It seems like Firefox is going to become just another browser.
[1] http://www.downthemall.net/the-likely-end-of-downthemall/ [2] https://github.com/sparhami/BeQuiet/issues/2
For all the outrage about extensions not working in the future, I've not seen one blog post about a proposed api which they need and which was rejected.
<Firefox> New API coming. You'll have to rewrite your add-ons for sandboxing, etc.
<Add-on Dev> Oh, okay. -_-
<Firefox> By the way, the APIs aren't all there yet, so what do you need?
<Add-on Dev> Yeah, forget it. I've other things to do.
I do hope that Web Extensions will become powerful enough to make the great add-ons we have now, but I'm afraid it's not going to be a nice ride.
Mozilla already know (for a large part) what APIs they need; they keep stats on the extensions: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/extensions/?sort=us...
So at least enough to implement the top 50 ? Preferably the top 500 :)
Out of curiosity, if there was a Firefox App Store, how much would you pay for Tree Style Tabs?
Probably a few bucks. TST is pretty fundamental to my Firefox workflow.
Look at the sorry state that is Tree Style Tabs clone in chrome - which is because Chrome's extension api is just not powerful enough.
The same could be said of most free software. But see [1].
> Out of curiosity, if there was a Firefox App Store, how much would you pay for Tree Style Tabs?
I don't know. I keep dozens of tabs of reference materials open at work, which becomes unmanageable without it. I'd either pay for it, find a new way to work, or build my own.
That's one way to make a living from software in the long term, but it sure does seem wasteful. And if the technology truly hits an asymptote, then it's not clear what will drive the decay apart from programmer self-interest.
Old-school extensions can change entire parts of the browser, remove features, there really is no limit because the extension code is dumped inside the browser code without any kind of interface or security limitation. So it's powerful, but potentially destructive as a bug in an extension can impact the whole browser, and same goes for performances.
On the other hand, the new API is more like Chrome where you have defined entry points to plug your extension.
The new API approach has limitations, but it's a much better way to do extensions. Not only it limits the damage a poorly written extension can do, but it will make extensions more robust to version upgrades of Firefox.