All-in-One Sidebar Developer announces death of Firefox add-on

Martin Brinkmann
Aug 17, 2017
Firefox, Firefox add-ons
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69

The developer of the popular All-in-One Sidebar extension for the Firefox web browser announced the end of life of the Firefox add-on today.

All-in-One Sidebar is a popular Firefox add-on that lets users open Firefox specific pages in the browser's sidebar. The extension has more than 123000 users right now and the highest possible rating of five out of five stars on Mozilla AMO.

You may use it to display bookmarks, downloads, the browsing history, and add-ons in the sidebar, and also any internal Firefox about page, for instance about:config or about:support.

While Firefox may display some content in a sidebar as well natively, the bookmarks, history and synced tabs, it does not display other pages that All-in-One Sidebar supports.

all-in-one-sidebar add-on firefox discontinued

The developer has two main reasons for stopping development of the extension. The first reason is that he moved to Chrome as his main browser and has no plans on switching back to Firefox. He states in the announcement that he does not want to spend time developing an extension for a browser that he does not use anymore.

I'm simply not prepared to spend my less free time for developing an extension for a browser, which I don’t use anymore and in which I have no more personal interest.

But even if he would have the desire to continue development, he could not do so because migration of All-in-One Sidebar to the WebExtension format is not possible at this point in time. Migration is necessary as Mozilla will drop support for legacy add-ons (of which All-in-One Sidebar is one), to go WebExtensions exclusive. This will happen when Firefox 57 gets released.

The WebExtensions APIs that are available right now are extremely limiting when it comes to manipulating the browser's interface and functionality according to the developer of the All-in-One Sidebar add-on for Firefox.

An extension like AiOS, which is heavily changing the interface of the browser, isn’t viable with Firefox 57 onwards.

I have a very clear opinion about the new extension system and the previous unique selling point of Firefox in my point of view. I really hope they will succeed with the new direction – but without me as a user and extension developer.

All-in-One Sidebar will stop working when Firefox 57 Stable is released. The extension will continue to work in Firefox ESR until the Extended Support Release is moved to the next major version in mid-2018.

 

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All-in-One Sidebar Developer announces death of Firefox add-on
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All-in-One Sidebar Developer announces death of Firefox add-on
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The developer of the popular All-in-One Sidebar extension for the Firefox web browser announced the end of life of the Firefox add-on today.
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Comments

  1. LL25255252 said on April 6, 2018 at 8:33 pm
    Reply

    In addition to working on Pale Moon AIOS 0.7.25.1 is also working on Basilisk browser (a pre Firefox 57 fork).
    In order to avoid addon updates you just need to change the version line in the install.rdf of the xpi to something like 99.99

    AIOS latest version – 0.7.31.1 worked for me for a couple of hours after installation but then suddenly it stopped working (I tested it also on a clean/fresh profile).

  2. Arnaud said on November 1, 2017 at 5:50 pm
    Reply

    Sad time for computers. I just installed FF 57 beta to see the disaster with my own eyes and 80% on my favorites extensions are disabled… About the new UI, i mention that new loading animation is just ridiculous ugly with the pore dot move from left to right. In this case why left the circle button to refresh a tab?

    Go fuck FF developers!!! Do not forget to remove “click on circle button” functionality to duplicate a tab, for two reason :
    1. Because is great
    2. Because Chrome do not have this functionality

    Team developers of FF is payed by Google to kill FF, that all! B*stard!

  3. Jozsef said on August 19, 2017 at 7:07 am
    Reply

    In the past I had used both Opera and Firefox. It was sad when after V.12, Opera became useless to me but AIOS made the loss easier to take. Whether I abandon Firefox after 57 or not, even if Pale Moon and other forks fade, there is still Vivaldi and interesting small projects will always come along. We will all survive.

    The one thing that I do not understand is how it makes any sense for someone to switch to Chrome when Firefox loses an extension they felt was indispensable, since by definition Chrome does not and will never have it, nor any equivalent due to the limitations of the APIs. It reminds me of a line from a famous satirical western film. Drawing his gun, the hero threatens, “If anybody moves, I’ll blow my brains out!”

