[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".