[KozmoNau7]

I've been a Firefox user since Phoenix 0.1, and a Mozilla Suite/Netscape user before that. I used Chrome for a couple of years, but went back around when FF56 was released.

FF57 is absolutely the greatest version of Firefox to date. I have yet to hear a single legitimate complaint against it that actually holds up to scrutiny.

[Silhouette]

I have yet to hear a single legitimate complaint against it that actually holds up to scrutiny.

It breaks about 2/3 of the extensions I was using, and many of them don't currently have similar replacements available. That's a big loss in some of the functionality that made Firefox attractive as my default browser.

I understand the desire to fix fundamental architectural limitations. In the medium term some of those extensions will probably be updated or replaced. In the long term, the improvements may well pay off in terms of better security and better performance and easier development allowing faster progress. As a software developer I can see that the move was rational even if it is also somewhat controversial.

But in the short term, the loss is still significant for some users. That's a perfectly legitimate concern, and it's apparently sufficient that some people are not upgrading this time.

[detaro]

I'm very much on the pro-webextension side, but really, people's workflow being broken is not a legitimate complaint? What exactly would constitute a legitimate complaint then?

[megous]

It broke web experience for me. I write userscripts / extensions for most websites I frequent, and almost none work anymore. Granted, it's because Greasemonkey decided to break backward compatibility, but that was triggered by this move to a new extension model.

I tried to think forward, and proactively convert my greasemonkey scripts to new style FF extensions a few months back, to avoid dependency on GM. But abandoned that after it became clear that I'm not allowed to install my own extensions on regular Firefox, because of forced thir-party signing requirement. I have no need for signing. I could create an extension by zipping a directory. Now the workflow is 1000x more complex with all the crap loaded from npm required to sign it.

My web experience is s*it, ATM.

Firefox is great anyway. But it is power user hostile in some aspects too. Personal extensions/userscripts are central to my use of the web. So this is all quite annoying, since signing was enforced. And now even my userscripts broke with 57, as expected.

[zcid]

This point is irksome. How hard would it be to provide a switch to disable mandatory signing? Something similar to the unknown sources option in Android.

To all those claiming that Mozilla doesn't owe this to their users, you are technically correct. But why piss off users when you can easily satisfy them with a simple option. I shouldn't have to use a patched browser for something so basic.

[forapurpose]

Last I knew, there were "unbranded" editions of Firefox - editions without the Firefox logo and name - which allowed users to disable the signing requirement. The ESR (extended service release) edition might also allow it.

[khedoros1]

Pretty easy, I think; there was a switch in the UI for a while, then hidden in about:config, then hard-coded into the browser.

I think that the issue was that they were worried about people who don't understand the security implications turning verification off and getting themselves into trouble.

[robin_reala]

If you use Developer edition I believe you don’t need to sign your own extensions.

[zeveb]

I shouldn't be forced to use a Developer edition to install my plugins in my browser. It's my computer, not Mozilla's.

[Dylan16807]

What's the downside of developer edition?

> It's my computer, not Mozilla's.

Then you'll be overjoyed to hear about the unbranded builds! The exact same code, except it's yours, so it allows all extensions and doesn't say "Firefox" on it.

[Tomte]

That‘s why it‘s open source: because it‘s your computer and you can change whatever you want.

But Mozilla doesn‘t owe every single user his own build with their pet features.

[ecnahc515]

Without this it’s significantly easier to install bad extensions posing as a “good” extension. It’s happened many times and is a huge win in terms of security.

[jfk13]

> It broke web experience for me. I write userscripts / extensions for most websites I frequent

Sorry to hear this; but I think it's arguably more important for Mozilla to improve the web experience for a hundred million users who may never "write userscripts / extensions" for any website than to hamstring their development in order to avoid inconvenience to a single user who feels the need to customize every point of their web experience.

[megous]

So your idea is "nobody cares about you?" :)

Also mandatory signing doesn't improve web experience for anyone. It's a security feature. Security is always inconvenient, almost by definition. So your point is invalid.

I don't mind change, I like new Firefox features, what I dislike is imposition of stupid lockdowns, and pointless control. One valid point, I might concede, is that there are innocent third parties affected if someone clueless confirms installation of some malevolent extension. So restricting it is somewhat justified.

Anyway, it's all still a sham. Anyone can still disable mandatory signing with a simple 10 line script patching omni.ja in any Firefox. So it's still no security against people who can be persuaded to enbale something in about:config, or run firefox with a command switch, or add some file to /etc/firefox/, or run a simple 10 line script "to make firfox compatible with our great extension".

[buu700]

I've been using FF57 on OS X since its release, and it's been great. Two issues have proven particularly difficult to get used to, however, and I'm surprised they aren't talked about more:

1. Video performance. Even something as simple as opening a video in reddit spikes my CPU to 100%, and before reluctantly installing Adblock Plus I ran into multiple kernel panics from opening articles on mainstream news sites and blogs.

2. Pinch-to-zoom isn't supported (closest alternative I could find is some about:config settings to make the pinch gesture equivalent to cmd++/-, which isn't useful).

I'm still using Firefox, and there's a lot that I like about it more than Chrome, but I'm seriously considering switching back because of those and some other minor issues.

[lukik]

I thought I was the only one with an issue with Firefox57. Got a Macbook Pro 16 GB, 3.1 Ghz Core i7, MacOSX Sierra (10.12.6). The CPU goes wild during a search on Google Maps and also on certain pages of forbes.com. On forbes I've disabled the Ublock origin coz they politely asked me to.

At one point the whole browser crashed. So right now got Chrome and FF open and am switching depending on the site. Might just end up back in Chrome if this isn't resolved.

[greenhouse_gas]

>I ran into multiple kernel panics

Is it that easy to panic the macOS kernel?

[x0x0]

Not generally, but if firefox is using gpu compositing, graphics drivers are not osx' strong point.

[buu700]

Yep, apparently. (Technically not macOS, but OS X, since I haven't upgraded from El Capitan just yet.) I'd never had an issue with frequent kernel panics before, so I'm not sure what could be up with videos in Firefox.

[pfooti]

You can't inspect websocket frames. It is a tiny quibble in the face of big amazing improvements. But it is a thing (and is why I still use chrome primarily for development), and the extension used to patch this in to the devtools broke in the big extensions change.

[robin_reala]

They’re planning to build that in at the beginning of the new year: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=885508#c37