I think that as more and more websites will move away from Java and Silverlight I expect that other companies will be forced to do the same as the customers will keep having less reasons to keep a browser with those plugins supported.
EDIT: Added "insanely"
Maybe in the short term keeping some users is worthwhile but they'll continue to lose them slowly to Chrome, and browsers aren't fighting a short game. Firefox, Chrome, IE, they're not going anywhere - they've been around for a long time with plenty of market share. It makes sense to be forward thinking here.
Every Firefox extension will be broken. Only Chrome extensions will be supported.
Hopefully we can hit a sweet spot with respect to customization. WebExtensions are a superset of Chrome extensions, and do we have an open process for people to propose new APIs.
Some people are never going to be happy, but hopefully others will step forward and build some cool stuff.
Every major change ever made in any system brings out those comments. Whether the change is good or bad, successful or not, is not related to the existence of those comments.
Just look through Bugzilla; you can find those comments in (it seems) any change that attracts public attention.
We all want faster more stable software but if that single feature trumps that for lots of people it seems crazy to just dump it. You can make a car faster and better on gas if you remove almost everything that makes it comfortable too. We all want cars that go faster and use less gas but we also like comfortable seats, storage, and air conditioning.
Remember that Google is an advertising company. Chrome is an ad delivery platform, ultimately. Firefox isn't broken because it isn't like Chrome.
Firefox's literal only advantage over Chrome is its extensibility, and that baby is being thrown out with the XUL bathwater. It's slower than Chrome, it's less secure than Chrome, and since Mozilla seems hellbent on turning Firefox into Chrome, I might as well just bite the bullet, use Chrome and save myself the headache.
The only other advantages I can see are philosophical, rather than practical, but given their history of shoving irrelevant shit into the default install and ignoring any and all user pushback to their decisions (the "we're forcing addon signing" comment section was unanimously negative), I'm not sure that's worth much either. If I want to use a browser where my input on features and so forth is discarded, again, I might as well use Chrome and gain some speed and security while I'm at it.
I ask this question in complete sincerity: Why would I want to use Firefox?
I'm not going to shed a tear over Classic Theme Restorer or DownThemAll if their loss means a faster, more secure, and still more extensible browser than Chrome.
Apparently, "people first" and "freedom" means "You can only install what we okay" (signing crap).
It also means "we will load the browser with utterly irrelevant add-ons whether or not you want them".
Apparently, "individuals can shape their own experience" means "we will outright prevent you from visiting sites configured a certain way" (see the dupe SSL cert handling bug that's been languishing for nearly a decade)
It also means "all that stuff you spent a decade getting used to gets thrown out, so sorry".
Mozilla, for all their talk of high-minded user-first ideals, sure doesn't treat their users like their time is valuable or their tasks are important. Perhaps I'd find this merely odious, rather than outright offensive if your company didn't continually talk like they wanted to be different and then behave in literally the opposite way.
Call this post gratuitously negative if you want to, but every time I give Firefox another try, I find another slap in the face. At least I know where I stand with Chrome.
The early days of Firebird were not spent trying to match the features of Internet Explorer! Internet Explorer offered some superior features that Mozilla could never match. It even had awful custom CSS rules, that let websites do things like change the color of scrollbars.
Firebird focused on making a fully standards compliant browser, and then success found it, when the public got sick of Microsoft. And maybe that won't happen this time around, but so what?? This is just hubris on the part of Mozilla, at this point.
I'm horrified at what would have happened, if in 2006, everyone had rolled up their sleeves to bring ActiveX support to Firebird on par with IE6. Is that what you think would have worked?? Microsoft would always be several steps ahead of you.
This is tilting at windmills.
Chrome is crippled in many ways. Extensions are second class citizens, merely along for the ride. They can be removed remotely at Google's whim, and you can't rely on them to run reliably. They also don't have full access to the browser the way Firefox add-ons do.
Among my different profiles, I have profiles to slice and dice the web. I can do a ton of web scraping without having to write any scripts. I can do a ton of cool stuff, and customize Firefox the way I want. Firefox gives me cheatcodes to the web.
Who the hell said extensions had to be sandboxed? That's an overly cautious decision that makes sense for Google. It's a WEAKNESS. It's a COMPROMISE that Google had to make with Chrome. It is not a strength.
The iOS app store makes money for Apple. So does that mean we must copy the weaknesses of the iOS app store? That's cargo cult thinking.
For a site that has people who go on and on and on about the innovators dilemma this argument seems pretty shortsighted.
I think the second option will be used in most cases.
Java and Silverlight I get, but not upgrading certs I consider to be pushing it. When we cater to users who have no interest in upgrading technology we hold everyone else back.
I prefer the technique of saying "It's done on this date. Ignore us at your peril". The view that technology can just be bought and then never maintained is ridiculous and should die. Nothing else operates like this. You buy a machine and you know it's going to include ongoing maintenance costs. Software is no different and trying to pretend it is just ends up with you paying stupid amounts of money and resources to maintain an ancient tech stack decades later. Or worse you have a stack where the people you are paying big money to maintain it are starting to retire or die.
Google wants to make money by developing a platform.
Mozilla (should) want to make technology that empowers people. Mozilla does not have to provide technical support. Mozilla isn't making money off of it. I think that the only reason they did it was because Google did it.
Should emacs or Autocad require signing of extensions? Why not? Because it would go directly against the grain of what those tools are for. And users should be smart enough to handle their own security.
I would like someone to justify Firefox extension signing, while also explaining why nobody cares if other software has signed extensions.
I'm also not sure how extension signing makes Google any money?
Mozilla has no such incentives. And they also don't have any larger strategy that Firefox supports.