Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

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LameBrains
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Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by LameBrains »

Late to the show... last I heard Extensions marked "Legacy" won't be supported starting with FF 57. Still true?

If so it's like a death sentence for me. I have spent years compiling my lineup of critical add-ons and rely on them for EVERYTHING. 95% of them are marked Legacy.

This is a catastrophe.

It's not so much that I don't get that technology needs to be upgraded. It's just that I don't know how I can ever trust any add-ons again. If you get dependent on them then they evaporate, you are screwed. If they aren't important enough to depend on, they are useless. You can't win either way.

At least with most commercial software, when they upgrade to a new technology, if something provides critical functionality they usually either have a way to convert things to the new standard or they support the old legacy standard.

This is just an out and out abandonment of the add-on community. Feels pretty harsh.
Brummelchen
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Re: Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by Brummelchen »

not sure, which "catastrophe" you describe, i dont see any
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... ppver=57.0

currently 9.663 available of 25.789 - not bad.

please rephrase what you are searching, but for whining or complaining it is much too late.
LameBrains
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Re: Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by LameBrains »

currently 9.663 available of 25.789 - not bad.
Means two thirds of the add-ons are not supported. For me it's 3/4 not supported.

I'm neither whining nor complaining. The post is a question. I think you missed that.
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MarkRH
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Re: Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by MarkRH »

Well, I've found replacements for the majority of my extensions (have 22 enabled) and with Aris-t2/CustomCSSforFx: Custom CSS tweaks for Firefox 57+ have been able to do most of the tweaks that I was using Classic Theme Restorer for.
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WaltS48
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Re: Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by WaltS48 »

@LameBrains

You do know that Web Extensions can be installed and work in Firefox 56?

Find replacements now. https://mozilla.github.io/extension-finder/
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LameBrains
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Re: Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by LameBrains »

Question...

I plan to stay with FF 56.0.2 or whatever the last version that supports the legacy add-ons is while I wait a while to see if my critical add-ons are going to be updated and explore alternatives to FF in case they are not.

Is there a place where I can get the actual full executable installation package for 56.0.2 for manual installation instead of using the official "installer" which I believe downloads the installation on the fly?

I have a 64 bit OS, but I am using 32 bit FF because I think the 64 bit may still have more issues at this time.

Thanks for the help... :D
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RobertJ
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Re: Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by RobertJ »

LameBrains wrote:I have spent years compiling my lineup of critical add-ons and rely on them for EVERYTHING.
Initially I had the same thought; then, I took a look at the 20+ extensions I used and came to the conclusion that only about eight were REALLY important to me. Of the eight four have already been ported for 57, I found replacements for two and the other two are in the process of being ported.

I seriously doubt that all your extensions are critical.

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smsmith
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Re: Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by smsmith »

LameBrains wrote:Is there a place where I can get the actual full executable installation package for 56.0.2 for manual installation instead of using the official "installer" which I believe downloads the installation on the fly?
While I don't recommend you stay with 56.0.2 for long, you can find the installer for that version here:
64-bit: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/rele ... n64/en-US/
32-bit: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/rele ... n32/en-US/

I assumed you were using the US English version. If not, navigate up a level and find your language.

Others recommend you try the ESR (Extended Support Release) version, which won't transition to the webextension era until June or July 2018.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/

NOTE!! If you decide to use the ESR version, you should create a new Firefox user profile, as going back from v56 to v52 causes problems, most noticeably that the favicons of your bookmarks won't work.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_manager
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Migrating_set ... ew_profile
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LIMPET235
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Re: Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by LIMPET235 »

&....Will Mozilla.org automatically upgrade/update 32 bit versions to those users running 64 bit OS?
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smsmith
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Re: Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by smsmith »

LIMPET235 wrote:&....Will Mozilla.org automatically upgrade/update 32 bit versions to those users running 64 bit OS?
That was the point of the 56.0.1 update, I believe. If you were 64-bit capable, you were supposed to get moved to 64-bit if you weren't already there. From the WOW64 in LameBrains' UA, I assumed they were still using the 32-bit version for whatever reason.
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Brummelchen
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Re: Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by Brummelchen »

LameBrains wrote:
currently 9.663 available of 25.789 - not bad.
Means two thirds of the add-ons are not supported. For me it's 3/4 not supported.

I'm neither whining nor complaining. The post is a question. I think you missed that.
well, i think you miss the point that those 9663 are webextensions and written from scratch.
so you have additional 9663 extension and that makes 25789 together - an increase of ~60% from 100% to 160%.
just numbers - the majority of webextension is pure crap, just look at the latest contributions. maybe 1 of 100 is useful.

but i admit that a lot of legacy extensions disappear, author decision. and some were not converted to a webextension, no API present.
my critical add-ons
thats why i asked you for details, which extension you would hardly miss. for the most important legacy extension already exist a replacement or a combination of extension. if dont give us details is nearly impossible to help. then you should stay on ESR as long as possible and be happy.