    1. JSB said on August 20, 2017 at 12:49 am
      Reply

      It’s not just a matter of switching browsers when “Firefox loses an extension they felt was indispensable.” It more like “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” Mozilla keeps adding bloat, reducing functionality, and changing Firefox according to its whims rather than what its user base desires.

      Eventually, a user is going to throw up his/her hands and say “Enough! (Insert alternative browser name here) may not have everything Firefox has, but at least they pay some attention to what the end user actually wants.”

      1. Anonymous said on August 20, 2017 at 11:50 am
        Reply

        ” Mozilla keeps adding bloat, reducing functionality ”

        Pick one

        ” (Insert alternative browser name here) may not have everything Firefox has, but at least they pay some attention to what the end user actually wants. ”

        Chrome pays some attention ?

  4. pd said on August 18, 2017 at 11:09 am
    Reply

    There is a Sidebars API for WebExtensions.

    https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/user_interface/Sidebars

    It supports loading html pages in it:

    https://github.com/mdn/webextensions-examples/blob/master/annotate-page/manifest.json#L16

    Is this limited to files bundled with an add-on, or can about: pages be referenced as well? Someone should really find out if they’re desperate to have the Add-ons manager and Downloads in the sidebar. That’s all this add-on really offered.

    I’m not a fan of WebExtensions, or perhaps more the way Mozilla has mishandled their introduction, but concern about the author of this extension has pissed off to chrome where they don’t have ANY sidebars unless I’m mistaken (I don’t use shit browsers much so wouldn’t know). It’s pretty ironic that the author doesn’t even need their own extension anymore. Well, it’s actually both ironic and quite explicable: Firefox integrates Bookmarks and History into sidebars natively! That means all this extension ever really did was add some tab UI and Downloads, Add-ons into the sidebar. Hardly world changing in my view at least. Not convinced this is any great loss to be honest. Compared to ClassicThemeRestorer for example, or TabMixPlus.

    Personally I’ve never used this add-on because most internal Firefox pages are not suited to narrow sidebar viewing. That said, they easily could be if they just followed simple responsive web design and on wide screen displays, the ‘sidebar’ doesn’t have to be very narrow at all.

    1. Django said on August 18, 2017 at 1:08 pm
      Reply

      You can load HTML pages into sidebars and stuff, e.g. the WE add-on URL in a Box does just that.

      You can’t load about: pages according to my current level of knowledge regarding the Bugzilla state of things.

      You can however replicate about:downloads into sidebars and stuff, using the “downloads” API.

      You should be able to cover everything from All in One Sidebar except loading about: using the promising “toolbars” API, which however won’t be ready for Firefox 57. All in One Sidebar’s author was apparently unaware of it since, like other APIs planned but still unborn, it is not documented.

  5. Anonymous said on August 18, 2017 at 9:33 am
    Reply

    On AMO I tried to download an old version of an add-on today. The right click “save link as” is no longer working, I was forced to use WaybackMachine. Is it The End already?, does anyone know?

    1. Anonymous said on August 18, 2017 at 3:13 pm
      Reply

      “Save as” works just fine here. For old add-on versions the button is greyed out if they are not market as compatible with your version of Firefox (e.g. compatibility is marked Firefox 35-45).

      But since you don’t want to install but save the XPI file on your harddrive, you can either grab the XPI link from the source code or change your user agent to a supported Firefox version and reload the page to get a green button which you can right click to save the XPI.

      1. Anonymous said on August 19, 2017 at 12:23 am
        Reply
      2. Anonymous said on August 18, 2017 at 4:14 pm
        Reply

        Thanks

  6. Jack Alexander said on August 18, 2017 at 2:32 am
    Reply

    And I will add it takes over 100 mb out of disk space as it is smaller and doesn’t need the Firefox maintenance thing either.
    https://www.waterfoxproject.org/

  7. Jack E. Alexander said on August 18, 2017 at 2:17 am
    Reply

    In a single word: Waterfox. Will keep add-ons and their updates. Will have own repository! Just install it. Turn Fx off and uninstall it (without deep cleaning like some uninstallers do.) Backup with Hekasoft Backup and Restore.

