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Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by cosarara97 on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:08AM (#13675216)
IMO Firefox has just 2 things to beat Chrome: better add-ons (like treestyle tabs) and politics (made by Mozilla instead of an ads company). They are burning the first one.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by Larrikin on Saturday February 18, 2017 @01:32PM (#13675962)
I'm extremely worried about Rikai-chan/sama.

Rikaichan allows translation of Japanese words simply by hovering your mouse over. It works much better than entering words into an online dictionary, since nearly every free JE-EJ dictionary uses the same source, and if a conjugation isn't translatable it will cut the word off giving the meaning and then letting you easily highlight the conjugation to figure out the meaning of the two together. Its just much faster than using something like jisho.org if theres a lot of words in a text you don't know. Rikaisama makes Rikaichan even more powerful with a lot of extra features

Everytime I've ever tried the similar plug-ins on Chrome they've all been terrible, missing words, missing conjugation, or just being slow in general. Its the first check I do every time I think about switching browsers.

However with the new Electrolysis on Firefox its completely broken and it seems like the dev might not want to do a rewrite since the plugin works exactly how you would want it and has for a few years now, but especially not if the sandbox changes make the plugin impossible to work.

Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by ytugiuyghvk on Saturday February 18, 2017 @01:56PM (#13676088)
Same here. Is the Lookupbar (Alt+Del) possible to do with WebExtensions? I think it would have to be recreated in the DOM and inserted into the web page.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by ripdog on Saturday February 18, 2017 @03:37PM (#13676553)
There's nothing difficult or complex (or unsupported) about inserting content into web pages. The main limitation of webextensions is that free-form UI modification is no longer possible, the UI can only be modded in specific, allowed ways.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by ytugiuyghvk on Saturday February 18, 2017 @06:38PM (#13677300)
No, but there are several reasons it is suboptimal here.

The lookupbar is associated with the window chrome (ie. there is one per window). Inserting it into the DOM requires emulating this behavior by synthesizing one "bar" in each tab, adding and deleting them at the right time, etc.

Inserted content always has the possibility of interacting poorly with the scripts and styles of the underlying page (or other extensions). Rikai-chan already has problems where its overlays will end of underneath page content.

Inserted content goes below the line of death (https://textslashplain.com/2017/01/14/the-line-of-death/). There are other minor deficiencies: you can't get the browser's theme on the bar, etc.

For Rikai-chan, it seems like it'd be nice to allow the background script to write to a page that sits on top of the space that shows the actual page and have the content scripts communicate what should be rendered. AFAIK, the only ways to show something on the screen is to either send it to the content scripts and have them modify the DOMs, or show it in a popup for a button.

Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by delroth on Saturday February 18, 2017 @01:53PM (#13676078)
I've been using Rikai-kun[1] on Chrome. It claims to be a port of Rikai-chan, I'm curious in which ways it's inferior (I have not tried the original Firefox addon).

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rikaikun/jipdnfibh...

Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by Grue3 on Saturday February 18, 2017 @04:23PM (#13676765)
May I recommend http://ichi.moe? There's no browser plugin, but it has way better word segmenting and conjugation algorithms than jisho.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by hysan on Saturday February 18, 2017 @08:12PM (#13677634)
That might be nice for the occasional translation, but it pales in comparison to the usability and experience Rikai-chan offers or I guess soon offered.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by JohnTHaller on Saturday February 18, 2017 @12:14PM (#13675578)
Only about 250,000 users use the tab modification extensions that people keep claiming is Firefox's only advantage out of 10s of millions of Firefox users. Addons that greatly alter Firefox's behavior are the main reason for crashes. And maintaining XUL is hampering Firefox future development.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by VoxPelli on Saturday February 18, 2017 @12:35PM (#13675659)
There are plenty of add-ons that extend or alter the UI of tabs. There's eg. 780,000 users of Tab Mix Plus according to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-mix-plus/
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by JohnTHaller on Saturday February 18, 2017 @07:18PM (#13677449)
I forgot about TMP. Even so, that's still not a ton of users in terms of the total Firefox users. Plus, I'd wager a large percentage of those are TMP legacy users. Way back in the day, TMP was the only way to properly manage sessions and tabs. Firefox now has full session management and you can reload, pin, undo close, close other tabs, and move tabs around to your heart's content. Heck, the most recent review of the extension even says as much.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by sp332 on Saturday February 18, 2017 @02:43PM (#13676323)
But tabs-on-the-side is important enough that they are running an experiment with a first-party extension right now. https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/tab-center It's gong to be a priority for the new extension model to support this kind of thing before FF57.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by barrkel on Saturday February 18, 2017 @04:32PM (#13676803)
It's the same story with Office, you know; only 5% use any given niche feature. The trouble is, it's a different 5% for everyone.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by CaptSpify on Saturday February 18, 2017 @04:16PM (#13676736)
What Percentage of users is that? I can't seem to find it, atm. If 250,000 = 1%, then sure, who cares. But if 250,000 = 50%, then that's a big deal
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by sp332 on Sunday February 19, 2017 @08:24AM (#13679557)
https://blog.mozilla.org/press/ataglance/ says it's near 500,000,000. But while Firefox tries to keep the core browser lean, they have always catered to power users through the extension APIs.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by darkengine on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:19AM (#13675258)
If Firefox 56 is the last release to support Tree Style Tabs, it will be the last release of Firefox before I begrudgingly switch to Chromium.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by sveme on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:26AM (#13675297)
Why? Does Chromium support Tree Style Tabs despite using WebExtensions? If that's the case, why would that not be possible for Firefox? Or would you switch to make a statement?
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by Spivak on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:34AM (#13675345)
It wouldn't really be to make a statement. Chromium is a better browser but because of the powerful add-ons Firefox's overall experience is better. Take that away and there's no real reason to stay with Firefox unless you like their license and Mozilla as a company.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by oblio on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:41AM (#13675389)
The question is, why is Chromium the better browser?

Firefox 57 will have sandboxing and per-tab processes (most likely) plus a better extension system than Chrome's.

Firefox 57 should be at least equivalent to Chromium.

Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by McCirculaire on Saturday February 18, 2017 @01:15PM (#13675877)
Why is it better? just the two links I'm going to give should be enough to give you pause :

http://www.cvedetails.com/product/3264/Mozilla-Firefox.html?...

http://www.cvedetails.com/product/15031/Google-Chrome.html?v...

During 2016, Firefox had 53 code execution CVE reports.

Chrome had 2.

Firefox only has around 8% of the browser marketshare. Chrome sits between 44% and 60% depending on the source. So it's not a case of Firefox being more popular and attracting more people to target it for hacks. It's just worse software.

And then there's just user inconveniences like how Firefox becomes extremely slow if you open multiple heavy tabs. e10s has yet to fix it, currently, if you enable it, it only opens 2 processes, one for the UI, and one for the rendering engine. So the UI itself might not slow to a crawl but all your tabs will still feel slow if you open heavy stuff.

Firefox also has a slower rendering engine. My eyesight isn't great and I browse web pages with zoom active in between 120% and 150% depending on pages. That makes Firefox behave extremely slow on some pages. It's particularly unbearable, on, say, slashdot pages with lots of comments.

For the same reason smooth scrolling is the first thing Firefox users disable in Firefox. Smooth scrolling works fine on Chrome. FF has never managed to implement smooth scrolling in a way that doesn't slow things to a crawl and makes the scrolling look like stuttering or low framerate.

People often rely on Javascript benchmarks to say "Hey firefox is as fast as chrome!!!11!!" but JS is only one part of what makes a browser fast or slow. What about the parts that actually render the page to something your screen can display?

> Firefox 57 should be at least equivalent to Chromium.

Chrome would have had to stop all development years ago for that sentence to be true.

Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by kibwen on Saturday February 18, 2017 @01:20PM (#13675899)
And Firefox is less secure and slower because (drumroll, please...) the major architectural changes required to improve on those fronts is completely stymied by the desire to maintain backwards compatibility for addons. Firefox is at last forced to decide between being a bad but very extensible browser or a (hopefully) good but less extensible browser. IMO, the choice is pretty obvious.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by thatguy0900 on Saturday February 18, 2017 @05:35PM (#13677069)
But chrome is already a great and less extensible browser, which is the point. If chrome is great and less extensible, and Firefox is good and less extensible, there's little reason to use Firefox unless you just don't like Google.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by oblio on Saturday February 18, 2017 @06:48PM (#13677333)
Firefox's "less extensible" seems to be "more extensible" than Chrome's.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by beerbaron23 on Saturday February 18, 2017 @02:42PM (#13676311)
So true there is way more to the browser than the java script engine. So I ran ye old browser showdown on my comp (Fresh everything). Firefox and Chrome are very similar in speed with Java benchmarks, but once you get into the "real-world" type benchmarks, Firefox was faster by a large margin and was almost 3x as fast as Chrome in some tests.

