Mozilla will kill legacy Firefox add-ons in November

Discussion in 'Computer Science & Culture' started by C C, Aug 14, 2017.

  1. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    In essence, the add-ons which will be functional after November 14th are only those re-designed to be related to the less powerful extensions that work in Google Chrome and its cousin browsers (Opera, Edge, Vivaldi, etc). There should be an add-on that even allows the latter to be installed in Firefox, if the FF-57 release does not natively permit that without such help (unlikely). But Firefox's current legacy add-ons that have too much code for the "new" Web Extension scheme and are unable to make the transition to multi-process support (along with other reasons that prevented them from adapting to the upcoming changes) will be rejected or disabled by Firefox. The old legacy add-ons will still be available for download, however, for options like these -- should you desire to continue using them.

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    Mozilla Will Kill Legacy Firefox Add-Ons in Exactly Three Months
    https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...gacy-firefox-add-ons-in-exactly-three-months/

    EXCERPT: On November 14 Mozilla will take the biggest gamble in its long history when the organization will ship Firefox 57, the first version of its browser that will stop supporting legacy Firefox add-ons. This means that starting with Firefox 57 the browser will support only new add-ons written on top of the newer WebExtensions SDK. All legacy Firefox add-ons written on the old XUL-based Add-Ons SDK will stop working.

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    Old Firefox add-ons get 'dead man walking' call
    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/14/firefox_57_to_disable_all_extensions/

    After version 57, plugins go to browser heaven...

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    Firefox: your options to run legacy add-ons
    https://www.ghacks.net/2017/08/08/firefox-your-options-to-run-legacy-add-ons/

    EXCERPT: The following guide lists all options that you have to continue running so-called legacy add-ons when Firefox 57 is released in November. Mozilla plans to disable the legacy add-on system in Firefox 57 Stable. This means that any extension for Firefox that is not a WebExtension, the new format that Mozilla focuses on, will stop working in Firefox 57. Many add-ons that are available for Firefox right now will stop working. New extensions are created, but it is fair to say that WebExtensions will never be as powerful as Firefox’s legacy add-on system.

    We made a rough analysis of the situation in July; it is improving, but there are still plenty of legacy add-ons out there that are not available as WebExtensions yet. Some add-on authors may be working on a port, some may wait for APIs to become available, and some have announced already that they won’t port their extensions (usually because it is not possible, and won’t be possible). Firefox users who rely on specific legacy add-ons have a couple of options to retain their functionality. The following options are available....

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    OLDER ACCOUNTS OF THE TRANSITION (Feb 17, 2017):

    The Future of Firefox Add-Ons
    https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/the-future-of-firefox-add-ons/

    Firefox Add-ons Roadmap for 2017
    https://www.ghacks.net/2017/02/17/firefox-add-ons-roadmap-for-2017/

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