  8. IPonymous said on August 17, 2017 at 8:08 pm
    Reply

    BetterPrivacy has been removed by its developer from firefox addons, FYI.

  9. Josephine said on August 17, 2017 at 7:24 pm
    Reply

    Feedbro is available as a WebExtension on Firefox

    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/feedbroreader/

  10. The Dude said on August 17, 2017 at 7:00 pm
    Reply

    I updated to firefox 55.0.2.
    95% of my addons are now labeled “LEGACY”.
    I wonder how many addons developers will rebuild their work from scratch (web extensions).
    The deadline for web-extensions-plugins-only is getting close and I don’t see addons devs rewriting their codes.
    I guess this is the right time to switch to Chromium (not chrome).
    Firefox R.I.P.

    1. Anonymous said on August 17, 2017 at 9:02 pm
      Reply

      Most things can be replaced. The very flexible Toolbar API is approved but won’t be there for Firefox 57. With that thing in, *a lot* can be done, including several of All In One Sidebar features currently not replicable.

    2. The Dude said on August 17, 2017 at 8:52 pm
      Reply

      Search “web browser market share”.
      Last time I checked, firefox was tied with chrome.
      I guess the time is just right to let firefox go.
      RIP indeed.

      1. Anonymous said on August 17, 2017 at 11:32 pm
        Reply

        I win with 100% :)

        Out of those, some will for sure be ported, some are very likely to be. Two are unlikely to be but they already have replacements.

        So I may have 100% LEGACY, but I will suffer no functionality loss.

        As for market share you clearly haven’t checked for about 75% of Chromes lifetime.

    3. Mikhoul said on August 17, 2017 at 8:21 pm
      Reply

      “95% of my addons are now labeled “LEGACY”.”

      I won with 99% ———> http://i.imgur.com/1NgKbYg.png

      1. The Dude said on August 17, 2017 at 10:49 pm
        Reply

        lol you must have 64Gb RAM to start your firefox.
        I already start playing with Chromium and I’m going for it. Already imported everything!

        @Martin you should review this:
        http://www.henrypp.org/product/chrlauncher

        It is superb! I recommend it for those who want to migrated from firefox to chromium.

  11. JSB said on August 17, 2017 at 4:02 pm
    Reply

    Firefox continues its slide from grace. It keeps adding bloat, killing off features (like this extension) that people actually like/use, and so on.

    My latest peeve is with their latest mobile update: They quietly removed the ability to move the app to the SD card from device memory/storage (on non-rooted devices). So, want Firefox on your phone? Get ready to sacrifice other apps to make room for it.

    My current alternative: Palemoon. It’s what Firefox used to be before Mozilla went crazy. Yes, their mobile version is not currently being developed (except for security updates). But at least it’s lean, works reasonably well, and isn’t killing off functionality in the name of…wait, why is Mozilla doing this to Firefox again?

    1. Anonymous said on August 17, 2017 at 4:34 pm
      Reply

      All-in-One Sidebar is not (fully) compatible with Pale Moon 27.4.0, the download manager is no longer working.

      1. Anonymous said on August 18, 2017 at 9:56 am
        Reply

        @Lootyhoof: I installed AIOS 0.7.25 with “Moon Tester Tool” it works, thanks.

      2. Anonymous said on August 18, 2017 at 9:20 am
        Reply

        @Lootyhoof: Ok I will try it, I used Wayback to download it. Is it Mozilla who have blocked the downloads on AMO??

