiprocess compatible. They can and will become compatible with minor tweaks and available very soon.

    Some cherished addons cannot yet be ported due to technical limitations of the current WebExt framework. Mozilla is working with addon devs to incorporate more abilities into the framework, so most of them should become compatible in due time.

    And of course, open the door for more capable future addons. In some ways Moz WebExt tech is more capable than Chrome’s. For example, WebExt addons for vertical & tree-style tabs within the main UI for example, is available in Firefox WebExt but not Chrome.

    Mozilla is the only non-profit option currently which also uses an independent web-tech stack. It is important that option remains viable for all our sake, and they have finally brought the A-game. I am very happy about that.

    If all of us have stayed with Firefox when it was genuinely sub-par in many aspects we should show some more patience. the inflexibility with addons will be more than made up for by the extremely high-quality core experience the browser is set to deliver, and the addons will catch up soon.

    1. George said on September 26, 2017 at 4:22 pm
      Reply

      You lost me at “…the UI is a delight to look at.”.

      1. Kshitij Chawla said on September 26, 2017 at 6:36 pm
        Reply

        Wasn’t finding or holding on to anyone. Interface preferences are personal and subjective.

  6. Bla said on August 16, 2017 at 6:22 am
    Reply

    1. Firefox uses quite some telemetry @ “doesn’t spy on user”. That’s one reason why Waterfox or Palemoon exist.
    2. The WebExtension API is inferior and limit the possibilities by a great extent. Therefor many AddOns will NEVER get ported, as it is simply impossible.
    3. If Mozilla decides to commit suicide who am I to stop them? It seems having an API which allows such a vast amount of customization and lets the user decide how his browsing experience looks and feels like hurts Mozilla. Well, have your way and loose even more marketshare.

    For some reason Mozilla decided for quite some time to make unpopular decisions and hit their users right into the face. So, they reap what they sow.

  7. James, AskGuides.com said on June 29, 2017 at 4:07 pm
    Reply

    This is such a terrible development by Firefox!

    My staff and I all use browser toolbars such as Roboform (password manager), which enable us to login with *one click* to many websites. Now, Firefox won’t allow this. This means logging into the websites in most involves at least three clicks now!

    This is a massively regressive measure by Firefox, to remove a facility that hundreds of millions of people use.

    As with Netscape and Internet Explorer, Firefox has had its day and, as a result of this terrible development, after 10+ years of using Firefox, I will now be migrating to another browser.

    1. Mike67 said on July 28, 2017 at 8:06 am
      Reply

      @james: until just now I found a ‘workaround’ solution for the Roboform issue. Added a script named ‘YesScript’ and activated it for the Google Sign In page only. The ‘old’ Google Sign In screen will be presented and Roboform does the fill in properly. So far that worked fine. However, I now stumbled over an issue that is caused by YesScript: disqus matters are not displayed. Often, at the bottom of reviews, users can comment using their disqus-account.
      Comments are not displayed (error) and even the disqus home page gets an error “Sorry, your browser is unsupported. ”
      Disable YesScript and restarting Firefox solves that issue. Obviously the Sign In doesn’t work anymore.
      Roboform has released a patch (v8.3.9.5) but I am afraid, for me, it still doesn’t work. Regretfully so.
      Whilst there are no issues with Chrome, for me, personally, it has a few important drawbacks, specifically with regards to some add-ons that I am using, that either are not available in Chrome, or do not work the way I want.
      So, actually, so far I have been using Chrome in cases where Firefox fails, which usually relates to displaying contents properly.

      My 2cts
      =

  8. Ulf3000 said on May 19, 2017 at 11:09 pm
    Reply

    colored tabs , vertical tabs , customized buttons with more functions and own rightclick , request and data modifications , sessionrestore , custom windows etc etc etc will all cease to exist , just shallow hulls IF ported at all ..

    well Im waiting for a new branch , call it Spirit-Fox becasue this is a spiritual fight against the coorporations which have infiltrated mozilla , stopped the firefox os prject and try to infect firefox with a disease which will kill it from the inside out ! buisness sabotage !

  9. Anonymous said on May 9, 2017 at 8:20 pm
    Reply

    May 9, 2,352 add-ons.

  10. Mick said on May 1, 2017 at 1:48 pm
    Reply

    As of today, 2297 add-ons. Not much progress, considering the overall number available and the time left. Some of my favorite ones, like tab focus, right links and autocopy2, are still overboard.

