Open Aris-t2 opened 7 years ago
So...firefox is dead? How about porting it to palemoon? There is a lot of theme stuff that needs to be fixed there even if they dont have australized...
Palemoon does not need CTR. All important CTR features are part of Palemoon by default, because Palemoon never switched to Fx29+ UI.
Well, I kind of disagree. There is a lot wrong with palemoon that CTR has fixed in firefox. Sure there are some stand alone addons that may work, but they don't come close to covering all the bases. For example everything from tab width to how the palemoon button doesn't move nor it is possible to change it to an icon as far as I can see.
To help explain, here is a semi-recent scrot of my firefox.
Your position is fully understandable, but bluntly I feel like I been given the short end of the stick and then mozilla snatched it back just to break it in half...
Thank you for your work @Aris-t2, mozilla has wasted your time and will annoy many users. Not serious according to a mozilla master, only 40% of people use addons ... :( :-1:
CTR made Firefox usable for me despite Australis.
My sincere thanks to you for having created and maintained it so diligently.
@kyodev To be blunt, online petitions are bullshit. I do not recall a single instance where an online petition did achieve something. Also, developers of very popular addons (DownThemAll, CTR, QuickSaver and a few others) have been throwing their weight at that decision, and have been either ignored or told that the plan will be executed as planned. Combined these addons have millions of users (maybe even tens of millions), and now Mozilla should care about an online petition with 100 signatures?
you know what? I think you're right ... :( Is it always better than to grumble without doing anything? no? Never mind. Hope makes it live? a little
Well, fuck. I was just customizing a new Firefox installation when I noticed this message. Finding the out add-on will go away because of yet another terrible decision by Mozilla is baffling and disappointing. And concerning too, because I've become super comfortable with how I can get Firefox to look and behave and now I have no idea what browser I'm going to have to switch to in the future. It's just completely unusable for me without the add ons.
@kyodev To clarify. I do believe that people can make change happen if they want to, however, I do not believe that slapping your name on an online list and being done with it will do anything, anywhere, anytime. If you want a change, look up if somebody else requested it already and what the state is, if not, state your case to the right people (firefox-dev and dev-addons mailing list, in this case). But don't believe that slapping your name on an online petition will achieve anything (just like slapping "+1" on a feature request will not make the coder go faster, or saying "this software is terrible" will magically make the software better with the next version).
For everyone else, Mozilla seems to beg down a little in this regard, as they are hinting that there will be APIs in the future to change the appearance of Firefox from addons, I wouldn't hold my breath, though. My question on the dev-addons list can be found here.
"Some kind of theming" will be possible even after Firefox 57 arrives, but it will be highly restricted. No "I can do what I want" anymore with CSS, JavaScript or XML/XUL-similar stuff. No more moving around stuff Mozilla does not want you to move around (buttons in titlebar, location bar, status area etc.).
Changing toolbar, tab and icon colors (maybe even icons later -> unknown) and using squared tabs will be possible. Look at current Nightly builds and the available "Compact" themes for example.
This however still means add-ons like CTR won't survive and rebuilding something that has two or three of over 400 features just seems wrong and not worthy of being called CTR.
I've used CTR since Mozilla introduced Australis and took away a lot of the old features I liked. I install it on every computer I use Firefox on. This may be a dumb question, but I am sure it will be possible to stay on Firefox 56 for as long as I want, just like many Opera users did when they killed that browser too. Therefore, it will still be possible to use the final released version of this addon, correct? I know the browser will grow more out of date every day, but I imagine I will cross that bridge when it arrives, like many people.
I'm sure the people here already agree completely, but I don't think I can ever use Firefox once they kill off these old addons. I absolutely HATE the new search in particular, and without CTR to change back to the dropdown search, I would be better off just using Chrome at that point. That is Mozilla's goal I guess =].
perhaps, it would be better to swith to firefox 52esr (issue in avril 2017) support and security fix fo approximately one year, after ...
Another nail in the FF coffin. Mozilla seem determined to continue to ruin Firefox till no one uses it - apart from fanboys. RIP FF - you were great once.
