Frank Lion wrote:Just in -
exclusive footage of people on TV just hearing through their earpieces that they will lose their legacy extensions when Firefox 57 is released -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULTpKOo7llw
That compilation is weird! I have seen some sci-fi & horror movies with a "plague" that comes on as suddenly as those people fainting at hearing their legacy extensions will stop working in NINE DAYS. But then I have seen creature features from the 1950s/60s showing a mass exodus from Los Angeles and the footage shown is rush hour on the Pasadena Freeway.
However, I think most of the fainting, frustration, anger, threats of storming over to even less configurable browsers or to forks maintained by skeleton crews will happen in about nine days, just after their Firefox updates and they discover the extensions they had been using for years no longer work.
For those following along and want to get a head start (I expect it will be a madhouse when the 57 upgrades start happening in earnest), three resources come to mind as places to look before posting a question on one of the official or unofficial support sites:
- addons.mozilla.org is the official add-ons site. However, if browsing with Firefox 56 or earlier, to see if an extension is "COMPATIBLE WITH FIREFOX 57+", one will have to scroll down and near the bottom click on "View classic desktop site".
- Google Spreadsheet of potential alternatives. Several suggestions posed on Discourse have been added to this spreadsheet, but since it is manually maintained, it may be incomplete.
- An Extension Finder on Gethub to suggest possible replacements for legacy extensions.
In some cases, the WebExtensions will be limited by the available APIs. Also, real session management and significant user interface changes are not possible through WebExtensions, though userChrome can be used for a number of user interface changes.