  11. kstev99 said on April 30, 2017 at 9:35 pm
    Reply

    Sorry Firefox, Ive used you faithfully since you rose from the ashes of Netscape’s collapse way back when. I have endorsed you faithfully to my friends, and you have always been the most customizable browser EVER.

    NO MORE. With your announcement of discontinuing support for XUL/XPCOM it seems that a lot of the add-ons I have come to rely on will no longer be supported. I just don’t like the direction that this browser is moving and it is time to go our separate ways. I have tried Pale Moon, but eventually settled on WATERFOX. All of my add-ons, bookmarks etc. migrated perfectly to my new default browser.

    Thank you Firefox, good luck with your new Chrome Cloning strategy., I hope it works out for you, but I’m afraid the one thing that made you great is gone, and you will soon meet the same fate as Netscape.

  12. dmacleo said on April 29, 2017 at 8:21 pm
    Reply

    honestly I just gave up on firefox, have esr poised here to deploy across small domains (2) but have replaced all firefox instances (15 or so) with waterfox x64 and been pretty happy with it.

  13. TelV said on April 29, 2017 at 6:14 pm
    Reply

    Hi Martin,

    Same link as your own, but sorted alphabetically: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/tag/firefox57?sort=name&page=1&_pjax=true (I skipped the first page since all the extensions are written in Chinese).

    To jump to extensions beginning with a certain letter, change the figure shown by “page=” to something else. For example, changing page=1 into page=25 so that the URL becomes https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/tag/firefox57?sort=name&page=25&_pjax=true will land you near the end of extensions beginning with the letter D.

    It makes it easier to use the “Previous” and “Next” buttons from there if you were looking for a particular extension which might be some considerable way further down the list.

  14. Emil said on April 29, 2017 at 1:36 pm
    Reply

    I’m on Cyberfox 52 ESR anyway, should stay good for a year or so. But I have to say it’s tough to see something good and exciting like Firefox fail so miserably. I guess most institutions and enterprises of all kinds do that eventually…

    1. Tom Hawack said on April 29, 2017 at 3:25 pm
      Reply

      Human beings as well … DSK for example :)

  15. someone said on April 28, 2017 at 11:01 pm
    Reply

    even if Firefox copies everything from Google Chrome, Firefox will probably still be a better choice than Chrome owned by a data hungry ad company called Google.

    1. www.com said on April 30, 2017 at 2:10 am
      Reply

      @someone

      Yeah, I guess that’s better than nothing.

  16. John said on April 28, 2017 at 5:28 pm
    Reply

    Doesn’t matter how many are compatible if they aren’t the ones you require and have used for years. My biggest concern and deal breaker is Tab Mix Plus. When it becomes incompatible, I move to Vivaldi which has most of those tab options built-in.

    I’ve been using FF since 1.0 and this is the worst decision they’ve ever made. I don’t know the solution. Maybe grant only certain trusted developers access to the old extension framework. But completely removing the power of the feature that defines your browser is suicide. When it’s gone, FF is at best on equal ground with every other browser. The browser which include options FF formerly possessed through classic extensions are going to take users away from FF.

    I’m afraid in a few years FF will be mentioned in the same way we discuss Netscape.

    1. Chris said on April 29, 2017 at 12:03 am
      Reply

      +1 I couldn’t agree more.

  17. ff lover said on April 28, 2017 at 4:00 pm
    Reply

    whatever it is , i will always stick with ff ,please also don’t ignore fact that ff 57 will increase responsiveness and security pretty much

  18. Clairvaux said on April 28, 2017 at 2:51 pm
    Reply

    This is welcome information.

    Bear in mind that this figure of 2 000 compatible extensions out of 18 000 does not mean you will have 9 times less functions at hand. Not at all. Just browsing the add-ons repository makes it obvious that most of them are crap. Or unused. Or both. It’s extremely easy to get an extension into that catalogue. So that figure of 18 000 is meaningless by itself. Will there be enough useful add-ons in the new, revised repository ? Will present, useful add-ons be ported, or have acceptable equivalents ? That’s the question.

    Also, I’m not hearing anything about all the Chrome add-ons that will become compatible. They have to be added to the numbers. Are really all Chrome extensions useless, and all Firefox extensions exquisitely crafted pieces of super-powerful software ? I somehow doubt it.

