Comment by syshum | Hacker News Reader

Comment by syshum | Hacker News Reader

Web/browser Extensions is a terrible standard is it EXTREMELY limiting for power users.

While that my not impact a ad blocker, there are countless extensions that can not work with Web Extensions and will make Chrome err sorry Firefox far less appealing to people.

For me, more than a few of the extensions I use regularly are not compatible with Web Extensions, and a few of them that are critical to my productivity are in limbo still

That is the Source of the "Chrome Clone". The switch to Web Extensions is hated by many many firefox power users.

Sadly they feel the users that have stuck around all of these years, that did not abandoned them for Chrome are worthless, and have chosen to attempt to attract those users that did abandon FF for Chrome back. They are doing this by making a browser that is unappealing to me (and many others actual FF users, not Chrome Users who are the most vocal proponents of Firefox's current direction), a user that has been a FF loyalist since FF version 1.

I am not 100% sure I will switch to another browser, the options are very thin these days but it will be a sad day for me when FF57 is all that is left

Do you have one example of such extension that won't work with web extensions?

TreeStyleTabs

I've seen people recommend this as a WebExtension-compatible replacement for TreeStyle Tabs, though I can't vouch for it myself: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-tabs/

It is no where near the same and has the same failing of the Chrome Vertical Tab Solutions like

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-side-tabs/h...

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vtabs/okpnlgbgcfch...

It is not part of the UI part of the browser like the XUL TreeStyleTabs but a separate Panel that ends up being buggy and feeling separate from the experience almost like managing your tabs from a separate window

The screenshot alleges that it's in a sidebar, no? How is that different from TreeStyle Tabs, which is also in a sidebar?

Hiding the top tabbar is one of the webextension APIs folks are working on, IIRC.

For now you can use userchrome.css to hide it, can't you?

Yes, though I haven't tried that yet (I'm just going to wait for the API)

https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/issues/1224

Seems they have all the APIs needed for it at the very least approved. It's not like Mozilla just said screw everyone... Let's become chrome. They are putting in the effort to make web extensions viable for even the more advanced uses.

They are making to where a version of TreeTabs are possible, this new API will enable functionality like in Chrome (see my other comment) but it will not be the same.

if I wanted Chrome style Vertical tabs I would have moved to chrome years ago

Seeing as how there is an api in place to have a built in sidebar in firefox, plenty of tab and window API methods available, a way to hide the horizontal tabs at the top of the screen and the developer of treeStyleTabs saying that they will be able to move to webextensions fine... I fail to see how this will be inferior to an XUL extension. Can you elaborate on how the old tree style tabs is different other than using XUL?

Unrelated, but the fact that the developer doesn't get the extension AMO approved and uses eval() all over the place should give some pause as well.

He uses eval in safe ways, according to the developer. So I think your argument is mout unless you can point the unsafe uses.

Now, the real question is: "why isn't Firefox developing a default Tree Style Tab?"

I think at this point enough people are using it, and it has proven to be a better way to browse.

He may well be using it "safely" but it still is a string that is being evaluated so it has many inherent drawbacks.

> Now, the real question is: "why isn't Firefox developing a default Tree Style Tab?" > > I think at this point enough people are using it, and it has proven to be a better way to browse.

Not sure there are enough users to justify taking actual mozilla engineers off core problems that are everyone's problems. There is a maintenance burden and associated cost for every feature that mozilla adds to their core product. I think they would rather make the browser extension backend robust enough to allow for those types of extensions without sacrificing stability, performance, and security.

>Unrelated, but the fact that the developer doesn't get the extension AMO approved and uses eval() all over the place should give some pause as well.

He does, it is in the official add-on site, but their approval process is slow, and a few times a Firefox update has broken it and I've had to download the update from the dev's site because it takes a long time to update on the official site.

Just because it's on the site doesn't mean that it's approved... it's marked experimental by the developer to not require a full review with the caveat that any experimental extension is inherently more risky than a reviewed one. The developer lists a few reasons why they don't do the full review and one of those is that they use eval() and that the review takes longer than they deem acceptable. I just said it should give a little bit of pause not that you should wholesale reject using their extension. I just looked over his code and it's quite a lot of code for something that should be fairly straightforward.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/y-u-no-valida...

Session Manager, which I've used since Firefox 2. To add insult to injury I downgraded to an earlier nightly and it no longer worked either, had to blow away the UI customization config and reinstall the addon for it to re-appear and work again.

vimperator https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimperator/

Here's 2:

TileTabs Self-Destructing Cookies

TabCenter

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