      3. Anonymous said on August 18, 2017 at 8:53 am
        Reply

        “0.7.25.1 is compatible”
        @Lootyhoof: can’t try it as I can’t download it, “save link as” not working anymore on my side :(

      4. Anonymous said on August 17, 2017 at 10:08 pm
        Reply

        @Lootyhoof

        Someone should be able to replicate the bulk of AiOS based on this API when it is done being properly defined and implemented, right ?

        https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215064#c12

      5. Lootyhoof said on August 17, 2017 at 10:04 pm
        Reply

        @Anonymous:

        0.7.25.1 is compatible. If (and I do mean IF) I looked into this, it’d be polishing up that release.

        With regards to full theme support (for FF themes rather than PM themes), I’d recommend using this instead, which bundles all my userstyle fixes into one add-on: http://addons.palemoon.org/addon/theme-shim/

        The statusbar code should be fixed in Pale Moon 27.5 (in the sense that the code affecting the urlbar has been removed).

      6. Anonymous said on August 17, 2017 at 5:50 pm
        Reply

        @Lootyhoof: Pale Moon 27 was problematic regarding taht kind of add-ons anyway, like for Status-4-Evar however embedded which was not fixed to be compatible with full themes like FTDeepdark, I was forced to use your workaround already > “Pale Moon 27 Address/Status Bar Fix”.

      7. Anonymous said on August 17, 2017 at 5:28 pm
        Reply

        @Lootyhoof: even AIOS 0.7.20.1 is broken, it happened when Moonchild decided to remove the classic download manager. So now in addition with AIOS I use Download Manager Tweak 1.0.9.1, but of course a fix will be very appreciated ;)

      8. Lootyhoof said on August 17, 2017 at 5:12 pm
        Reply

        I’ve considered looking at this for a while, to be honest. If I find time some day I might just, though don’t expect miracles (there is a later version that is compatible with us). Its integration with lightweight themes is horrid and I want to kill it so bad because they just weren’t designed for vertical toolbars (plus its bright icons on Windows look awful and it tries to integrate with default themes on Windows and Mac without taking into consideration other themes).

        Don’t take this as gospel though, I’m just considering what I might do if nobody else does (though I’d prefer if someone else did – I’ve already enough to deal with as-is). ;)

  12. Appster said on August 17, 2017 at 3:55 pm
    Reply

    For what it’s worth… He could have made it compatible with Firefox 56 before jumping ship.

    1. www.com said on August 20, 2017 at 4:25 am
      Reply

      That’s not really worth anything, Appster. He has moved on to other things.

      1. www.com said on August 21, 2017 at 2:27 am
        Reply

        Nope, I just think you should move on to other things like he did.

      2. Appster said on August 20, 2017 at 8:35 pm
        Reply

        I think you are just replying for the sake of replying at this point, right?

  13. jasray said on August 17, 2017 at 3:43 pm
    Reply

    Yes, yes, but it’s somewhat obvious that the days of Firefox as we knew it are long gone and ready for a new generation of users and web extension developers. I went ahead and uninstalled Firefox a few days ago because of the conflicts with Cyberfox and the Sync feature. Firefox synced was deleting add-ons right and left because they were Legacy. Waterfox and/or Cyberfox for now. The future . . . ?

    1. www.com said on August 20, 2017 at 4:25 am
      Reply

      Cyberfox is ending at the end of the year.

      https://www.ghacks.net/2017/03/07/cyberfox-proclaims-death-of-web-browser/

      Waterfox is a one-man shop. Although the developer says he’ll keep going for now, I think it’s future is unstable as well.

  14. Anonymous said on August 17, 2017 at 3:27 pm
    Reply

    what a whinger

  15. Just In Beaver said on August 17, 2017 at 3:24 pm
    Reply

    IMO Mozilla won’t be satisfied until they have completely destroyed interest and usability in their browser.

    Thank goodness Mozilla’s Seamonkey browser still exists!
    http://www.seamonkey-project.org

  16. Jeff said on August 17, 2017 at 3:12 pm
    Reply

    Mozilla really pulled a Titanic with the dropping of XUL addons :D

  17. Clairvaux said on August 17, 2017 at 2:04 pm
    Reply

    It’s funny that he decided to switch to Chrome for his own use (that crippled browser with no wriggle room for customisation, peddled by that evil company which siphons off your private data), before he decided to drop his add-on. But why did he switch to Chrome ? That would be interesting.