Wait some time, what happens after the release. I guess there will be many extension developers and their users, which try to revolt against the change, when their favourite extensions suddenly become useless. Something will happen.
I think there will be quite a few forks of firefox, but i see that it's too hard to maintain a firefox fork for most people. I see with palemoon, that they probably won't keep up, if they aren't already vulnerable to things fixed in recent firefox. But with such a breaking change, there is a chance, that quite a few volunteers from the mozilla community organize and make more possible than the people, which were just annoyed by a ugly default theme.
When the last ESR becomes unsupported we will see what has developed until then, which forks, patchsets, etc. are available as alternative. I still do not believe, that the many many extension developers and power users will silently accept the change.
Which doesn't mean, that WebExtensions are bad. E10S, Multiprocess and WebExtensions are great and XUL is probably not the best solution for making a gui extendable without breaking extensions on major changes in the gui. But the solution is to abandon it, after there are WebExtension APIs, which allow the same amount of customization. Which is quite possible, but seems unwanted at the moment.
When Firefox switched to Australis, I started to use your CTR addon and that was the only reason I kept on with Firefox. I can't stand Chrome look-alike interface. For now, I am testing Seamonkey, it looks like Firefox at it used to be on its debut. I hope you will port your addons to Seamonkey and or Palemoon. I stand with Firefox as long as your CTR works.
Firefox used to be synonym for freedom which is lesser and lesser case. I encourage you to keep on with your addon maintenance. ;)
Per this doc (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/Firefox57) old extensions will still work in Nightly (even not e10s compatibile), but how long I don't know. Maybe there will be some workaround turn them on also for beta / release (like we have for unsigned addon).
Only in theory. The massive changes will break them anyway. See https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/04/05/compatibility-firefox-54/#comment-223852
Once CTR and the ability to customize stop working I will stop using Firefox. Totally dislike Australis and anything flat or "Chromish". And CTR is the only reason I stuck with FF since it came out, essentially..
Too many changes made just to make them..
The scrapping of the BEST PART of Firefox the, "XUL/XPCOM " based extension system for SOMETHING TOTALLY INFERIOR TO IT...
THIS IS THE DARKEST DAY IN Firefox's ENTIRE HISTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! X( X( X( X( SHAME ON MOZILLA for be so LAME/STUPID/etc
I heard they even fired their original CEO...
My entire LIFE revolves around Firefox.. so I will NOT be able to upgrade beyond FF v56 probable for the rest of my natural life... MOZILLA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IDIOTS!!
end rant! loi ;p
Rapid release cycles were theoretically a good process improvement, but the turning point for Mozilla as a whole. Australis was the straw that broke my back. For anyone still on Firefox, I recommend you start now building up/getting comfortable with a profile in Pale Moon or some other suitable alternative. (By my estimation, Pale Moon is the closest approximation of Firefox when it was best at its core competencies, i.e. meaningful customization and catering to advanced users.)
However, do not rush to stop using Firefox before XUL/XPCOM support is removed. It's not likely to have an impact, but short-term usage metrics should clearly demonstrate the impact this has on their active user base. Words failed, so make Mozilla know they'll be the sole occupants of their brave new world by your actions.
@evan-king Something will happen. I think there will be a lot of forks, where most are dying pretty soon. Possibly some will survive.
The problem is, XUL may be hard to support without mozilla paying for a lot of manpower. And somebody will sooner or later need to exchange gecko for servo. On the other hand, somebody has to support XUL to keep thunderbird alive, which depends on XUL and doesn't have any manpower left. I heard they have some plans to migrate their interface to something based on HTML (not that soon, as far as i know) as well, but this will frustrate many users as well. So there are quite a lot people interested in XUL.
The petition is dead and will be dead. 240 sigs in 3 months. Nobody knows, nobody cares and will keep on not caring until everything breaks.
Browsers nowadays are treated like phone OSs. What you do matters not, what matters is "apps". What can you do, what can't you do, how buttery smooth you are.
