What happened to the Request Policy addon?
I have reverted back to Nightly 49 on my computers and have no intentions of updating beyond it, as too many valuable addons, that I need, have disappeared from the addon database. Needing to get a fresh copy of the Request Policy addon, I searched the addons.mozilla.org database but, to my surprise, was unable to find it.
I then had a look at the addon's website, and found a message from the author, Justin, indicating that he has embarked on a new career path and has stopped working on the Request Policy addon. So, I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his previous work, wish him the best in his new Wordpress and PHP hosting business, and at the same time send out a cheerio to the folks who have accepted the challenge of continuing Justin's work, under the new name Request Policy Continued.
On their website, I did find a direct addons.mozilla link to the Request Policy Legacy addon, but sadly and to my indignant surprise, the link is dead!!!! https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/requestpolicy-legacy/
What happened to the addon? Why is the link dead? Is Mozilla abandoning it's support for older versions of FireFox that quickly? Does someone in the community need to step up and make a backup of the addon database to preserve the good work that's been contributed from the community?
Všetky odpovede (3)
Legacy Extensions have been removed since they do not work on the more current Firefox Releases since 57.0 and later.
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2018/08/21/timeline-for-disabling-legacy-firefox-add-ons/ https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Add-ons/Legacy_add_ons https://www.ghacks.net/2018/08/21/firefox-legacy-add-on-removal-from-mozilla-amo/
BTW the word Nightly refers to one of the Development channels and not a version or such. The Nightly channel for a good while now gets checkins twice a day with two updates each day so these are considered more for Devs and Testers in mind.
Release < Beta (also Dev Ed) (b#) < Nightly (a1)
So if you wanted to use a old vulnerable version like Firefox 49.0 then you should use the 49.0 Release released on September 20, 2016 and not some random unstable build of 49.0a1 on Nightly channel that came out sometime earlier on.
Some Extensions that were made for SeaMonkey but also worked on the old Firefox 56.0.2 and earlier (including 52.9.0esr) are listed at https://addons.thunderbird.net/seamonkey as for example https://addons.thunderbird.net/seamonkey/search/?q=Request+Policy
Upravil(a) James dňa
See also extensions like this:
- Request Control https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/requestcontrol/
Thanks for the feedback. Cor-el, I think you meant "requestblock". Whilst I accept James' comments about my choice, Nightly 49, I've been really happy with Nightly for a couple years now. The only issue that's been niggling me recently has been the fact that GitHub and Facebook are forever reminding me that they "don't support my version any longer". As far as I'm concerned, I think they should be developing cross platform without specific browsers in mind. Moreover, in the last month that I've been running FireFox 65, I haven't seen any features that FireFox 35 (or earlier) wouldn't be able to achieve, so I'm not real impressed with what they're doing. Change for the sake of change? Why? (Read below.)
A much bigger issue for me, and you will notice I'm using a FireFox fork now, is the lack of support for legacy addons. I'm not against progress and wish Mozilla the best into the future with WebExtensions. I just think it's a shame that Mozilla's project leaders have given a black/white ultimatum to a large number of FireFox users. I chose Nightly 49 because I was confused about which version of FireFox (48 I think) would work with my addons, and once I found one that did, I decided to sit on it.
However, my biggest concern regarding browsers is privacy, NOT security. I specifically chose FireFox because of privacy concerns many many years ago. I was naive back then and figured that an Open Source browser must surely be more private than any commercial product. I say naive because I didn't know at the time, that Netscape, FireFox's mom, had its cookies re-engineered to provide improved tracking at the expense of privacy. But by the time I did find out, I had already formed a positive perception of FireFox and understood that using addons such as Noscript and RequestPolicy (and being thoughtful about how I use the internet) put me in a much better place than most. It shouldn't take events like Mark Zuckerburg being grilled in Congress to introduce tracker blocking, yet that's what's happened (both Mozilla and Apple might blush at this point). Another current sore point I have with FireFox Quantum is its implementation of the built-in screenshot functionality. If you have a think about how it's presented, you will understand why I've mentioned it here (Save or Download, that is the choice). What else concerns me greatly at present, is the advent/take-up of big data and cookie-less tracking through browser signatures, which are privacy issues. So, I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that the security issues we hear about all the time are being waved before users like red herrings to distract users from what's really important; degradation in privacy. A real security threat is that though the loss of privacy, we risk becoming victims of theft, identity theft, persecution by zealots, and lots of other concerns.
Whilst Mozilla's leaders may use the term "progress" to describe the period since the introduction of the Rapid Release Cylce (RPC) paradigm, I prefer to refer to it as a period of "attrition". Since RPC was introduced, I perceive a gradual decline in the quality of the overall product (I'm including Addons here as I believe they are a significant contributor to FireFox's success) and have decided to jump ship. I really hate frequent updates because I never get efficient at the tasks I need to be doing, I'm a firm believer of the philosophical opinion of not fixing things that aren't broken, and I think planning ahead is a really good idea so you don't code yourself into a hole!