    1. www.com said on August 20, 2017 at 4:21 am
      Reply

      I was kinda wondering that, myself. Unless he developed a All-In-One Sidebar extension for Chrome, he must have went the surrender monkey route instead.

      1. Martin Brinkmann said on August 20, 2017 at 6:40 am
        Reply

        Chrome does not have the APIs to support sidebar extensions, so, doubtful that this is going to happen.

  18. slumbergod said on August 17, 2017 at 12:31 pm
    Reply

    Like a previous reader, I also became familiar with using a side bar years ago when I used to use Opera. Then I switched to Firefox and found so many useful addons that improved my experience. With the death of most of the addons I use later in the year I will be forced to either live without them or change browser.

    Since I only use Firefox because of the addons I think I will just switch to Vivaldi. Chrome is a dumbed down piece of junk.

    1. TopQuark said on August 20, 2017 at 12:27 am
      Reply

      Wow. Vivaldi. Just like my old love on Opera before it got sold to China. It is looking great!

  19. Django said on August 17, 2017 at 11:56 am
    Reply

    ” While Firefox may display some content in a sidebar as well natively, the bookmarks, history and synced tabs, it does not display other pages that All-in-One Sidebar supports. While Firefox may display some content in a sidebar as well natively, the bookmarks, history and synced tabs, it does not display other pages that All-in-One Sidebar supports. ”

    It does with an add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/url-in-a-box/

    Although it’s not a 1vs1 replacement for All-in-One. Someone on Reddit made it on a whim to answer the question “Is there an Add-on for embeding a webpage into Add-on window?”

    In other news, Decentraleyes has just been ported to WebExtension, it’s in beta, to be fully released for Firefox 56 I think. I don’t use it but I’ve seen a few people here liking it, so there.

    1. Django said on August 17, 2017 at 9:51 pm
      Reply

      After digging some more, all of All-in-One Sidebar’s features should be replicable except (as far as I know ATM) loading about: pages. about:downloads can be reconstructed using the `downloads` API though.

      Great news for many add-ons : The `toolbar` API which enables many features is on the WebExtension roadmap even if won’t be there for Firefox 57. In the mean time, URL in a Box with the link I gave above fills some use cases.

      1. Paul's dad. said on September 22, 2017 at 12:42 pm
        Reply

        It doesn’t really matter if it can be reconstructed or not. He left Firefox really before any of this came to the fore. For many years now, Mozilla has be dumping boatloads of crap on all add-on developers in their fight for chromification. I have stopped regularly updating my browser for a long long time simply because I need the add-ons I use and because Mozilla breaks 10% of them every six weeks. This is only worse for add-on developers, because they actually have to work on their extension.
        AiOS was one of the add-ons I dropped along the way because I found I could live with it. And for three years I’ve been weening myself out of Firefox because I saw the writing on the wall. Vivaldi is ok. It’s objectively better than Firefox, but not better than MY Firefox.
        But MY Firefox is dead. Mozilla killed with their stupid browser without a search bar.

      2. ranmagrrl said on February 21, 2020 at 10:02 pm
        Reply

        Well, it kinda does really matter if it can be reconstructed, because if it can, then there’s a chance that someone else will create an add-on duplicating the functionality (I’m sure there are add-on developers who really liked this add-on out there). If it can’t, then the functionality can not be achieved by another add-on :( And that’s something to consider if you like this add-on and happen to consider switching browsers. This is one of the reason I am, but not really away from FireFox, as the browser I’m thinking is a fork of FireFox, with support for legacy add-ons. But the add-ons I’m doing this for are the Legacy version of µBlock Origin (still maintained, btw, so up to date) and a less known add-on called KeySnail that was never available at AMO, which is probably why it’s so little known. Yet It’s the most advanced keyboard browsing add-on I’ve ever seen, you could define ANY keybindings, even ones that override bindings in firefox dialog windows, and you defined the actions with javascript that was ran at the same access level as the add-ons. Having AIO Sidebar back is just a sweet bonus :)