Soon, all the "apps" are gonna break and when they do Firefox is going to be gone. Market share is declining because the addons keep dying, I think I lost all my favorites in the last couple years. When it finally kills them and it simplifies the look, it will finally be the poor man's Chrome they always wanted and finally be laid to rest because nobody wants a poor man's Chrome when Chrome is free.
IMO, Firefox started dying off when they opted to take away my manual history limit because people's histories made Firefox slow. The shift in mentality is what broke Firefox. You make history faster, you don't make my history "automatic". Videos auto-play? Get an addon or something. Crashes? Addon memory collection. Memory usage too large? 64 bit. To heck with fixing, we need VR support STAT!
Ah well. You know you're doing bad when Safari takes your market share.
Le roi est mort, vive le roi.
I have made a work-in-progress WebExtensions replacement for the application button here: ExE-Boss/app-menu, available on AMO.
@ExE-Boss Great job!
Thanks for all your work Artis-t2.
For what it's worth, I keep auto-updates turned off because FF update is too stupid to retain my various customizations or offer any kind of real migration path. Unless you want the latest and greatest bells and whistles, FF upgrades rarely add any new value besides eye-candy and headaches.
My XP machine is still using FF 31 and it works just fine. There is nothing I 'miss' from the newer builds I use on my other machines. In fact, each time I upgrade, it seems like they ADD NOTHING I care about and REMOVE yet another thing that I use everyday.
I just upgraded today, to FF54 and they don't support tab groups anymore!? Thankfully they made an add-on with the same functionality. Tab groups is THE reason I still put up with FF. I'm seriously tempted to go back to EI after 17 years using FF.
So while it sucks that we can't upgrade anymore if we don't want to be screwed but in most cases, you probably don't want to upgrade anyhow.
me too I disable auto-updates for most if not all programs I use including Windows.. software updates are my specialty :D :D SO I CHECK MANUALLY for updates daily ! :D :D :D
YUP!
with Firefox v57.. and the SCRAPPING of the XUL/XPCOM extension system (Firefox's GREATEST FEATURE!!!!)
They are in short THROWING EVERY LAST Firefox Extension USER RIGHT UNDER THE BUS!!! 🙄 :ROLLS-EYES:
ITS SUICIDE ON MOZILLA PART!!!!
but what ya gonna DO?!
Chrome sucks, IE is not really being updated much anymore..
everything I do is tied to Firefox...!
ps: THANKS Artis-t2 for CTR, its been indispensable!!
Looks like I'm sticking with FF v56 for the rest of my days!!
@Fuzzy-Logik @MelchiorGaspar
May I suggest to test Firefox 52 ESR? It will receive security updates until summer 2018, what will be far better than staying on Firefox 56. In fact since Firefox 53 more and more things do not work as they should or not at all compared to Fx 52. See first post.
Hi @Aris-t2, thx for the suggestion.. ehh lol but your not the first to suggest it loi ;) I'm already on v54.0.1 so Idk about downgrading...
I'll manage I guess, till some one can engineer replacements/or/updates for the extension I use.. :sighs: it cold be a while lol ;)
@MelchiorGaspar I think that you can downgrade to ESR until v55, which has some breaking changes in the profile configuration. I tried to find the source (it’s somewhere on the Firefox subreddit), but I can’t seem to find it.
Edit: Found it in the Beta release notes.
lol yup.... the "breaking changes" are to the
they are moving the Favorite icons table into its own database file.. into "favicons.sqlite." Why?! waste the time idk...
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=977177 https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/97320/diff/6#index_header
Just wanted to add, I downgraded from 54.whatever.is.current x64 to 52ESR x64 and it worked painlessly. Close ffx, Install, next, next, "upgrade"
I'm moving to ESR and, once that dies off or whatever, I'm switching to Chrome. I hate that they send everything to Google, but **** it, what am I going to do? Edge has even fewer options and fewer addons and the rest aren't even worth considering.
