Mozilla to boot all plugins from Firefox except Flash

[bill]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/09/mozilla_to_boot_all_plugins_from_firefox_except_flash/ [theregister.co.uk]

Mozilla to boot all plugins from Firefox … except Flash

The organisation yesterday announced that “new platforms such as 64-bit Firefox for Windows will launch without plugin support.”

Adobe Flash is the exception to the rule, because it “is still a common part of the Web experience for most users”.

[Tonearm]

Why not. Time to try something new.

[bill]

I don't see how I could use a browser without extensions for daily use. This would relegate FF to something I used on the side to check sites, but for regular use I rely on my password manager, script blocker, cookie blocker, random user agent profile, screenshot tool, and others. They're not going to bake this in to the browser.

[tangor]

This announcement caused me to change my FF automatic updates to "tell me when there are new updates but do nothing" option. I still want to know when things change, but from this point on I will watching more closely.

The web is not yet migrated to html5 and all those goodies built in and I don't think a year will be sufficient to make that happen.

Why? I myself am in no hurry to migrate to html5 for any number of my websites (no value).

[koan]

bill, with Firefox, plugins are different from extensions. Extensions are those small add-ons provided by the community of developers to extend browser functions, an essential part of any browser (and many other applications), plugins are programs like Quicktime, PDF viewers, and, in time, Flash, all of this is more and more handled directly by the browser with html5. Those plugins can be a security risk.

[graeme_p]

In fact we already have an HTML5 PDF viewer, and Firefox comes with it - but it is slow for large documents which is the sort of problem we have with HTML5, and will have for a long time. That said I prefer to use an external reader for PDF rather than a plugin, and that will remain possible, and the same probably goes for other uses of plugins.

Firefox are also planning to make significant changes to their plugin system with a new API

[blend27]

.. >> FF >> Silverlight >> !Netflix

[JAB Creations]

Bill, really?!

Firefox has a built in password manager.

Firefox extensions include noscript.

You can set Firefox to reject third party cookies and there are even more Firefox extensions.

You can get a user agent generator extension but it just makes you stick out more in analysis logs.

There are plenty of third party programs that no number or types of changes in and of Firefox would effect screen shot programs.

John

[edited by: bill at 10:21 pm (utc) on Oct 10, 2015]
[edit reason] see sticky [/edit]

[IanCP]

I'm from the school of "Check for updates, but let me choose whether to install them".

I'll work on a case by case basis.

[bill]

plugins are different from extensions

Thanks for the reminder @koan. I forgot that extensions and plug-ins are handled differently on Firefox. That changes things quite a bit. I would miss a lot of extensions if they were no longer available. For example:

Firefox has a built in password manager.

I would never use a browser's built-in password manager, but that's just me. I have multiple browsers that I use for different tasks. I prefer to have the same passwords available to all of them. 3rd party extensions solve that issue for me, and I'd miss their convenience in my daily workflow.

[tangor]

As noted above, I had been in the automatic updates from day one, and do know that plugins and extensions are two different breeds of cat, but given the many changes that Mozilla has taken with FF (forcing in some extensions such as Reader View), I am now a bit more cautious regarding ANY updates FF might be shipping in the future.

Most of us at WW are not the average User and view these kinds of changes with a harsher look.

[keyplyr]

Two plugins essential for me are:
• Microsoft Windows Media Player
• NVIDIA 3D Vision Streaming

Without FF alternatives, I'll be forced to Chrome exclusively, which I use half the time anyway because of Chromecast Streaming. In affect, FF will be pushing more media streaming users to Google.

[Futunet]

So does this mean no Adblock?

Because ... that would be awesome ;)

[bill]

So does this mean no Adblock?

No. I jumped to that conclusion initially too, but plug-ins and extensions are different things in FF. AdBlock is not a plug-in and would not be affected by this.