I don't think there is, sorry man. This guy posted a little after you and had a good go at it

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1184776#answer-1028848

This is really horrible - so many people complaining about 57 and I don't see anybody really caring... looking for some official response but can't see any... all I hear is talk about faster and security - BUT WHAT ABOUT FEATURES - ui - ADD ONs etc.? How come nobody worries about users with a lot invested in the previous versions that all of a sudden lose it and their lives are pretty destroyed by this? Mozilla is supposed to be a community of caring people - it is completely irresponsible to come up with this sort of new version without any warning. As fa as myself, I figured out how to get back to 56.0.2 and that's where I am staying until - hopefully - the dust will settle. Until I see dozens of new addons that will pick up the old files I am not going anywhere - and I am going, I will pretty much abandon FF that I have been using for years and swearing by it and telling everyone how good it is - perhaps I'll go to Chrome. At least with the old version, I have access to utilities that will do mass-copying of hundreds or thousands of links in a way that is accessible in other browsers.

Going back : unfortunately 56.0.2 is no longer safe to use for every day use do to secuity issues, but 52.5.0 ESR is! It will continue to get security updates until May 2018, and you can download and install it from this page: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all/ Note : Legacy Extensions will be deleted or removed in any version update after May 2018.

You should make a backup of your Profile before going back and just because: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles

Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.

Thanks for your answer... As a Top Contributor you may have better access to the people running the show than I do. So here's what I think should happen: Mozilla, an otherwise great organization with a proud history and legacy, that I have been a member of for many years and supported in some ways, should be able to do better than to throw out years of experience and history of its users, as well as wiping out hundreds (?) (thousands?) of add-ons and plugins that are all a work of love and dedication by the community. There should be some recognition of all this work! It's not right to come up one day and decree that all the "legacy" addons are now dead! In my opinion, there should be an effort to adjust these addons to any new environment deemed necessary for security reasons etc. There has to be a conversion path for most of them, and sufficient time given for this process to happen. It's good to hear that 52.5.0 ESR is going to continue getting updated for several more months - I have no idea whether or not that's enough. However, the way that this 57 release was sprung on us is absolutely atrocious - was this the best way to do it? As I mentioned before, I have spent most of a day trying to figure out what's the best way for me to get back on my feet - I have several computers and I was in total shock when this happened. Eventually I went back to 56 since it was the last previous one and I never had any problems with it, and I could wait or spend any more time waiting for answers. I may or may not go back to 52.5. My own thoughts were to simply wait - several months - for the dust to settle, check periodically to see if real replacement add-ons become available (some of the proposed replacements were simply garbage compared to the originals), and then perhaps move forward, one little step at a time e.g. install the new version on an empty computer and play with it and see how it behaves, then try to convert an existing old one etc. At least I can do this at my own pace and see what comes across properly and what doesn't - I certainly can't take a chance on losing old bookmarks, sessions and other links. One thing I have done immediately - make absolutely certain that FF is not going to update itself automatically as used to be the case - and I would strongly blare this message to one and all - that's what should have been by Mozilla as a minimum courtesy - someone there should have anticipated this chaos. Here's another thought: why aren't some of the better add-ons simply incorporated into the standard FF versions? some of my favourites like tab-mix-plus or session manager are simply too good and are light-years ahead of the standard releases - isn't it time to upgrade the base functionality with these and other ideas? It seems that some other browsers are doing this so why not stay ahead of the game? I think that in the last 10 or so years FF has lost a lot of market share - perhaps it's too difficult to keep fighting Google and Microsoft - still I would hate to simply jump ship but the people who run this place should recognize the fact that unless they keep providing backward-compatibility, any time they pull a stunt like this this will cause some people to leave. Remember, Microsoft still runs DOS software on Windows for a reason!

Support Volunteers can't make changes to Firefox so all the above will possible go unnoticed.

To submit suggestions for new or changed features, may I suggest: Feedback: https://qsurvey.mozilla.com/s3/FirefoxInput/

pdani said

Thanks for your answer... As a Top Contributor you may have better access to the people running the show than I do. ...

Sorry you got caught by surprise by the changes in Firefox 57 with regards to Legacy extensions going away.

We are just other users like you, who try to help other Firefox users with their issues with Firefox. We have no influence over what Mozilla does with Firefox, its policies, etc. You really don't expect the "paid help" to be working on Thanksgiving Day, do you?

I for one am still using an older version and have been using older versions for like 3 years now. I had some long used extensions getting broken as far back as Firefox 34 (Dec 2014), and afterwards more got broken version-by-version (or every-other version) as each new version came out. My major complaint has been that Mozilla should have just built this "all new and drastically different version" all at once behind closed doors and then released it to the "public" as "new Firefox" (like New Coke vs the original Coke); rather than change it in stages and ruin the user experience a little bit at a time as the were doing for the last 3 years. Like pulling off a band-aid - rip it off and experience the pain all at once, rather than pulling it off slowly and extending the pain over a few minutes.