    1. Mystique said on April 28, 2017 at 4:38 pm
      Reply

      The article does mention the fact that there may be the possibility of chrome extensions working under firefox but the fact is that if the same or similar addons were compared to that of Firefox then they would fall far shorter than the firefox version or similar addons. I am speaking from personal experience here. Sure there are a few standouts but this is merely a matter of choice as the developer has chosen to develop for one platform rather than another where as is the case with the developers for firefox they cannot simply take what is in essence superior and carry it over to a watered down system and have it function as it should.

      There is a lot of non working junk on the chrome repository and it actually seems like a cesspool of filth. Personally speaking I feel like you have more chances of finding what you want as far as extensions go on firefox than you do in chrome if by website design or by talent/quality.

  19. Ben said on April 28, 2017 at 1:48 pm
    Reply

    > 2273 add-ons would be compatible
    So, pretty much none.
    And of course the issue that you cannot mod the UI as you wish is still there.

  20. b said on April 28, 2017 at 12:20 pm
    Reply

    @Tom Hawack
    I hope you won’t stop your comments in spite of your “burnout”.I always keep a sharp lookout because of your wit and general knowledge. I’d like to recommend the book ” Data Ethics: The New Competitive Advantage” by Gry Hasselbalch & Pernille Tranberg. It might cheer you up a tiny, tiny bit.

  21. Zanstel said on April 28, 2017 at 11:21 am
    Reply

    The problem is that webextensions hasn’t the same capabilities than old way of extentions.

    The mozilla response is that to make this work, Mozilla would create a new functionality to make the same thing. Note that this is not the same that the old scheme. In the old scheme, a lot of internals mechanisms was directly exposed to extensions. Now webextensions won’t have anything (more than the chrome) from start and only a small set will be added for previous most used extensions.
    In other words… Mozilla people should develop a lot of extensions code in Mozilla…

    It’s not only the work to port the extensions. It’s that the new scheme will never allow to make some kind of extentions if the Mozilla core developers don’t make some part of funcionality inside Mozilla.
    So… this scheme blocks rich featuring extensions from now and forever if Mozilla don’t do some part of the code.

    This model sucks and it will kill every advantage of Firefox over Chrome in the add-on development.

    I understand that XPCOM and XUL needs to be removed sooner or later, but the problem is that Firefox don’t add a replacement but a new model that is more limited and a Chrome clone in that area.

    Firefox needs a new alternative. Some webextension extension ;), to have a equivalent in richness to XPCOM & XUL. Perhaps this “total access” add-ons would need some kind of flag and advertisement to users on install, but this is the only possibility to resolve the problem of “we cannot be attached to obsolete technology” and “webextensions is not enough for replicate most of old add-ons functionality without Mozilla doind add-on work inside Firefox”.

    If Mozilla force webextensions only without native access, they will kill not only actual add-ons but any future replacement. It’s simply that this kind of add-on cannot be developed by addon developers in webextension only.

  22. neal said on April 28, 2017 at 9:09 am
    Reply

    I predict postpone of the deadline all the way to ver 59. Then Firefox ESR 59 will allow holds out for old addons for another year or so.

    I have addons that won’t transition to web extensions, but Firefox is silky smooth with e10, so I understand this is probably for the better in the long run. They should have done this when Firefox 4 came out when Firefox was still dominant. That version was a huge overhaul too, e10 was already on Firefox android at that time, but they postponed it.

    One more unforced strategic error in a whole line of them.

  23. Appster said on April 28, 2017 at 9:03 am
    Reply

    To all those who are upset about the changes coming with version 57:

    Waterfox announcement of an ESR based on version 56: https://www.waterfoxproject.org/blog/waterfox-52.0-release-download

    Pale Moon announcement of a new browser based on current Firefox iterations: https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15505

    There you have it.

    1. Heimen Stoffels said on April 28, 2017 at 10:41 am
      Reply

      Or just do as I do and use SeaMonkey. I know that just like with Pale Moon the amount of extensions is smaller but some of the most popular ones are available for SeaMonkey (LastPass, uBlock, Stylish, GreaseMonkey, etc.). And you have personas but even better: also complete themes. I made SeaMonkey look very modern with the Kilome theme (but GNOMERunner is also good) and the Classic Toolbar Buttons extension which lets you choose things like Chrome toolbar buttons. SM now looks like every other modern web browser. And for an FF look, there are themes available that resemble the FF look (combine that with Classic Toolbar buttons to get the FF buttons and bam!).

