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Comment by superkuh | Hacker News Reader

Is Mozilla really trying to juxtapose themselves here against another browser that removes support for power user customization like they don't do it? That's wild. Is there no one left at Moz that remembers them throwing away the entire ecosystem of XUL based extensions that allowed for many things that current Firefox builds don't re: blocking and UI customization.

Mozilla literally did this back in the version 37 and only Firefox forks remain to support the full set of extension features. I guess we're all amnesiacs or the pot is just being boiled slowly enough to not notice.

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> Is Mozilla really trying to juxtapose themselves here against another browser that removes support for power user customization like they don't do it? That's wild. Is there no one left at Moz that remembers them throwing away the entire ecosystem of XUL based extensions that allowed for many things that current Firefox builds don't re: blocking and UI customization.

Dropping XUL wasn't some 'hahah, own the power users' thing, it was a move to allow the Firefox architecture to modernize, with XUL this wasn't possible. I have plenty of criticisms of Mozilla, but simplifying things to the point of removing all important context is not the way to do it imo.

Dropping WebRequest API wasn't some 'hahah, own the power users' thing, it was a move to allow the Chrome architecture to modernize, with WebRequest API this wasn't possible. I have plenty of criticisms of Chrome, but simplifying things to the point of removing all important context is not the way to do it imo.

See what I mean?

UI customization is fortunately still alive in the wake of XUL extensions.

A /r/firefoxcss mod has a wonderful collection of code snippets that they maintain, which you can browse here: https://mrotherguy.github.io/firefox-csshacks/ and they created a userChrome.js loader here: https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/fx-autoconfig

My favorite customization repository is https://github.com/aminomancer/uc.css.js - which really tests the limits of what is and isn't possible with userChrome.css and .js. My favorite feature is the implementation vertical tabs, without the use of extensions.

Some legacy extensions are maintained and can be found here: https://github.com/xiaoxiaoflood/firefox-scripts/tree/master... (although you will need to use xiaoxiaoflood's userChrome.js loader AFAIK).

Honorable mention goes to the Firefox CSS Store, which can be found here: https://trickypr.github.io/FirefoxCSS-Store.github.io/

Moving to WebExtensions was the logical choice for Firefox, technical/security reasons aside, as they are not alienating extension developers that target Chromium-based browsers.

Yes, they alienated their own extension developers. Yes, they could've handled the transition better, and worked harder towards supporting some of the many APIs/functionalities that extension developers needed (or still need) for their extensions to work in the WebExtensions ecosystem. I myself was quite mad for a very long time at how they handled the switch, but I think overall it's been a success - my own personal feelings aside.

I still miss Tab Mix Plus.

Having no way to properly save/manage sessions feels like I'm one crash away from losing my (way too many) tabs, although luckily that hasn't happened to me for a long time.

And no, I don't want to be told that I should be closing tabs. I have 64Gb RAM and I can search tabs by typing "%" into the url bar. Why should I ever have to close a tab if I don't want to?

It is still developed but you have to enable userchrome.js scripting support to install it.

https://github.com/onemen/TabMixPlus

> Is Mozilla really trying to juxtapose themselves here against another browser that removes support for power user customization like they don't do it?

No. Firefox is adding Manifest 3 support, and people naturally have questions about whether they'll follow Chrome's lead in killing the blocking API.

Mozilla blocks most extensions by default on Firefox Mobile... they created cumbersome collections for people that really want to install them. Sometime I wonder if their main sponsor is/isn't asking them to make some of those changes.

I just create my own collection with the extensions i like and go on with the day.

It's just a lot more of a pain then it used to be to install non-approved extensions, most people probably don't bother.

the old APIs were actually the only existing, internal and synchronous APIs which does not work in a multi-process, site-isolation architecture.

The internal APIs also had to go. What else would you do?

Unfortunately not many seem to remember that brief period when the old add-on APIs were being ported and made to work with a multi-process architecture, as part of the effort known as Electrolysis [1], with appreciable results, before being completely killed in favor of WebExtensions. I'm sure there were significant technical challenges, but let's not use these to hide the political reasons behind such a drastic move.

[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis

These APIs were synchronous and thus blocking. People blamed Firefox being slow when in fact, it was mostly extension APIs and the extension code.

Electrolysis was an easier thing to handle, and some APIs would still have been lost.

Fission (process-per-origin) came later and would have broken many, many more.

So people would have still been pissed off at Mozilla (the difference between levels of breakage would have been lost), and Mozilla would still be on the hook for supporting a barely supportable API. Without the resources that would require.

> the pot is just being boiled slowly enough to not notice.

That metaphor is based on a myth¹:

> While some 19th-century experiments suggested that the underlying premise is true if the heating is sufficiently gradual, according to modern biologists the premise is false: a frog that is gradually heated will jump out. Furthermore, a frog placed into already boiling water will die immediately, not jump out. Changing location is a natural thermoregulation strategy for frogs and other ectotherms, and is necessary for survival in the wild.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

My least favorite Hacker News trope is pretending not to understand what a metaphor is to nitpick an inaccuracy in the literal interpretation.

I would bet that latexr knows what a metaphor is. They are simply pointing out that the usage of that specific metaphor makes no sense.

And the incorrect usage of the metaphor may give people, such as superkuh, an incorrect model of the world where frogs do not jump out of water that is gradually made more and more uncomfortable.

I like when others make my model of the world more accurate by notifying me of errors.

That is absolutely correct.

I don’t understand how you can see someone specifically call something a metaphor and think they are pretending not to understand what one is.

My least favourite Hacker News trope is when someone assumes ill-intent instead of understanding a comment for what it says.

I did not make a comment on the OP’s larger point, nor do I think their use of the metaphor invalidates their comment.

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