  20. Django said on August 17, 2017 at 11:56 am
    Reply

    ” While Firefox may display some content in a sidebar as well natively, the bookmarks, history and synced tabs, it does not display other pages that All-in-One Sidebar supports. While Firefox may display some content in a sidebar as well natively, the bookmarks, history and synced tabs, it does not display other pages that All-in-One Sidebar supports. ”

    It does with an add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/url-in-a-box/

    Although it’s not a 1vs1 replacement for All-in-One.

    In other news, Decentraleyes has just been ported to WebExtension, it’s in beta, to be fully released for Firefox 56 I think. I don’t use it but I’ve seen a few people here liking it, so there.

  21. Anonymous said on August 17, 2017 at 9:50 am
    Reply

    All the best with your future endeavors

  22. Anonymous said on August 17, 2017 at 9:32 am
    Reply

    “The first reason is that he moved to Chrome as his main browser”

    This add-on was the main reason I switched to Firefox at the death of Opera. I stopped to use it recently due to some bugs not fixed by its author. I wondered why exactly.. just read that the developer said he no longer had time for it. Now I know he preferred Google.

    1. Heimen Stoffels said on August 17, 2017 at 10:49 am
      Reply

      Luckily AiOS will continue to work in SeaMonkey, even beyond FF ESR.

      1. Clairvaux said on August 18, 2017 at 8:11 pm
        Reply

        @ Robert

        Now we’re talking. So let me ask you for a few hints.

        > How do you open an “anonymous disposable Facebook account” (or a Twitter account, etc) ? As far as I know, you need to give a phone number to open a social media account (even more if you do it through Tor, which is a given from my point of view). How do you do that without busting your anonymity ? Note : “burner phone” is not an acceptable solution. There are no burner phones in Europe, where official ID is required to get a phone number. “Google Voice” is not an answer either : not available in Europe.

        > Is public Wifi + VPN enough to warrant anonymity ? (Let’s forget for a minute the very real issue of ubiquitous CCTV cameras in places usually associated with public Wifi.)

      2. ranmagrrl said on February 21, 2020 at 9:48 pm
        Reply

        “There are no burner phones in Europe, where official ID is required to get a phone number.”

        Yes there are – it’s your country, not the whole Europe. Well, not burner phones exactly, who on their right mind would purchase a whole phone when you only need a new SIM card? Unless you want to hide the IMEI code as well – but you can buy a used phone, and no you don’t have to register or identify yourself anywhere, that phone can be used for multiple throwaway prepaid SIM’s and all that anyone could see would be that the numbers came from same device. Just don’t put that SIM on the phone you use with your regular number.

        I live in Finland btw, I don’t know what exactly are the laws in other European countries on this area, but it’s clearly not “euroversal”.

        I know this isn’t an answer to your question, but I just wanted to point this out. Don’t mean to be rude :)

        I too would like to know if you really need a phone number to register a facebook account nowdays? I believe that long long time ago when I signed up (early FB, very different than what it has been since the early days) I only needed an email account, but I’ve read someone saying that you do need a number so often that I’d really love to know if it’s true :)

      3. Django said on August 18, 2017 at 1:24 pm
        Reply

        @Robert

        At your threat model, only Tor Browser does it and only because of the Tor network, the browser itself in spite of all that it does would not be enough for your use case.

        Using Firefox the threat model is different, it’s about exposure. Firefox is incredibly efficient at protecting privacy from web companies and trackers and malware.

      4. Tom Hawack said on August 18, 2017 at 1:11 pm
        Reply

        @Robert, your comment is most interesting and I’m surprised that it doesn’t trigger reactions. ‘Tails’ is its name. Not to mention your other recommendations. Maybe is this context you explain the one step beyond ours which remains, whatever precautions, in the lights of tracking when indeed Hades appears as a haven of darkness pertinent to privacy, real privacy. I also have in mind the argument “What the heck, we’re all tracked anyway” which may be true but, reading you, not a fatality if we decide to search elsewhere, differently.