      1. Appster said on April 28, 2017 at 4:35 pm
        Reply

        @Heimen Stoffels: Good idea, but sadly not in the long run. SeaMonkey is likely on its way out. At least this is what they have responded to M.C. Straver (Moonchild, Pale Moon dev):

        “The question about the future direction of SeaMonkey came up in recent status meetings and private discussions. There is currently no clear path we can or would like to take. There is a great possibility that we no longer have a home or a future with Mozilla, but the SeaMonkey project is also small and we feel that even together with the Pale Moon developers maintaining a fork might not be sustainable.”

        source: https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15505

        Furthermore the issue of non-comptabile add-ons you have already brought up is there of course. Waterfox is a direct Firefox variant, and the upcoming Pale Moon browser will be as well. When it comes to add-ons these two are the best bet there is at the moment.

  24. Robert said on April 28, 2017 at 8:46 am
    Reply

    I tried Waterfox 64 bit and really liked it. But my extension for IDM wasn’t supported so I stayed with Firefox. If I have more problems with Firefox after the update I may as well go back to Waterfox.

  25. happysurf said on April 28, 2017 at 7:50 am
    Reply

    The legacy ad-dons are very powerful for customize Firefox, but in other hand are often the cause of memory leak, slowdown and other problems, because XUL is old and obsolete.
    Web extensions are very efficient and works asynchronously (many developers confirm this).
    For that I agree with the Mozilla choice.
    The things change, not remain the same forever.

  26. David said on April 28, 2017 at 7:10 am
    Reply

    Well, to be fair, a pretty large chunk of those 19k addons are out of date, unmaintained, or minor variants of a bunch of other similar addons (partly because at least a few of them are going to be broken in some way).

    The 2273 (headline is a typo?) are at least actively being worked on. And then there will be a few thousand that simply can’t be ported. And several thousand where the developers would be exhausted at the idea of completely rewriting their project.

    But yeah, probably about half of the full 19k are no big loss. That still means you’re only looking at maybe 1/4 of all addons being ready for the changeover. A 75% loss instead of a 90% loss doesn’t feel a lot better.

    1. Soup said on April 28, 2017 at 10:07 am
      Reply

      Currently it’s 12% that are marked *already* compatible (2280). There are a lot more being worked on to be ready on time, like uBlock Origin and NoScript, and others should make it some months later. Non-Firefox add-ons will enter the mix too, and we’ll end up with a lot more than 18,000 add-ons.

      My prediction is going to be 50% when Firefox 57 hits the road, 40% worst case scenario, 60% best.

      1. Tom Hawack said on April 28, 2017 at 2:56 pm
        Reply

        @Soup, you cannot avoid the antithesis on the ground what is focused is the thesis. In the same way one cannot avoid mentioning his duties when he aims to consider his rights. Life is synthesis otherwise it is dictatorship. And beyond this very synthesis is the fact that a topic is hardly ever free of connections to other topics and that “bridges” relate many different areas of knowledge, it’s named a trans-disciplinary approach after having been considered as inter-disciplinary. This is why, IMO, specialized blogs are a challenge to intelligence when an administrator reminds a speaker who is pointing out a link to an area which is not that of the “specialized” area that he is being off-topic, adding sometimes that such deviations are bad for the discussion when in fact they are healthy and providential. Of course a bridge has to bring to a correlated topic otherwise we face surrealism (which is another debate) : I mean mentioning the value of pizza when debating over Windows 10 is not obvious, at least not at first sight!

      2. Soup said on April 28, 2017 at 2:15 pm
        Reply

        The entire discussion is about quantity, so that’s what I addressed.

        Add-on potential is a different topic. No way anyone can address that fairly and thoroughly in a three paragraphs comment when almost nobody can see the full picture. My stance: We’ll see.

      3. George said on April 28, 2017 at 12:14 pm
        Reply

        What Tom Hawack said about quality and quantity is 100% correct. Also remember, that while several extensions will be ported over as WebExtensions, that doesn’t mean they will do the same things or be as powerful as before. It’s quite possible that for many of them, you will only get ‘Lite’ versions.

        The name might be the same, the functionality will not.