This major change has been in the process for few years now, much press coverage about these changes coming "down the pike" has been written about on software news websites for at least the last year or so as the changes have been rolled into earlier versions of Firefox, all developers whose extensions have been hosted by Mozilla have been notified of the changes a number of times in the last year and half. It hasn't been a secret that all Legacy extensions would soon be dead; in fact the Addons Manager carried a yellow highlighted label in both Firefox 55 & 56 which IMO should have prompted user to ask Firefox support what that was all about.

And as far as the more popular extensions being built into Firefox, when that was done in the past - IMO - the built in rendition was missing many of the key features that where in the addon extension. The one that sticks in my mind is the SpellCheck feature that came in Firefox 1.5 (iirc) that replaced the Spellbound addon. Mozilla hired the developer of Spellbound to work on the built in SpellCheck feature, and after that any further development of the extension just plain stopped. What programmer that just got a full time job is going to with extension development as a side job? There is a thing called family time. SpellBound had far more features that didn't make it into the built in SpellCheck feature; most notably the ability to specify the color of the mis-spelled word highlight - we got stuck with a squiggly red underline rather than a colored highlight. Something that has caused "accessibility" issues over the years.

Thanks you Honorable Gentlemen Pkshadow and the-edmeister for your answers (I tried to flag them as positive but it came back with an error!) - I know you/we have very little (0?) control over what Mozilla does - still it helps to vent once in a while and to see that I am not alone. I sort of knew the day will come when addons will stop working as soon as I saw the word "Legacy" pop up - I just didn't know it was NOW - I was naive and expected some notice. I also know that you are volunteers and really appreciate your contributions, but again out of naivete I thought that perhaps the powers that be out there may seek the advice of the forums elders but I guess that will make too much sense. I know for a fact that there are companies out there where the CEOs are roaming the forums but apparently this isn't one of them. So again thanks for your answers and contributions - I shall survive this too as I have many other mishaps in the 50+ years I have spent in IT-Land. BTW: I simply must ask this question: Do we understand why Mr. Shadow, with his 300 solutions / 3192 answers gets the honor of being a "Top 10 Contributor" while Mr.Meister with his 5119 solutions / 37715 answers only gets to be a "Top 25 Contributor"? (We really should get some emojis here - this text editor is so 19xx)! BTW2: We all know what happened to the New Coke...

I just happen to post more often at the moment. the-edmeister is a Moderator so has other duties and things to look after, as well as cleaning up my messes.

If there is something specific that we can help you with that is what Contributors do. Find the answers to all your problems and to make it work right.

Once you kick the... out if this thing you do not even know your running 57 the reviews https://www.howtogeek.com/332449/whats-new-in-firefox-quantum/ https://www.howtogeek.com/333230/why-firefox-had-to-kill-your-favorite-extension/ https://www.howtogeek.com/333805/how-to-change-or-customize-firefoxs-new-tab-page/ and this is the best part : https://www.howtogeek.com/333110/how-to-customize-firefox-quantum-and-remove-the-white-space-around-the-title-bar/ Here's a more comprehensive project which affects not only tabs but brings back the old "grid-style" options menu. https://github.com/axydavid/FirefoxUI/blob/master/README.md

It isn't completely possible to use the Australis design with Firefox 57, but depending on what you want, you might be able to customize the UI to look more like the old one: This project: https://github.com/wilfredwee/photon-australis lets you have the old tab bar appearance back in Firefox 57. You can remove the space around the address bar by right-clicking on the spaces, and choosing "remove from toolbar". Note the Black Theme is just a Example and can be found in Customize.

https://www.userchrome.org/what-is-userchrome-css.html all this stuff will come out slowly just rather hard to find as it is not in 1 place

https://mozilla.github.io/extension-finder/

So ya...ask and will see if it is possible to fix you..

