Re:XUL Layout has been removed from Firefox
by Izkata on Sunday April 02, 2023 @04:11AM
(#35408300)
I think Vimperator was the same. I don't recall blank and loading pages, but it definitely didn't have the "page is not focused" issue all the current ones have (where you have to click on the page and then it starts responding to keys).
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Yes, it was the same. Killing XUL killed effectively keyboard navigation. My only hope is Qutebrowser, but I'm not sure who wants to surf the web without access to any extensions these days.
Can and "wants to" are two different things. On iPhones and iPads, there's very limited access to extensions. So anybody on those platforms can't. (For now. The EU decision may change things.)
As far as keyboard browsing, doesn't vimperator cover that?
Vimperator was abandoned when XUL add-ons were abandoned, presumably because they couldn't pull it off with WebExtensions.
Partially, the reasoning they gave back then was it was too tightly integrated with Firefox's internals. Even if WebExtensions had all the APIs needed, it would have needed nearly a complete rewrite and they weren't up to it.