      4. Tom Hawack said on April 28, 2017 at 11:23 am
        Reply

        It’s not only the amount but the quality, the potential of add-ons. Like TV channels, like everything nowadays, more more more but cheaper cheaper cheaper. You may have 20,000, 30,000, 50,000, 100,000 add-ons with a lot of emptiness when it comes to what they can actually perform and a lot of redundancy. And you may have the add-on you like, even an add-on thousands of users like … vanish because it’s just not portable to WebExtensions. What I mean is that stats are like democracy, objective far more than relevant of the ideal. If you happen to like that one sheep which emancipated from the group because of its uniqueness you’re likely nowadays to be off-track because that one sheep just won’t meet the standards. We are becoming robots in a world of manufactured sheep.

        So let’s forget stats, democracy in what they implicitly correlate quality to amount. I don’t give a damn if an add-on is used by 100 users and another by a million, I just want to know what that extension is capable of. If it appears it’s capable of a lot but is neither cherished by many users nor approved by those damn standards then it’ll be a loss for you and for all. Monopolies are breaking this civilization, and that’s no social anti-capitalist propaganda, it’s a major problem considered by thinkers of both sides. Monopoly in business, monopoly in values, standards, cultures, thoughts … this is becoming a mad, mad, MAD world. Forget ethics if you wish, in terms of plain smartness our free world is demonstrating that mankind focusing on liberty alone is achieving a pathetic and dangerous move towards idiocy.

  27. Curly Moe said on April 28, 2017 at 5:24 am
    Reply

    Jack, get 52.1ESR. Works fine for me with a lot of customization including getting unsigned extensions to install. And it will be updated longer than 56.

    1. Appster said on April 28, 2017 at 8:58 am
      Reply

      I doubt it. Waterfox is going to do an ESR based on version 56. Waterfox also supports unsigned extensions.

      1. www.com said on April 30, 2017 at 2:05 am
        Reply

        And Waterfox may disappear by then like Cyberfox will. It too is only a one-man shop and even though the developer has no current plans to abandon it, that might not be the case 6 months from now.

        I wouldn’t put all my eggs in one basket.

  28. firefox said on April 28, 2017 at 4:18 am
    Reply

    Now one of Top 10 add-ons only is compatible with so-call Firefox.
    I think most users will abandon Firefox immediately when they find their favorite add-ons like Downthemall no longer work.
    Firefox started to emulated Chrome’s skin in version 29,step by step, finally they choose to use Chrome’s core and be a clone directly just like Opera.
    I still remember when Netscape was beat by Microsoft,they turned to Mozilla and fight.
    But now,they choose to surrender.

    1. Swede said on November 10, 2017 at 9:18 pm
      Reply

      I used Opera until they dropped all the advanced customization options (which were what made Opera outstanding) in order to be more like Chrome. At that point I dropped Opera in favor of Firefox, because Firefox at least had all those extensions that promised to make it almost as customizable as the old Opera. Now Firefox is dropping support for a lot of all the extensions that made it outstanding, just to be able to emulate Chrome, an inferior product. I hope it’s not a sign that Google has gone to the dark side and is actively infiltrating developers of better browsers to get a better market share, but the parallels between what happened to Opera and what is now under way with Firefox are scary.

    2. Soup said on April 28, 2017 at 9:57 am
      Reply

      They don’t use Chrome’s core at all though. Quite the contrary, not only are they using their own but they will make a technological leap on Firefox 57 with Servo and Quantum stuff.

      1. Ulf3000 said on May 19, 2017 at 10:57 pm
        Reply

        you can enable that stuff on 54 and addons work fine , its a plot to destroy firefox from inside out because its to dangerous(secure) for companys and the cia

  29. Jack Alexander said on April 28, 2017 at 3:34 am
    Reply

    I plan on stopping updates sometime soon. I’m not pleased with version 53, which is NOT a finished product. It fails to respond way too many times. It crashes while 52.0.2 doesn’t. And I like my extensions/addons just like they are. I spent a lot of time modifying this browser and I want it to stay as it is. I’ve used Fx since version 1.5 and I don’t like all of the changes and 57 is the death knell for Firefox….

  30. pHROZEN gHOST said on April 28, 2017 at 1:55 am
    Reply

    Firefox needs a special function in about:addons that tells you which of your current addons has a v57 compatible update available. That way you can see how big of an impact v57 is for you.

    Just my 2 obsolete Canadian coins.