You can take a look at my results here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/58doo8csebp9l62/Bench.pdf?dl=0

Each browser has it's strengths and weaknesses it seems, So I run all of them lol For my day to day tab filled behemoth I have to use Firefox, any other browser can't handle the ~80 tabs I have open at once.

In fact me and my roommate have on going challenges on how many tabs we can keep open and up times of the browsers/OS's (He is on Win7). During our battles we have tried tweaking some things and using odd browsers and such, but to be competitive with one another we have to each use Firefox cause it just has that much better memory management/stability.

Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by icebraining on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:44AM (#13675402)
How will the extension system of FF 57 be better than Chrome's?
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by oblio on Saturday February 18, 2017 @12:00PM (#13675491)
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by icebraining on Saturday February 18, 2017 @12:34PM (#13675654)
That doesn't use the new model. This is the WebExtension version of TabCenter: https://github.com/bwinton/TabCenter/tree/webext
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by temgo on Saturday February 18, 2017 @12:06PM (#13675530)
That add-on won't run on ff57, either.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by kibwen on Saturday February 18, 2017 @12:27PM (#13675626)
Mozilla's test pilot projects there serve to prototype proposed extension APIs. It's there to inform the design of what hooks are needed to make such an addon possible, so that it will still be possible in a world with only WebExtensions.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by icebraining on Saturday February 18, 2017 @04:32PM (#13676806)
Are the APIs required to make TabCenter as a WebExtension guaranteed to work on FF 57? If not, temgo is still right, no? At least an argument could be made that the elimination of XUL should only happen when the current experiments can actually be implemented using the new model.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by angry-hacker on Saturday February 18, 2017 @12:42PM (#13675696)
It's much more safer browser to being with.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by eveningcoffee on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:39AM (#13675373)
There is still one major reason to stay with Firefox - it is not Chrome.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by nine_k on Saturday February 18, 2017 @01:26PM (#13675924)
Chromium isn't, either.

But the extension flexibility was one of the major points for me.

I'll have to pin Firefox to 56.x in my package manager.

Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by ecnahc515 on Saturday February 18, 2017 @02:44PM (#13676331)
That's a pretty terrible idea. Your web browser is probably the most important piece of software to keep up to date, besides the OS for security reasons.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by kuschku on Saturday February 18, 2017 @04:10PM (#13676700)
For me, I have no alternative but to pin Firefox.

No browser on Linux can handle different DPI per screen. For Firefox, there's an addon implementing that today, but it won't work with WebExtensions.

So I have to use today's Firefox - or I can't use any browser.

Well, there's also the third option of using a magnifying glass to read websites.

Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by nine_k on Saturday February 18, 2017 @03:14PM (#13676458)
Agreed. I need time to consider alternatives.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by darkengine on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:41AM (#13675378)
Because Chromium runs far better in my experience, especially on Linux, and especially where graphics and WebGL are concerned. If all I can use are WebExtensions, I may as well use Chromium for the speed.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by beerbaron23 on Saturday February 18, 2017 @03:12PM (#13676447)
You really should use Firefox if you are a heavy WebGL user, Firefox is 3 times as fast as Chrome now on Unity3D, an it's the complete opposite, Chrome is more snappy with Java and Firefox with animations/Graphics.

Here is my latest benchmark as solid proof: https://www.dropbox.com/s/58doo8csebp9l62/Bench.pdf?dl=0

Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by darkengine on Saturday February 18, 2017 @03:22PM (#13676487)
In my experience on Linux, the difference is night and day, and not in Firefox's favor. Really basic demos struggle to get 30fps while Chromium handles them at the refresh rate of my display no problem.

Firefox WebGL works much better on Windows for me; never tried it on OS X. It's probably a Linux-specific issue, but I rarely use Firefox on anything else.

Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by beerbaron23 on Saturday February 18, 2017 @04:40PM (#13676846)
Also if you want to get to the root of the problem, when you install Firefox 51.0.1 in the URL bar type "about:support"

It will list HW acceleration info. You want to make sure electrolysis is running, in the line "Multiprocess Windows: 1/1 (Enabled by user)" should be enabled by default, if it says 0/1 it not active and you will have to manually turn it on.

You can also see if the WebGL renderer is loading properly. On my Debian box it says WebGL2 creation failed (drivers), which would explain my poor performance on that box.

It's worth a shot since Firefox's WebGL rendering is 4x faster then other browsers, it's worth your time taking a quick check.

Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by beerbaron23 on Saturday February 18, 2017 @04:19PM (#13676751)
Linux is another beast, on my Ubuntu box Firefox gives similar performance to OSX. But on my Debian stable box Chromium plays a lot better with it and the Firefox build feels like it has a gremlin in it haha.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by richardboegli on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:21AM (#13675274)
Try Pale Moon. It has Tree Style Tabs and will continue to even after Firefox gets rid of XUL
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by vocatus_gate on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:59AM (#13675486)
Been a happy Pale Moon user for a while. I hope the project keeps ticking on.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by richardboegli on Saturday February 18, 2017 @07:15PM (#13677437)
It is going strong and with Firefox removing XUL it is going to get stronger.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by satysin on Saturday February 18, 2017 @01:32PM (#13675959)
I switched to Chrome a year ago and while it was a little rough at the start I am very happy overall now. Shame but Firefox was just so much slower that it was annoying me. Plus Chrome syncs everything much better than Firefox ever did.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by gdulli on Saturday February 18, 2017 @01:22PM (#13675910)
I switched to Pale Moon and I've been happy with it.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by veeti on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:34AM (#13675346)
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by keehun on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:38AM (#13675361)
Tab Center has been my favorite tree-style tab add-on/plugin ever. None of the previous implementations come close to this for me.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by hokkos on Saturday February 18, 2017 @12:57PM (#13675792)
But this is not a tree, only a list, there is no nesting, they should really do an expert mode of tab center.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by Grue3 on Saturday February 18, 2017 @04:25PM (#13676778)
It's not a web extension and will not work with Firefox 57.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by smnscu on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:38AM (#13675364)
Firefox also seems slightly faster for me than Chrome (and Safari feels _a lot_ faster), but that's not enough to switch, since I'm so used to Chrome's sane UX and sync (and with a passphrase I'm pretty comfortable having that on Google's servers).
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by beerbaron23 on Saturday February 18, 2017 @03:16PM (#13676463)
You are correct with your experiences, Firefox and Safari are now quite quick compared to Chrome, sometimes 3x as fast.

If you are on a Macbook using battery power I highly suggest using Safari due to it's power consumption profile, your battery will last way longer.

My latest benchmarks: https://www.dropbox.com/s/58doo8csebp9l62/Bench.pdf?dl=0

Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by acjohnson55 on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:20AM (#13675263)
+1 to Treestyle tabs (buggy though it may be), and also Tab Mix Pro, which lets me clone tabs.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by chrismorgan on Saturday February 18, 2017 @12:12PM (#13675569)
You can duplicate a tab in stock Firefox by Ctrl-clicking the reload button.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by kibwen on Saturday February 18, 2017 @12:28PM (#13675630)
Alternatively, you can duplicate a tab in stock Firefox by Ctrl+dragging the tab in the tab bar.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by ReverseCold on Sunday February 19, 2017 @01:14AM (#13678417)
Still waiting for a lightweight browser that works on Windows (Linux has bad battery life even after very very aggressive power optimization) and doesn't use 4gb RAM and 89% of my battery. If anyone can do that then I'll switch.

We need "Safari" for Windows, but not edge.

Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by moron4hire on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:12AM (#13675232)
Mozilla may not be an ads company, but they make the vast majority of their money from giving space to ads companies.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by gkya on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:41AM (#13675391)
Where's that space?
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by TAForObvReasons on Saturday February 18, 2017 @11:51AM (#13675453)
Search companies -- formerly Google, now Yahoo and others -- pay Mozilla so that the browser defaults to their search engine. While it may not be a display ad, it's effectively funded by advertising.
Re:Firefox 57 as the first release where only WebExtensions ... by sp332 on Saturday February 18, 2017 @03:07PM (#13676427)
From November 2014 to December 2015, they had ads in the new tab page.