I wish Edge had addons. It's fast as hell. Then again, maybe that's why it's fast :P
I'm going to start work on Chrome and try to figure out of there is a way to not send QUITE everything to Google. Then again, I have few secrets that aren't in my e-mails. At least my work and pics are on Dropbox.
@IMNdi Try Ungoogled Chromium instead, it is Chromium (Google Chrome without most of the spyware) with the rest of the spyware removed.
I also suggest to test Vivaldi browser instead of moving to Chrome. They are featurewise similar, but Vivaldi offers many customization features. You can even add custom CSS code to resource files, although its a bit tricky, Here is how I set up my Vivaldi. It is "close" to how my Firefox looks.
@JustOff I did have Pale Moon for a while. We have had irreconcilable differences. Either it broke a major addon or it didn't want to play video, can't remember, I may give it a shot again. I think not all addons work with it. I also assume it lacks Firefox Sync since it has Firefox in it. I'd have to check.
@ExE-Boss A problem similar to Pale Moon. Can't run addons from the store, I guess I could try to download and install manually but it seems like a lot of work. It also doesn't solve the issue of UI customization and other advantages Firefox have.
OK, I installed Pale Moon and the home page specifically says that it is not compatible with many extensions. Oh well, I'll try again and see what has come of it. Apparently, they switched focus to performance and stability and away from new features.
Remember the good old days, when performance and stability were good focuses to have?
Update 2: OK, I have the list of known incompatible addons. The bad news is, ABP and the EXCELLENT Element Hiding Helper are gone. On the bright side, ForecastFox! Oh how I missed that.
We're becoming fast friends. Cross your fingers, I'm gonna ask her out.
If you are looking for Palemoon compatible add-ons on AMO, you might want to check older versions, that are Firefox 24 compatible. Those should install fine.
@IMNdi I'll be happy to help you with compatibility issues, but we probably should move Pale Moon related discussion to its forum. Most answers are already there, so use search and feel free to ask questions.
@JustOff I did, I was hoping that at least part of CTR would have made it over but as I understand it Firefox and Pale Moon have very little in common under the hood and CTR will basically have to be rewritten.
I'm starting to understand the developer exodus. From the outside, it feels like someone changed the UI but actually it's a very different beast and, unless I am mistaken, nothing that was built for Australis will ever work on the old Firefox or Pale Moon.
@IMNdi Just to make things clear: Pale Moon 27 is based on Firefox 38 ESR core, but with pre-Australis UI, thus its interface is already classic and CTR is not required. At the same time Pale Moon core and UI contain both unique features and ones that was backported from modern Firefox (up to the current nightly).
As for extensions compatibility, most of the add-ons targeted to Firefox up to 27 will run as is, moreover the ones that targeted to newer Firefox and made using Mozilla Add-ons SDK could be also easily adapted (unless, of course, they interact with Australis UI at low level).
@JustOff CTR has many features that go beyond restoring and way into customization. Colors of tabs, font sizes, rounded items, etc. I was hoping that it could still have a life as a PM addon.
Especially since PM seems way more stable, UI-wise.
@JustOff I considered PaleMoon.. but they are so far behind in development compared to the main Firefox branch.. yeah... probably not gonna go that route...
Its Firefox v56 FOREVER I guess... unless MOZILLA gets their collective head out of their A**es.. XUL/XPCOM IS THE BEST... its a bit old but TRIED AND TRUE! Web-Extension just isn't cutting it... YET! 🙄
maybe some day they will fix/upgrade! Web-Ext. API enough thatmany more now called "LEGACY" extensions can be ported...
Like I said before MOZILLA HAS LOST THEIR MINDS!
They are in short THROWING EVERY LAST Firefox Extension USER RIGHT UNDER THE BUS!!! 🙄 :ROLLS-EYES:
ITS SUICIDE ON MOZILLA PART!!!!