  31. Tom Hawack said on April 28, 2017 at 1:07 am
    Reply

    The coming issue with WebExtensions is also why I’ve switched to Firefox 52.1.0 ESR rather than sticking on the final approach to FF57 which really seems to have started with FF53. I’ll be free of this WebExtension eccentricity until April-May 2018. After that all depends of users experiences with FF57, of Mozilla’s flexibility or intransigence, of what I perceive of Firefox at that time. If my conclusion is negative I’ll move to Pale Moon.

    It’s been too much for a too long period. First the Windows 10 odyssey, then Firefox 57 and accelerating shifts towards its aim every six weeks. And imagine users who just don’t have the time and/or knowledge to understand what every new process included in updates can mean for them. Too much, too fast, wild. I’m taking a break personally, spending for the time being far less time with the computer’s this and that. Saturated, fed up. It’ll be a minimum for the coming months, security always and privacy as well but besides that no more brain storming to guess if this setting is worth that other, if the latest innovation is a gadget or not, if the trend is ice-blue or pink-martini. Tired. I’m moving half off, back to less speed, less stress, back to a life of the good old days.

    1. www.com said on April 30, 2017 at 2:00 am
      Reply

      @Tom Hawack, I’ve been on the ESR channel for the last two years and I’m keeping an open mind about it until then. We’ll see how it plays out. It could go either way.

    2. mike said on April 28, 2017 at 10:56 am
      Reply

      Sorry to hear that, I’ve looked out for your comments as being sane and useful.
      Have a good break.

    3. Soup said on April 28, 2017 at 9:53 am
      Reply

      With those presidential elections of yours, succeeding is going to be a feat worth telling to your grandkids!

      1. Soup said on April 28, 2017 at 2:12 pm
        Reply

        Thought that what you said could very much apply to politics frenzy. Works for me.

      2. Tom Hawack said on April 28, 2017 at 11:28 am
        Reply

        What relationship?

  32. pHROZEN gHOST said on April 28, 2017 at 12:47 am
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    What would be useful is a function within about:addons which tells you which of your addons has an update which is compatible with v57.

  33. George said on April 28, 2017 at 12:32 am
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    Articles like this make me sad. Still can’t believe how Mozilla is destroying Firefox by the day. It was such a great browser. It’s like μtorrent now – keep monetizing while making the actual software a mess.

    1. Nappaluk said on October 17, 2017 at 2:50 am
      Reply

      I’m still using uTorrent 2.2.1
      Greatest one ever!

    2. www.com said on April 30, 2017 at 1:56 am
      Reply

      Well George, it’s time to move on then. Or do you plan on complaining about it here for the next 6 months while you procrastinate.

  34. Richard said on April 28, 2017 at 12:13 am
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    For over a month I’ve been living in Chrome and using Firefox only sparingly. I expect that by Firefox 57 I will be done with Firefox.

    Twas nice while it lasted.

    Also, I no longer recommend or install Firefox for my clients when doing systems setups or refreshes.

    1. Jin said on April 28, 2017 at 12:35 am
      Reply

      And the reason you recommend a browser that spies on users over a browser that still value privacy is?

      1. www.com said on April 30, 2017 at 1:54 am
        Reply

        @Richard, just because you’re willing to roll over and play dead doesn’t mean everybody else out there is going to.

        You’re doing your clients a disservice by letting your personal spite get in the way. It’s not about what’s best for you but what’s best for them. That’s why they’re paying you.

        I certainly wouldn’t hire somebody with that kind of attitude.

      2. Tom Hawack said on April 28, 2017 at 2:34 pm
        Reply

        @Richard, and independently of the thread, the video you linked to is worth its 16minutes. Is privacy dead?

        I wonder if the younger generation has the same approach to privacy as we seniors have.
        I wonder in what a value is deeply anchored in one’s soul and when it may be a social fashion. Whatever laws some will always follow their own conscious and others will abandon theirs to legitimate their beliefs and behaviors on the ground law is on their side.

        I understand there may be a debate on privacy itself. But should the outcome be that privacy is only a cultural problematic bound to disappear with modern times would remain the fact that there would be no argument to consider that one’s privacy is more important than that of another and as such he who knows should disclose what he knows : this would invalidate the very legitimacy of business and intelligence tracking/spying in the same proportion as considering privacy as an eternal fact and right does.

