Re:WebExtensions in Firefox 48
by the8472 on Saturday April 30, 2016 @01:42PM
(#11602628)
> What do you believe you'll be missing?
Old extensions have access to js-ctypes. Which means it can do anything libc/any native library does. Spawning processes, filesystem access, interacting talking to native applications (no, connectNative definitely does not count, because it requires opt-in and special support and thus does not provide interoperability)
They can also freely manipulate the browser UI.
Chrome extensions can't do either of those.
Mozilla has some future plans on providing extensibility, but as long as those are just plans without any schedule or implementation i'll remain pessimistic that it'll still result in a reduction of available feature space.
Old extensions have access to js-ctypes. Which means it can do anything libc/any native library does. Spawning processes, filesystem access, interacting talking to native applications (no, connectNative definitely does not count, because it requires opt-in and special support and thus does not provide interoperability)
They can also freely manipulate the browser UI.
Chrome extensions can't do either of those.
Mozilla has some future plans on providing extensibility, but as long as those are just plans without any schedule or implementation i'll remain pessimistic that it'll still result in a reduction of available feature space.