The moderization and disabling of extension/add-ons
Coming home today I found some add-ons disabled, and a lot tagged Legacy. I get safety, ID theft, it's all hit me personally, so I believe in preserving one's being and all attached value. Having said that , my software for my HP 3 in 1 disabled ?....sorry that is overboard. Having spent 1.5 hours and counting on my off day reading all these security breaches has become cumbersome, just get security y'all alerts from the US CERT......it's mind blowing. Firefox which patronizes a ton of these develpers "legacy tagged" 4 add-ons/ext's - bought or downloaded on Firefox ? ( 5 of which were downloaded between 5/2017 -7/2017. Also they flagged my Norton Tool bar extension, please F Fox- let me know if they are dangerous. Point being, I truly love this browser, seems like every co. is 2 steps behind the hackers, and to me sometimes overboard....Norton?...and they flagged their 'Private browsing Mode ?...rated 4 out of 5 stars...which was still be promoted 4 weeks ago, maybe now. How do I get a new 3 in 1?...Yahoo toolbar was flagged, and downloaded on Firefox. This is going to cost, I have to believe while doing the pilot runs to develop this new technology, possibly there were red flags during the past 3 months I downloaded most of these......HP told me "Isn't our problem"....It's not about me, but for real, I need that printer every day for work....Just saying a bulletin via site/email should have gone out much earlier. Building it up, to tear it back down. As of today no warnings on the add-on/extension page....Still the browser......
All Replies (5)
To be blunt, Norton's toolbars are trash and they don't work. In fact, all rd party toolbars are practically useless and waste valuable screen estate.
Also, Mozilla didn't just spring this on you. They've talked about it on their blog since 2015.
All do respect Moses. Some do not have the time to read blogs, your opinion about Norton is in fact yours, but doesn't justify flagging it?....As to non-answers or solutions to disabling my HP printer, now I cannot print my pay stubs. Who in their right mind would do this to a person. What about Yahoo Toolbar, my VPN that I pay for from the Firefox add on site?.....the Private Browsing Mode they promoted heavily as a tool to get people to use their browser?.....toolbar button for Facebook, and Places Maintenance, again from the Firefox add-on site, and downloaded from their homepage. Not liking something is personal. I don't like Ibanez guitars, who cares? Why was this not posted on the add-on/extension site. That would have been professional and the right thing to do. Please tell me I am being unreasonable???
Sorry, but I strongly disagree. I am not a Firefox/Mozilla Blog Addict. I use my browser to get things done, not because I am a Firefox groupie. I do like my browser set up in a particular way for what is effective and efficient for me--which may not be what any given programmer or another user prefers. That is why it is called a "user interface." Underscore _user_
So, yes, I have learned a lot about FF's deprecations of user interface capabilities in moving to FF 55 and to FF57 soon, Nov 2017, but this is all new to me as extensions began to break and crumble.
The path that Firefox on reminds me of when Word Perfect began imitating MS Word... the beginning of the end.
Moses said
To be blunt, Norton's toolbars are trash and they don't work. In fact, all rd party toolbars are practically useless and waste valuable screen estate. Also, Mozilla didn't just spring this on you. They've talked about it on their blog since 2015.
Hi russommk, "Legacy" does not necessarily indicate "disabled" in Firefox 55-56. It is a warning that those extensions will not run in Firefox 57. Some will have good replacements, some will not; you may find comments from the add-on developer indicating, for example, that they cannot create a version compatible with Firefox 57, or they are working on it, or they have created a replacement with the same or reduced functionality.
Regarding the ones that changed to a disabled status in Firefox 55 and can't be re-enabled, what explanation is given? You may need to click the "More" link to get additional details.
I don't follow your comment about Private Browsing Mode. That is a built-in feature and doesn't require any add-ons. (See: Private Browsing - Use Firefox without saving history)
The problem appears to be that Firefox is dumbing down its APIs so that developers cannot do what they used to be able to. The best add-ons need low level access APIs, but Firefox is only providing high level access. Fluff and prettiness instead of deep function.
It may reduce crashes, but at the expense of what made me use Firefox as my primary browser for so many years - ever since Netscape died and IE was so poor. I've put up with crashes and freezes because ultimately I could do so much more so much better. No longer.
My list of installed add-ons is now a list of disabled and Legacy add-ons. I tried Firefox v57 aka Quantum. Most of those I used were gone. Some developers have just left - gone elsewhere. Active Developers cannot update because they do not yet have access to the APIs they need.
Firefox Quantum tried to update itself, and then refused to re-open because it "Couldn't find XPCOM ". I'm back to 56 because at least for a little while longer I can use my useful add-ons.