Firefox fights back (cnet.com).
“Firefox 57, a massive overhaul due November 14, is ready for battle. Its main rival is Google’s Chrome, which accounts for 54 percent of browser usage today as measured by webpage visits using PCs, tablets and phones. Apple’s Safari has 14 percent, while Firefox has 6 percent, according to analytics firm StatCounter. Chrome lured tens of thousands of us away from Firefox after it debuted in 2008. But Firefox 57 could be the version that gets you thinking about returning—and maybe about saving the web, too. Mozilla began testing Firefox 57 on Wednesday, the culmination of more than a year of engineering work.”
The “version that gets you thinking about returning” or, especially for long term uses using for those long list of likely browser slowing down extensions that just are not available on any other browsers, finally turns some away for good with FF’s switch to Chromium:
“…change in Firefox 57 will break a venerable part of Firefox—the extensions technology that lets you customize the browser. For example, with extensions you can block ads, protect your privacy, download YouTube videos, translate websites and manage passwords. Extensions were a key advantage back when Mozilla first took on IE in 2004, but Mozilla is switching to Web Extensions, a variation of Chrome’s customization technology.”
Thankfully—and perhaps crucially for those I suspect would have finally said goodbye if it were not going to be available, Giorgio Maone’s indispensable for some NoScript is migrating to the WebExtension APIs (blog.mozilla.org) showing that Moz certainly see they need the author of the free third party extension on board rather than over.
Besides the crashes, sluggish speed and memory leaks—all invariably blamed on those damn extensions which are the reason most who are still using are using for—lets just hope they recall titling FF’s address bar the “awesome bar” (support.mozilla.org) did them absolutely no adult favours too.
Note: This post has been moved to Blog due to length of extended updates.
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