* i also lost a lot of legacy extension i'd like to have back, on the other hand only for my personal comfort and not important for working with firefox. working with firefox ***as a browser*** has been fully and successful replaced.
LameBrains
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Re: Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by LameBrains »

Thank you for the links and good info smsmith. And to others for the help too.

I'm using Windows 7 64 bit and earlier today upgraded FF to 56.0.2. Had I known that it was supposed to automatically switch me to FF 64 bit, I wouldn't have done the upgrade and left it at 56.0.0 where it was before.

But fortunately, it is still showing FF as the 32 bit version which is what I want. So I am in my happy space for now. It's getting challenging just to stay there.

I don't have time to follow the progress of the 64 bit version, but I have read about some issues specific to that version. Don't know if they have been resolved yet of not. But in general I don't like to be a beta tester unless I volunteer, and also can't afford the downtime, so I pass on any major changes if possible until they have the kinks worked out and they mature to a point where I feel safe to use it. Not sure if FF 64 is there yet... maybe, but just not sure.

I do want to contribute to the improvement of FF, because at least until now it's been my favorite browser... going forward the jury is out. I just don't have the time, but of course I wish the developers good luck because I would like to see it succeed and I am sure this particular time is not an easy one for them. I have seen an awful lot of users who claim this change is the end for them with FF. I can understand why they are upset. Even things like not being able to support MAFF files at the moment (and maybe never again) is a problem for me and others. But whether FF will really lose all the users who claim they are leaving remains to be seen. I think some will go and some will stay. How that will affect the future of FF is an unknown at this point. If their user base takes a huge plummet, that isn't good.
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RobertJ
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Re: Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by RobertJ »

.
I was as noted above skeptical of FF57 and the extension issue. Now, after using FF57 since it was released into the nightly channel and then the beta channel (13+ weeks) I am more than happy with the result. FF57 is definitely snappier in rendering and its native PW manager and form fill are a vast improvement. This allowed me to dump two extensions.

Beyond that I found an excellent cookie manager that allowed me to replace two other extensions. uBlock Origin has been ported which to me is one of those must haves. NoScript, Video DownloadHelper and Clippings (very useful to a moderator) ports should be released in about twelve days.

The ability to use userChrome.css to do some UI tweaks remains which is a plus.

I have a number of die-hard FF acquaintances who initially were assuming they were leaving FF experimenting with Chrome, Palemoon and Opera because they felt FF57 was going to be a catastrophe. In having a few beers with them over the weekend all eleven of them are sticking with FF since experimenting with Nightly and beta. That is a result of Chrome being crap, you can't trust Google, Opera isn't that great and it was sold to a Chinese consortium which may be a bigger trust issue than Google and Palemoon may or may not survive. Edge was never under consideration.

Is FF57 exactly what I want; no but nothing is. BTW your typical user uses very few extensions.

.
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James
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Re: Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by James »

smsmith wrote:
LIMPET235 wrote:&....Will Mozilla.org automatically upgrade/update 32 bit versions to those users running 64 bit OS?
That was the point of the 56.0.1 update, I believe. If you were 64-bit capable, you were supposed to get moved to 64-bit if you weren't already there. From the WOW64 in LameBrains' UA, I assumed they were still using the 32-bit version for whatever reason.
The main purpose of Fx 56.0.1 update
https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/56.0.1/releasenotes/
Users of 32-bit Firefox on 64-bit Windows are migrated to 64-bit Firefox for increased stability and security.
for Fx 55.0 Release
https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/55.0/releasenotes/
Simplified installation process with a streamlined Windows stub installer
Firefox for Windows 64-bit is now installed by default on 64-bit systems with at least 2GB of RAM
Full installers with advanced installation options are still available
The online stub installer is served on http://www.mozilla.org while the full setups for Windows are at https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/
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James
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Re: Current State Of Add-Ons Post FF56?

Post by James »

LameBrains wrote:Thank you for the links and good info smsmith. And to others for the help too.

I'm using Windows 7 64 bit and earlier today upgraded FF to 56.0.2. Had I known that it was supposed to automatically switch me to FF 64 bit, I wouldn't have done the upgrade and left it at 56.0.0 where it was before.

But fortunately, it is still showing FF as the 32 bit version which is what I want. So I am in my happy space for now. It's getting challenging just to stay there.

I don't have time to follow the progress of the 64 bit version, but I have read about some issues specific to that version. Don't know if they have been resolved yet of not. But in general I don't like to be a beta tester unless I volunteer, and also can't afford the downtime, so I pass on any major changes if possible until they have the kinks worked out and they mature to a point where I feel safe to use it. Not sure if FF 64 is there yet... maybe, but just not sure.
Only the Fx 56.0.1 was to update to Win64 version if user has 64-bit Windows and 2GB RAM. https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/56.0.1/releasenotes/

You say this as if the 32-bit Firefox Releases for Windows is no more. http://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/

64-bit (Win64) Firefox for Windows is not new as it has been available for Releases since Fx 42.0 and listed on http://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/ since Fx 43.0
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