I´m not a geek by a long way,so a "simple" question; I used Seamonkey and PaleMoon as support browsers to Firefox,till I got bored of them,and replaced them with Comodo Ice Dragon and Cyberfox;will CTR continue to work with them or or does the Mozilla wall come tumbling down? Thanks
As long as those browsers do not move to Firefox 57+ code base CTR will work. I don't know which way Comodo Ice Dragon will go, but the developer of Cyberfox already said the project reaches its EOL soon, meaning it gets discontinued in the near future. See https://8pecxstudios.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1756
:-) thanks for that and the quick reply
CTR and other add-ons should still work on Firefox 52 ESR until Firefox 59 ESR replaces it in 2018 (~Q2).
A little clarification about that: subsequent ESR versions have a two-versions-lifespan overlap; Firefox 59 ESR will arrive at 2018-03-06 but Firefox 52 will be supported until 2018-06-25. If you use ESR 52 you'll get auto-updated to ESR 59 on 2018-06-26 but ESR 59 will have already existed for 3.5 months at that point.
See https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar for more details on the release schedule.
@mgol 2018-06-26 is in Q2, so @Aris-t2’s quote is valid.
Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 |
---|---|---|---|
x-01-01 – x-03-31 | x-04-01 – x-06-30 | x-07-01 – x-09-30 | x-10-01 – x-12-31 |
If you are on Firefox ESR 52.6, you will get an offer to upgrade to Firefox ESR 59.0 on 2018-03-06. If you decline that offer, Firefox will just update to Firefox ESR 52.7. This will be repeated for one more cycle (Firefox ESR 52.8/59.1). From 2018-06-26 on Firefox ESR 59.2 will be the only up-to-date and "secure" ESR version of Firefox and ESR 52.x will be deprecated.
I have updated OP with this info.
@ExE-Boss
@mgol 2018-06-26 is in Q2, so @Aris-t2’s quote is valid.
Sure, I didn't mean it's not valid, I just meant it might not be clear to everyone.
@Aris-t2
If you are on Firefox ESR 52.6, you will get an offer to upgrade to Firefox ESR 59.0 on 2018-03-06.
Are you sure? I have an ESR version installed separately for testing purposes and it has never offered me an update to a next ESR before the previous one got EOL'd; I always got an update to a version x.2.0
.
No no more updating until it's rebuilt or ported.
Got it.
If you want to use Classic Theme Restorer (and other legacy add-ons) up to summer 2018, I suggest to switch to Firefox ESR channel. Firefox 52 ESR gets all security updates default Firefox gets without changing base code and without new add-on breaking changes. From 2018-06-26 on there won't be any official up-to-date Firefox, that runs legacy add-ons anymore.
Moving to Firefox 52 ESR after installing Firefox 55/56 might break your browser profile. It is recommended to move to Firefox 52 ESR before Firefox 55 release (2017-08-08).
Waterfox and Basilisk browsers (based on Firefox code) will keep legacy add-on support.
Release schedule update: Fx 60 will become ESR instead of 59.
Difference between Extended Support Release channel and default channel: Fx 52.0 ESR = Firefox 52 (first major code changes since Firefox 45.0 ESR) Fx 52.1 ESR = Firefox 53 (without major code changes since Fx 52, but with security updates from Fx 53) Fx 52.2 ESR = Firefox 54 (without major code changes since Fx 52, but with security updates from Fx 54) ... Fx 52.7 ESR = Firefox 59 (without major code changes since Fx 52, but with security updates from Fx 59) Fx 52.8 ESR = Firefox 60 (without major code changes since Fx 52, but with security updates from Fx 60) Fx 52.9 ESR = Firefox 61 (without major code changes since Fx 52, but with security updates from Fx 61) Fx 60.0 ESR = Firefox 60 (first major code changes since Firefox 52.0 ESR) Fx 60.1 ESR = Firefox 61 (without major code changes since Fx 60, but with security updates from Fx 61) ...