      5. Robert said on August 18, 2017 at 12:05 am
        Reply

        I hate to burst you guy’s bubbles about no privacy. All you need to do for complete privacy is use Tails on a USB drive that can be wiped easily, an anonymous disposable Facebook account if you want to leak documents, and free WiFi (Starbucks with VPN) or war-drive for an open access point and your covered. There is not a chance in Hades you’ll be tracked.

        Everything else on your home computer can be foiled too. Don’t use Face Book, Microsoft, or Google to sign in to places. Don’t use Firefox anymore because it is now tracking you. And always wipe cookies and except no third party cookies. Use ccleaner with ccleaner enhancer so java script can’t probe as effectively.

        Privacy is there if you educate yourselves.

    2. HK-Rapper said on August 17, 2017 at 10:41 am
      Reply

      @Anonymous:
      It is interesting when the real reasons surface. When people move to a less privacy respecting browser, with worse UI and bookmarks manager, just because they are upset about the same extension system? The fox and the sour grapes all over again, only to one-up with the plea for donations at the end of his page-long rant.

      Ever wondered why the developer of Stylish stopped developing for FF?
      https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/5ne4mh/stylish_addon_is_now_part_of_analytic_company_is/

      They were not allowed to push the same changes on AMO as they could in the Chrome WS.

      1. Anonymous said on August 17, 2017 at 8:57 pm
        Reply

        Says the guy with no historic hindsight.

      2. Blup said on August 17, 2017 at 7:54 pm
        Reply

        @Weilan
        People who ‘care’ about privacy are the one who don’t know how to use private browsing mode. I don’t know what they define as ‘privacy’ but I think it’s about their (porn)browsing habit. People hate when ads are personified but I personally like it because I can find ads relevant to my interest. In the other hand, people don’t like when they see not relevant ads but hate to be tracked, so how can the advertiser know what the user like? Really dumb if you think about it.
        The data collected are mostly anonymous but people who ‘care’ about privacy think that they can be tracked and someone can send hitman to kill them at their home.

      3. ranmagrrl said on February 21, 2020 at 9:36 pm
        Reply

        @Blup
        Your comment makes no sense whatsoever.

        “People who ‘care’ about privacy are the one who don’t know how to use private browsing mode.”

        And how would you reach that conclusion? I have NoScript and µBlock Origin for primary reason of protecting my privacy, and you think I don’t know how to use private browsing mode!? Seriously?

        “I don’t know what they define as ‘privacy’ but I think it’s about their (porn)browsing habit.”

        Does trolling make your miserable life feel somehow better, or why are you doing this?

        “People hate when ads are personified but I personally like it because I can find ads relevant to my interest. In the other hand, people don’t like when they see not relevant ads but hate to be tracked, so how can the advertiser know what the user like?”

        Umm, no – I don’t know a single person who even thinks about whether he likes targeted or random ads better, neither privacy ignorant or privacy aware people. Why the fuck would I care what the ad shows, I don’t need them to tell me what to buy and could care less about their content, even when I rarely see them (I do disable blocking on deserving sites that don’t use intrusive advertising).

        “Really dumb if you think about it.”

        Yeah, it is. And you’re the one who made it up. So who’s got egg on their face?

        “The data collected are mostly anonymous”

        Oh boy you know so little and ignore so much. Anonymous my ass – yes, some of it is anonymized, but stuff that can be used to identify you when you’re not logged and not on the site that’s tracking you, to even try claiming that such information can be anonymous is as stupid as they come.

        “but people who ‘care’ about privacy think that they can be tracked and someone can send hitman to kill them at their home.”

        Like you said, your fairytale is really dumb if you think about it ;) Nobody but you thinks that.

        Not unless they actually have a legitimate reason to suspect that someone might want to off them of course. And that’s not a big percentage of population.