        Secondly, I doubt that anyone advocating for the death of privacy can testify of a parallelism with his own life : no one is able, should he wish it, to live psychologically and socially in a transparent way, and when the reason for that is not having something to hide it is and always will be dignity, but also IMO the necessity of having our “private gardens”, those we share with friends, with people in whom we have confidence, and also gardens we share with none which is where psycho-analysis interferes : in this regard I have always believed that it is not a non-analyzed life which is not “worth being lived” (Freud) but rather one unable to create : in this regard privacy, be it in terms of source of imagination and creation, is absolutely required.

        Whatever our opinions privacy is a right. Like not smoking is, like what I’ve heard once stated by a non-smoker who was expressing his bother of being surrounded by a mass of smokers : “Do you mind if I don’t smoke,”. This is what we could face with privacy in the future : do you mind if I consider my privacy?

      3. Richard said on April 28, 2017 at 12:54 pm
        Reply

        @Jin
        I guess you missed this https://youtu.be/hOUibwxDcjU

      4. Rick A. said on April 28, 2017 at 11:32 am
        Reply

        @Jin – i couldn’t agree more. Someone putting their anger and want over their paying customers privacy ?

      5. Soup said on April 28, 2017 at 9:47 am
        Reply
      6. Soup said on April 28, 2017 at 9:36 am
        Reply

        If he cares to talk about it right here and now it could be spite, a feeling that always makes for good advice.

        Anyway, it’s worth keeping in mind that those 2280 add-ons must have a “Firefox57” tag which I think has to be added by the developer when he’s done with the port. I’m not sure that it’s the best way to evaluate on-going work, but I don’t know a better way for a third party to make an estimation… I think it would be more accurate if there was a way to check all add-ons that are bootstrapped and containing a WebExtension. (i.e. on their way to compatibility with marked intent from the developer)

        I know that those I need all the time will be there. I’m wondering about a few ones that I barely ever use, but are awesome when I do need them. No browser provides them but Firefox, so if they aren’t ported I’ll just keep a portable version of Firefox 56 on the side and be done.

  35. T J said on April 27, 2017 at 11:49 pm
    Reply

    This is my second post. My first post ( 9.02 PM ) is still awaiting moderation. Martin, please delete my first post.

    Legacy Add Ons:

    Ublock Origin
    Grease Monkey
    Self Destructing Cookies
    Canvas Defender
    Umatrix

    The above are some of the most popular Add Ons for FF.
    Are Mozilla serious about blocking them in FF 57 ??

    If anybody wants to check their Add Ons, click on the addons.Mozilla link in Martin’s blog and type your Add On name into the search box in the top right corner. Prepare to be surprised.

    1. Guest703 said on April 30, 2017 at 12:16 am
      Reply

      Honestly, out of those you listed, I’d only really miss uBlock O and uMatrix, and since they’re already webextension compatible, we aren’t losing anything. I can understand the loss of Greasemonkey, and that kind of sucks, but since userscripts.org went down or into view-only mode, the userscript world has kind of stagnated. What do you honestly need self destructing cookies for? I’ve never needed it. I don’t even know what Canvas Defender is so don’t care.

    2. Anonymous said on April 28, 2017 at 8:56 pm
      Reply

      uBlock Origin and uMatrix are already converted to hybrid WebExtensions — “hybrid” meaning your settings from the legacy versions will be correctly imported when you install the webext version the first time. The webext versions work only with current Beta/Nightly, and are available in the Releases section of each project on GitHub — they must be installed manually.

      1. gorhill said on April 29, 2017 at 3:16 pm
        Reply

        It was me who posted this above — forgot to fill in the other fields.

    3. Laura said on April 28, 2017 at 3:05 pm
      Reply

      Ublock Origin and uMatrix are already WebExt (that’s what the Chrome extensions are), and gorhill is working on porting them to WebExt for Firefox. For Grease Monkey you can use Tampermonkey (WebExt).

    4. George said on April 28, 2017 at 12:04 pm
      Reply

      They are not “blocking” anything. They are changing their platform, to become a Chrome clone. Extensions will stop working not because Mozilla blocked them, but because Firefox will be a much different browser (it already is, but v57 will be the culmination of the mess) and they will not be compatible any more. You will have the same luck trying to install such extensions on Internet Explorer – they will be irrelevant to Firefox forever.

