Msg: Re: Dire straits for Firefox users

Hi Kari,

I think we may have had some earlier thread(s) on this. In blog posts the developers of another fine extension, DownThemAll, detailed some of their battles over this and stated that the replacement APIs were feeble in comparison, seriously compromising their efforts. It sounded like they might be close to packing it in. If that occurs with a lot of these former extensions, that amounts to a tragedy.

I will be checking out Waterfox and whatever else may be out there. Opera is basically FF "under the hood" (?), so no help there, and its landscape for extensions is very sparse. Chrome has a lot of available extensions, but I was never particularly impressed with my sampling of them, when compared to what FF had. Some claim that Chrome is more robust on security matters, but I tend to doubt that as well.

If necessary, I may just keep on using the last functional ESR for FF on an indefinite basis . . . because I think the added functionality of those extensions outranks the other concerns. I have long been buttressing them with use of the other two browsers I mentioned anyway, for various reasons. At the same time, I have to wonder whether the supposed security risks with the non-updated product are greatly overblown. I think that could be true, but it may depend to some extent upon one's individual browsing behavior.

Jordan

From: Kari Eveli
To: XyList
Sent: Saturday, May 26, 2018 3:41 AM
Subject: Dire straits for Firefox users

Hello,

I am one of those who depend largely on Firefox XUL extensions like

Scrapbook, FireFTP, Adblock Plus, Add to Search Bar, All-in-One-Sidebar,

etc. I am now using Firefox ESR 52.8 which runs fine with all of these.

Firefox ESR will move to version 60 in August, and it will present the

same behavior that generic Firefox 57 now does, i.e. support for legacy

extensions will end. Some of the extensions have newer versions or

alternatives that can be used (see this extensive table for details:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TFcEXMcKrwoIAECIVyBU0GPoSmRqZ7A0VBvqeKYVSww/edit#gid=0),

but still this change wreaks havoc with my normal work habits.

The easiest solution would be to use a XUL compatible browser like

Waterfox (https://www.waterfoxproject.org/en-US), now based on Firefox

ESR 52. But how long will the support for legacy last? Only time will tell.

Best regards,

Kari Eveli

LEXITEC Book Publishing (Finland)

lexitec@xxxxxxxx

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