        You say privacy doesn’t matter. You must also think that security doesn’t matter. Your a malware developer, aren’t you? It would make so much more sense than someone being that stupid…

      4. Weilan said on August 17, 2017 at 4:21 pm
        Reply

        @the guys telling me stuff

        you are just overcomplicating your life with dealing with privacy, unless you make money out of it, it doesnt matter

      5. Anonymous said on August 17, 2017 at 3:07 pm
        Reply

        @Weilan

        Whataboutism, technical ignorance and surrenderism, nice combo!

      6. Clairvaux said on August 17, 2017 at 2:48 pm
        Reply

        “If you use a computer and are on the internet, you have automatically forfeited your privacy. Get over it.”

        Never mind that extremely knowledgeable professionals make a nice living helping other professionals reclaim a good deal of that privacy. Never mind that spying agencies around the world spend considerable talent and resources to bust that “automatically forfeited” privacy — and sometimes even get results.

        Those blanket, uninformed, patronising, cookie-cutter statements really help no one.

      7. Weilan said on August 17, 2017 at 2:35 pm
        Reply

        If you use a computer and are on the internet, you have automatically forfeited your privacy.

        Nothing can save you. Not a Tor browser, not Firefox, which you give the reputation of a browser used by tinfoil hat hippies with your comment. Windows has telemetry, you think you can disable it by uninstalling some updates and blocking addresses on the hosts file, but that doesn’t do anything. Even if you use Linux, you are still being tracked.

        Get over it.

      8. Omar said on August 17, 2017 at 2:07 pm
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        Read the above link. The language they use says it all.

      9. Pants said on August 17, 2017 at 1:22 pm
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        @Dan82

        > what does happen exactly, once Mozilla unlists or removes an extension from their addon store

        Mozilla can push revocations for addons/extensions – it is now done via Kinto. So really nasty, evil, malicious ones can be blacklisted and removed

      10. Dan82 said on August 17, 2017 at 12:59 pm
        Reply

        @ HK-Rapper, would a revamped Stylish with new intrusive (meta)data collection really be removed from AMO?

        Keeping an extension store clean and your users from harm is a tough job, no doubt. However, I believe that Mozilla, for all their reputation as a privacy respecting company, is not the absolute you want to paint them as. They *may* be better to a degree, but I don’t feel their extension store as it exists now is enough of a reason to say no to Chrome for privacy reasons alone.

        Sure there was the Web-of-Trust issue, where Mozilla unlisted the extension temporarily (until the company behind it eventually relaunched it with an updated privacy policy), but in general I am very sure that Mozilla is not capable of keeping their users’ data private once third-party code is allowed. This isn’t even their fault, but it is simply a question of scale. How much qualified personnel does it take to check the full code and incremental updates of thousands of extensions?

        Take Ghostery for example, that extension never vanished from AMO, probably because they unlike WoT just didn’t hide what they were doing. I also remember using an Opera-like speed dial extension a few years back that added the same “feature” suddenly and without warning. Despite a dozen one star reviews and at least one report to Mozilla (mine), the extension never vanished from the store, but the developer decided of his own volition to remove the controversial parts again. This only happened a few weeks down the line though and unless one looked at the AMO page of the updated extension to spot the negative reviews, people would never have known about it.

        It also raises the question of what does happen exactly, once Mozilla unlists or removes an extension from their addon store. As far as I know, it does absolutely nothing to the extension installed in a browser and at best, it gives an error message when trying to update. I might be wrong there, because I’ve never used an extension that was removed before, so please correct me if that’s the case.

        In conclusion it is pretty much impossible for every user to check his or her extensions for malware or other privacy-related issues. Sure it is possible since the source code is available, but that doesn’t mean your average user knows how to decipher code and make sense of it, when even a good amount of hobby scripters aren’t capable enough. This doesn’t even take into account the number of companies that are always trying to buy existing extensions from their developers. Once a sale is completed, the new owners have a ready-made userbase they can push an update to with some questionable new functions. It doesn’t really matter if the extension receives bad ratings or ends up being removed from the store, the horse has left the barn by then.

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