- Feb 4, 2016
- 37
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- 4,540
Hello.
As you've probably heard already, Mozilla wants to kill the concept of Add-Ons in favour of the much weaker and less versatile Web-Extensions as of the end of November 2017 with Firefox 57. This poses a huge issue for any Add-On that just aren't realizable using Web-Extensions, be it due to the amount of control they need in order to do their job, or the work it poses to often just a single developer to port them over to a Web-Extension. As I've had to read, a few of the Add-Ons I am using every day are negatively affected by this change. That's why I'm looking for another Browser that accepts the old Add-Ons, and hopefully also the new Web-Extensions that're being pushed by Mozilla.
The Browser "Pale Moon" looks promising in so far that it supports old Firefox Add-Ons and is Open Source. Most of the Add-Ons that are relevant for me have their own Pale-Moon-versions, while the ones that are left can be downloaded from Mozilla's Add-On store and are usually also compatible with this browser. But unfortunately, the developers don't seem to want to include Web-Extension-support in the future, making the usage of the newer Firefox Extensions impossible. For example, that includes Magic Actions for YouTube, which has already been updated to WebExtensions compliance and needs to be kept up-to-date in order to work properly. I am afraid that some day, Pale Moon will lack Extension Support simply because most old Add-Ons have become obsolete or security-gap-ridden and WebExtensions won't work. Maybe compatibility with Chrome Extensions would fix that issue, though I imagine that to be a relatively hard task to achieve on that browser engine.
The other browser I've taken a look at is "Brave". It comes with some built-in security features such as a general script blocker, some anti-tracker software, and a built-in ad-block. I'm not very trusting of such built-in features, as there isn't too much insight in what exactly they are doing. That's why I prefer installing extensions myself, which unfortunately doesn't seem to work over there at all. There are some pre-installed Add-Ons which do not interest me at all, and by the looks of it, Brave Developers are working on Add-On compatibility one by one. Since that browser is forked off Chromium, I don't think old Add-Ons will ever be able to work on there unless one relies on the developers to port and integrate them manually. Additionally, I don't like the fact that while blocking trackers and ads, the developers are openly talking about collecting data in order to personalize advertisements in the future. That's the kind of stuff I didn't want to happen.
Do you know any other promising browsers that one can take a look at? If yes, I'd love to hear about them.
As you've probably heard already, Mozilla wants to kill the concept of Add-Ons in favour of the much weaker and less versatile Web-Extensions as of the end of November 2017 with Firefox 57. This poses a huge issue for any Add-On that just aren't realizable using Web-Extensions, be it due to the amount of control they need in order to do their job, or the work it poses to often just a single developer to port them over to a Web-Extension. As I've had to read, a few of the Add-Ons I am using every day are negatively affected by this change. That's why I'm looking for another Browser that accepts the old Add-Ons, and hopefully also the new Web-Extensions that're being pushed by Mozilla.
The Browser "Pale Moon" looks promising in so far that it supports old Firefox Add-Ons and is Open Source. Most of the Add-Ons that are relevant for me have their own Pale-Moon-versions, while the ones that are left can be downloaded from Mozilla's Add-On store and are usually also compatible with this browser. But unfortunately, the developers don't seem to want to include Web-Extension-support in the future, making the usage of the newer Firefox Extensions impossible. For example, that includes Magic Actions for YouTube, which has already been updated to WebExtensions compliance and needs to be kept up-to-date in order to work properly. I am afraid that some day, Pale Moon will lack Extension Support simply because most old Add-Ons have become obsolete or security-gap-ridden and WebExtensions won't work. Maybe compatibility with Chrome Extensions would fix that issue, though I imagine that to be a relatively hard task to achieve on that browser engine.
The other browser I've taken a look at is "Brave". It comes with some built-in security features such as a general script blocker, some anti-tracker software, and a built-in ad-block. I'm not very trusting of such built-in features, as there isn't too much insight in what exactly they are doing. That's why I prefer installing extensions myself, which unfortunately doesn't seem to work over there at all. There are some pre-installed Add-Ons which do not interest me at all, and by the looks of it, Brave Developers are working on Add-On compatibility one by one. Since that browser is forked off Chromium, I don't think old Add-Ons will ever be able to work on there unless one relies on the developers to port and integrate them manually. Additionally, I don't like the fact that while blocking trackers and ads, the developers are openly talking about collecting data in order to personalize advertisements in the future. That's the kind of stuff I didn't want to happen.
Do you know any other promising browsers that one can take a look at? If yes, I'd love to hear about them.
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