It's like asking people who want to learn Python: step 1, install Django. Or for Java: step 1, install Spring.
A simple browser extension doesn't need Node. It just doesn't. The browser itself already packs everything the extension needs.
And I could go on - why would a JS runtime/framework need Visual Studio, at all?
But Node is just a JavaScript runtime, like Python or Java. Of course, you don't need Node to run JavaScript in browser as it is built-in in the browser, but the built-in JavaScript engine doesn't allow you to easily use it externally.
> A simple browser extension doesn't need Node. It just doesn't. The browser itself already packs everything the extension needs.
You don't need to use it, as web-ext is just a extra tool to make it do some automation. You can just create some files and use Firefox to load it manually.
> And I could go on - why would a JS runtime/framework need Visual Studio, at all?
Because it uses native addon which is not written in JavaScript, so it need to be compiled when installing. Since Windows doesn't come with a compiler by default, you need to install it. It is more simpler to install it in Linux.
BTW, if you don't want a full visual studio to use native addon in Node.js, you can use https://www.npmjs.com/package/windows-build-tools instead, which provides tools you needed to compile things on Windows.
It's more correct to say "If you want to learn Python, you need to install a Python runtime", which for me makes a lot of sense. Of course I need somewhere to run Python if I want to learn Python. Same with JS, you need some sort of runtime, either the browser or something like nodejs. Many people go the nodejs route, as you'll end up probably needing or wanting tools from the nodejs ecosystem anyways, but some of us got started way before nodejs was even a thing, and some still do, nothing wrong with that.
> A simple browser extension doesn't need Node. It just doesn't. The browser itself already packs everything the extension needs.
Yeah, this is absolutely true today, for both Firefox and Chrome. In fact, the browser extensions we develop don't even have access to anything nodejs! This tool (web-ext) is simply a tool for making the developer experience better. You're in no way required to use it. You can simply create your files and manually zip things up, sign it and publish. Although it gets a bit easier with web-ext.
I don’t understand most of your complaints. Web-ext does not need Visual Studio, it installs just fine on macOS. You should open an issue if you can’t install it on Windows.
Also deprecations happen frequently on npm so, while they’re annoying during instal, they’re not really a big deal, modules still work.