Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

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Artemis Moongazer
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Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by Artemis Moongazer »

Not sure if this is the right sub-forum for this, but I was just on the Add-ons site and have a small nitpick: It would be nice if the button "Add to Firefox" recognized what Mozilla-based browser you're using, even if it's an "unofficial" fork like Waterfox or Palemoon. Maybe a light blue button for Palemoon and a dark blue one for Waterfox, a silver one for IceWeasel? Or just "Add to Browser," which covers them all.

I get that Mozilla wants to protect its branding, but as a Palemoon and Waterfox user myself, I think it would be an important step in acknowledging that there are other Mozilla-based browsers out there that people use, and would be a symbolic encouragement of open-source development and code forking. I'm not a developer myself, and as such don't know how exactly this would be done technical-wise, but if Mozilla can make the world's #1 IE killer, it can certainly add a tiny tweak to recognize that the user is on a different program other than Firefox.

It would be really nice to see this feature added into the add-ons site.
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Re: Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by patrickjdempsey »

1. We are not Mozilla.

2. Good luck with that. The officially supported SeaMonkey and Thunderbird sections of the site often do not even recognize those products and quite often extensions labelled as compatible with SeaMonkey or Thunderbird will not install from the Firefox page. This has been going on for YEARS at this point. It obviously requires more than a "tiny tweak" to make it work.

3. If you honestly think Mozilla has ANY interest in fostering the encouragement of open source development then you haven't been paying any attention at all to recent events.
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DanRaisch
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Re: Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by DanRaisch »

First, MozillaZine is an independent Mozilla news, community and advocacy site. We are not formally associated with Mozilla and have no authority or control over how that site performs it's functions.

Second, Palemoon and Waterfox are not Mozilla browser. They are third party variants of Firefox over which Mozilla has no control.
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mightyglydd
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Re: Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by mightyglydd »

Artemis Moongazer wrote:It would be really nice to see this feature added into the add-ons site.

Why? PM has it's own Add-on site.
https://addons.palemoon.org/
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malliz
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Re: Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by malliz »

Plus most modern extension wont work with such an outdated browser as PaleMoon
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James
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Re: Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by James »

Artemis Moongazer wrote:Not sure if this is the right sub-forum for this, but I was just on the Add-ons site and have a small nitpick: It would be nice if the button "Add to Firefox" recognized what Mozilla-based browser you're using, even if it's an "unofficial" fork like Waterfox or Palemoon. Maybe a light blue button for Palemoon and a dark blue one for Waterfox, a silver one for IceWeasel? Or just "Add to Browser," which covers them all.

I get that Mozilla wants to protect its branding, but as a Palemoon and Waterfox user myself, I think it would be an important step in acknowledging that there are other Mozilla-based browsers out there that people use, and would be a symbolic encouragement of open-source development and code forking. I'm not a developer myself, and as such don't know how exactly this would be done technical-wise, but if Mozilla can make the world's #1 IE killer, it can certainly add a tiny tweak to recognize that the user is on a different program other than Firefox.

It would be really nice to see this feature added into the add-ons site.

The addons.mozilla.org site is a hosting site for Extensions and Themes (both image and complete) made by various Authors (mostly third-party) for Firefox, Firefox for Android, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey in mind.

It is not a site that hosts versions of Extensions and Themes (complete) made specifically for modified third-party browsers. Though Waterfox is much more Firefox compared to the rather modified PaleMoon browser now as the 26.0 version you are using even has its own new layout rendering engine Goanna instead of Gecko.
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Re: Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by LoudNoise »

Waterfox, as far as I know, is still tracking the Mozilla releases so, as far as I know, there shouldn't be an issue with AMO. Palemood, on the other hand, simply stayed with old code and is resentful that things are breaking.
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Re: Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by patrickjdempsey »

Waterfox is essentially just a private build of Firefox (and a mostly useless one at that as Mozilla is getting ready to start publicly releasing 64-bit Firefox for Windows, and tests have shown Waterfox to actually be slower than 32-bit Firefox). Anyway AMO watches your UA string, so the way to get Waterfox to "just work" on AMO is to change the UA string to be the same as Firefox. Which is also a good idea for privacy reasons anyway. It seems to me like that would be standard behavior for Waterfox users to begin with. Although, again, I don't see any reason for anyone to stick with Waterfox after Firefox Win64 goes public.

However, Palemoon is a fork based on a now very old version of Firefox with heavy customization. Neither older nor newer Firefox extensions will work out of the box on Palemoon, which is why it has it's own addons site, because Palemoon devs maintain modded versions of those addons.

Edit: Win 64 Firefox should be available before the end of the year, current plan is Firefox 42:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2876519
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Frank Lion
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Re: Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by Frank Lion »

Artemis Moongazer wrote:aterfox, a silver one for IceWeasel? Or just "Add to Browser," which covers them all.

Except that they will not, in the main, 'Add to Browser' at all.

Browsers that are in all but name Firefox, like Waterfox probably, will install. But any others will only get the Addons to install if the add dev who made it has specifically chosen to code and test the addon for use with another Mozilla product, like SeaMonkey or Thunderbird. That choice lies with the addon dev, not AMO.

The recent 'Only With Firefox' green label that blocks the Download link is a recent marketing gimmick, borrowing the idea from Google Chrome, and will not appear if you disable JavaScript on the AMO site. This is useful when you already know that the label is wrong and that the addon (theme or extension) will also install into SeaMonkey, etc.
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Re: Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by patrickjdempsey »

There's also a "download anyway" button right below that big stupid FIREFOX ONLY button.
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Frank Lion
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Re: Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by Frank Lion »

patrickjdempsey wrote:There's also a "download anyway" button right below that big stupid FIREFOX ONLY button.

Not with the Older Versions list there's not, a list which bizarrely also include the very latest versions that haven't been reviewed yet.
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Re: Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by patrickjdempsey »

Strangely, they have a link to download the latest version, but not older ones. I'm guessing that has something to do with signing? I honestly can't keep up with Mozillathink anymore.
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Re: Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by Frank Lion »

patrickjdempsey wrote:I'm guessing that has something to do with signing?

No idea, past caring.
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Re: Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by FIRELINUX »

malliz wrote:Plus most modern extension wont work with such an outdated browser as PaleMoon
Could you care to explain how pale moon is outdated.?
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Re: Addons site should recognize other Mozilla browsers

Post by Frank Lion »

FIRELINUX wrote:
malliz wrote:Plus most modern extension wont work with such an outdated browser as PaleMoon
Could you care to explain how pale moon is outdated.?
Could you care to explain why pale mood doesn't work with most modern extensions?
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