Wow! Mr. Shadow, you simply blow me away with your fireworks display here... I don't quite have enough time for a full response but here are some initial points - it will take me a while to digest all this. [In brackets, I must tell you that I am an old IT type myself, and know some elements of the technologies involved here, I understand the development methodologies and considerations that go into releasing new software etc.] I don't think I ever questioned the need or the timing for new releases, the issues regarding the competitive marketplace, the decisions affecting the features and backward compatibility, and certainly never attributed anything but the best intentions to everyone involved. What I have questioned, however, were some elements of the manner in which this roll-out was performed. I wish that at the project management table there would have been some sort of a discussion regarding the effects of this new release will have on unsuspecting xx% of the user base, who may be caught unaware of the big picture. Yes, I have allowed Mozilla to update FF without even telling me about it, but it would have been nice if someone said: "yes we can do an automatic update but perhaps, just this once, we will not do it. Instead, we will start telling people a month before the release. Whenever FF comes up, there will be a message to this effect, and a short summary of the implications. There will be a box to mark there, allowing the user to stop this message from appearing again. And then, just because, when the big day comes, we will tell the user that it is here, even download it, but ask for specific permission to perform the update". That would have been the professional and considerate way of doing it. I'll bet you that the majority of FF users may not even know about what's happening here, may not care or are not affected. But some of us do, some of us have a lot invested in a particular way of doing business and running their affairs using "legacy" features of the software, and they deserve to be protected. Again thanks for the links and support ...more later(?) BTW: My biggest problem is nothing to do with looks, tabs etc. - this is all fluff - it is with the session manager and the many thousands of saved sessions, each with many tabs, nicely labelled, and my failure to understand why they can not be imported into Quantum - after all, isn't each entry in the sessions folder simply a collection of URLs? (I don't care if each tab keeps all the exact parameters e.g. where on the page I was etc.)? And while we're here, wouldn't it be great if there was some unified way in which to keep collections like these between all browsers? (nah, that would allow people to easily switch between browsers and nobody has any interest in that...!)

pdani said

BTW: I simply must ask this question: Do we understand why Mr. Shadow, with his 300 solutions / 3192 answers gets the honor of being a "Top 10 Contributor" while Mr.Meister with his 5119 solutions / 37715 answers only gets to be a "Top 25 Contributor"? (We really should get some emojis here - this text editor is so 19xx)! BTW2: We all know what happened to the New Coke...

"Only time will tell" if Quantum / Servo / Rust Firefox becomes the "New Coke" of web browsers. I think that Firefox will become more "Classic" than it is now; that Mozilla will expand the extensibility some from their "base" as it now stands. Plus we'll be seeing more new API's coming slowly over the next few release versions that will allow for some features than aren't just possible now; API's for the more arcane features that some Legacy extensions used or had . My feeling is that Mozilla was expecting (or counting on) add-on developers to create some new API's that they needed, so as to help Mozilla with bringing Quantum to fruition.

I have been around here since before this forum went live in 2008, helped with the beta testing of the forum software. I actually have an additional 30.000+ postings between 2008 and July 2010 when the "counter" was reset with version 2 of the forum software.

Those metrics in the left column of the Questions pages are calculated differently than with the main "index" page Top Contributors drop-down below the page header where Pkshadow is #4 and the-edmeister is #8 in the listing there.

I have really cut back on the time that I spend here and I am picky about which thread I choose to "tackle". Plus as mentioned there's Moderation duties for me to attend to.

Then there's too many angry and rude postings where a user "wastes their dime" by ranting on and on about how they were "wronged by Mozilla", rather than calmly asking a question about going back to an older version or asking for help from contributors towards a solution for their issues, and being polite about it in the process.

But hey, at 68 yo I could be 2 to 3 (or 4?) generations younger than many Firefox users, and I don't "do social networking" - so maybe I just I am out-of-date with how humans interact with each other in the internet age when using computers and mobile devices. I am a flip-phone / clamshell-phone kinda guy.

I saw this coming for the last couple of years. I have been using Firefox since Aug 2002 I have seen similar issues with major updates and the changes that they brought to the extensibility, UI changes, and feature changes in Firefox 4 or 5 times already over the year. And as with people who have gone thru many small earthquakes a person can get a feel for when the "big one" is coming. Quantum Firefox 57 was the "big one" for Firefox users, IMO.

Never been in IT, served in the Navy Reserves (Viet Nam era to get in front of the draft) schooled as an aviation electronics technician, so computers weren't all that difficult to grasp when they became "affordable toys" (Altair then Sinclair ZX) in the late 70'a, owned my own auto mechanical repair shop for 30 years where I got an IBM XT in 1984 to run the front office and then an SX-386 to interact with other automotive technicians via text-based message boards via ARPA-NET before it was called the World Wide Web or the Internet. And since retiring at too early of an age in 1998 (I hadn't considered getting bored during the first year. after working 12 - 13 hour days, 6 days a week for so many years; part-time job for access to group health insurance and 3 hobbies didn't fill the time fully) I got addicted to the Internet and the concept of open-source software; which I found really attractive as a result of having spent wasted 10 of thousands of dollars over the previous 15 years on software that was garbage or didn't work as "advertised", or was impossibly hard to use via command line. I spent more on software during my first year on the internet than I have spent in the last 18 years, too.