  36. Yuliya said on April 27, 2017 at 10:16 pm
    Reply

    > DownThemAll! 3.0.8
    > Please note this add-on uses legacy technology…

    Enough of a reason for me to switch to SeaMonkey or PaleMoon once v57 gets released. Great download accelerator (learned this a couple of weeks ago when Lineage site was working slow with 150KB/s and with DTA I was getting 6MB/s) and media grabber without having to dig through a page’s source.

  37. Wayfarer said on April 27, 2017 at 9:16 pm
    Reply

    I appreciate the motives for security (I think – I don’t pretend to fully understand.)

    BUT…

    I’m currently moved to wonder about the words ‘baby’ and ‘bath water.’

  38. sartic said on April 27, 2017 at 9:11 pm
    Reply

    So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish …

  39. Tony said on April 27, 2017 at 8:50 pm
    Reply

    That’s a good “glass half full” title, but the reality is that the overwhelming majority of Firefox add-ons, 16,540 to be precise, are currently incompatible with Firefox 57.

    1. Braden said on December 8, 2017 at 12:51 am
      Reply

      The overwhelming amount of FF extensions are crap. WebExtensions is great, there is no reason other than pure laziness to not want to move to the new platform. One of the reasons 57 is so much faster is because they are finally dumping the shitty old platform that was slowing it down. I am currently testing Quatum along side Pale Moon and Cyberfox, and it beats them hands down, in terms of stability/compatibility on websites, in terms of memory management, and in terms of raw speed. And if I am not mistaken, Pale Moon is still clinging to archaic and vulnerable tech like flash and Java instead of embracing the current and far superior trend of HTML 5. Moonchild’s decisions on that are baffling.

      1. Clairvaux said on December 8, 2017 at 2:19 pm
        Reply

        “The overwhelming amount of FF extensions are crap.”

        I’m surprised nobody mentioned this before. Yes, there were some very good extensions that were almost full-fledged programs ; then there were a lot of extensions which corrected unexcusable flaws and oversights of Firefox ; and there were also some which added features which could not be reasonably expected from the barebones browser. Still, there was a great amount of me-too, useless and hastily put-together add-ons.

        This does not excuse the sneaky way Mozilla managed the transition. Yesterday, it de-activated, no questions asked, my old uMatrix. This is the typical hypocrisy of big corporations : we pretend to be friendly and to “listen to you”, but in reality we bully you to no end. First Mozilla pretends it is being nice, and leaves you your old extensions past day zero. And then, when you’re not on your guard anymore, they pull the rug beneath your feet, unannounced.

        One would not need all these “crap” extensions if the barebones Firefox was equipped with appropriate features, which it still is not. The new, all-shiny, “fast” Firefox (and it is indeed fast, there’s no denying it), still can’t close all tabs on the left, or all tabs, or even open a page in a new tab in some circumstances.

        And it still cannot open the bookmark panel with one click after, what ? ten years ? It still cannot sort bookmarks automatically, or even manually. It still cannot find a bookmark folder, only a bookmark or a tag. It still cannot combine two different search criteria for bookmarks. It still does not have a trash can for bookmarks. You could delete a thousand ones by mistake, and poof ! they are gone.

        Doing quickly shoddy work does not make it a good job. But yeah, that’s a trend. Mozilla is not the only culprit in that respect.

    2. Steve Lawrence said on November 17, 2017 at 7:06 pm
      Reply

      I HAVE A FIX FOR THOSE WHO ARE FRUSTRATED WITH THIS CLUSTER THAT FIREFOX HAS CREATED TODAY! First off, why I chose firefox, I got fed up with paying via my isp bill to download unwanted adds, viruses and other nasties that are by part and parcel part of IE. My solution was to install Firefox, and get noscript add on. THE PROBLEM, TODAY, 11/17/17 firefox forced an upgrade, with no opt out, which puts it on a parity with IE, namely forcing you to download unwanted content, viruses, and reload the pages of numerous sites so they can get more “hits” by reloading your page every few seconds, like drudgereport. NOW, THE SOLUTION: DOWNLOAD PALE MOON, MIGRATE YOUR BOOKMARKS, THEN INSTALL NOSCRIPT. NOW, VOTE WITH YOUR FEET, AND QUIT FIREFOX AND THEIR FORCED DOWNLOADING OF UNWANTED CRAP! PALE MOON ROCKS! FIREFOX IS IE BY ANOTHER NAME!

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