Release dates: [2018-01-23] Firefox 58 / ESR 52.6 [2018-03-13] Firefox 59 / ESR 52.7 [2018-05-08] Firefox 60 / ESR 52.8 / ESR 60 [2018-07-03] Firefox 61 / ESR 52.9 / ESR 60.1 [2018-08-28] Firefox 62 / ESR 60.2 -> end of life for legacy add-ons
Note: If you are on Firefox ESR 52.7, you should get an offer to upgrade to Firefox ESR 60.0 on 2018-05-08. If you decline that offer, Firefox will just update to Firefox ESR 52.8. This will be repeated for one more cycle (Firefox ESR 52.9). From 2018-08-28 Firefox ESR 60.2 will be the only up-to-date and "secure" ESR version of Firefox and ESR 52.x will be deprecated.
Note:
CTR and other legacy add-ons will stop working on Firefox 57 when WebExtension will replace legacy add-ons and XUL/XPCOM support will be removed for add-ons completely. CTR (and all of my other Firefox add-ons on AMO) can not survive this change.
Even if it will be possible to port some of CTRs currently over 400 tweaks/options/features to WebExtensions one day (currently none of them would work in a XUL free environment), I have no plans to do that. The outcome would not be CTR anymore.
At the moment more and more Firefox 57 features land on Firefox Nightly. As a result some CTR features stopped working on Firefox 55/56 Nightly. They work on Firefox 55 beta and also might work on Firefox 56 beta and on Firefox 55/56 release builds.
CTR had to drop support so far for:
WebExtensions may be the future for web content add-ons (according to Mozilla), but losing powerful ui customization ability on user level is definitively the biggest step back Firefox ever made. It loses the only advantage it has over ALL other browsers.
Additional explanation to this statement: On some comments areas on various websites protectionists of WebExtensions claim by quoting the previous sentences I have not understood how future development of applications works, blabbing applications have to drop "old ballast" in order to reinvent themselves and offer new technologies and other nonsense. Those ignorant protectionists (like Hauro) fail to understand, that CTR was and still is fully compatible to all so-called modern technologies added through time to Firefox like multi-process architecture, 64Bit architecture etc... The only reason why CTR does not work in Firefox 57+ is Mozillas decision to take away add-ons almighty power over the browser, not because add-on features are incompatible to modern techniques or Firefox 57+ in general. A simple CSS loader would allow over 80% of CTRs features to be available for Firefox 57+. This is proven by all userChrome.css/userContent.css tweaks available here. This also applies to my other add-ons like Classic Toolbar Buttons, NoiaButtons and GlassMyFox. NoiaButtons for example could be fully ported to userChrome.css and is working in Firefox 57+ just fine.
For now I will only try to keep my add-ons "alive" till the end of Fx 52 ESR, if I'm still allowed to upload updated legacy add-ons to AMO.
CTR and other add-ons should still work on Firefox 52 ESR until Firefox 59 ESR replaces it in 2018 (~Q2). Waterfox should also support legacy add-ons indefinitely.
Are we WebExtensions yet? http://arewewebextensionsyet.com APIs > Legend > complete
Add-ons in 2017 https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2016/11/23/add-ons-in-2017/
Classic Theme Restorer may be dead by the end of 2017 http://www.ghacks.net/2016/11/26/classic-theme-restorer-may-be-dead-by-the-end-of-2017/
Old Firefox Extensions Will Stop Working in Firefox 57 http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3025513
The Dev-addons Archives https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/dev-addons/
Bug 1328244 - [WebExtensions] Firefox customization API request - WONTFIXed by Mozilla https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1328244
The Road to Firefox 57 – Compatibility Milestones https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/04/05/compatibility-firefox-54/#comment-223852
Keep in mind: Mozilla decided to end current powerful browser customization not the add-on developers! It is still unknown what will be possible with upcoming APIs in the future.
Firefox 57+ tweaks
As long as userChrome.css is supported, we can get rid of Photon UI by modifying existing stuff. We can not add anything new to the UI though.
Promo of what I have tested so far (on Win7 with AeroBlue colors, possible on other OSs too)![main](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6013569/30417501-4682e4c2-9930-11e7-9947-5851e6d5c5ff.png)
More here: https://github.com/Aris-t2/ClassicThemeRestorer/issues/365