The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

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Moonchild
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The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by Moonchild » 2019-01-10, 11:41

This information is outdated and only kept for historical purposes

With the recent communication I've had with several Firefox extension authors, and the kind of responses I tend to get when asking normal questions, it seems clear to me now more than ever that we have to rely on our community members, and our community members alone, to keep the XUL extension ecosystem alive.

This post is sort of a guideline to follow when you are looking for extensions to the browsers, that you've seen previously on Firefox.
Contacting extension developers to ask for XUL based versions of their extensions seems to be folly and leads to a lot of drama and unnecessary argumentation, as I found out the hard way. This despite the fact that maintaining "legacy" extension technology is going to be a lot less work than trying to keep up with Mozilla's moving target that is Gecko.
So, if you think about this at this point in time, I say "don't bother". The devs are extremely unlikely to pay us any sort of mind or be wiling to even listen to the request for what Mozilla has hammered in in its dogma "it's obsolete tech, follow us or die". Remember when they were saying "Adopt Australis or die" to Pale Moon? Same thing here but this time with "WebExtensions", despite how limited they are.

First, check the Pale Moon add-ons site

First and foremost, checking the Pale Moon add-ons site at https://addons.palemoon.org will give you a good selection of extensions that have already been created, adapted or modified to specifically work in Pale Moon (and likely other UXP-based browsers too). This may provide you with alternatives or similar extensions to fit your workflow with guaranteed compatibility.
As of Phoebus 2.0, the site provides extension developers/publishers with a complete self-serve portal to publish extensions on the add-ons site. It has also been extended to more easily serve other/additional UXP applications with their own unique extensions.

Secondly, fork fork fork!

If nothing matches, then you have the option to fork existing Firefox "legacy" extensions to explicitly support Pale Moon, Basilisk and other applications. If you are wanting to do this, then please read the following post I made a while back about hacking away at extensions. In short: make sure you stay within the confines of what you are legally allowed to do with the extensions.

UPDATE: Despite what I wrote above apparently there have been more than a few extensions that were impromptu re-licensed to different licenses when forking. Understand that you cannot do this! Many Open Source licenses are incompatible and simply re-licensing an extension under something you personally agree with more is not allowed (and that is a legal not-allowed, not an arbitrary decision we've made). If you want to release something under your license of choice then you have to write your own extension from scratch. You aren't allowed to pick a license at will when forking because you must stay compatible with the original author's licensing!
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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by yereverluvinuncleber » 2019-01-10, 12:32

Really good post - make it a stickie and a guide.
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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by Moonchild » 2019-01-10, 13:07

Stickie'd -- now to hope people actually read it, too! ;)
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by doofy » 2019-01-10, 13:08

Good luck with that.

People don't read forums; they post to them.

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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by Moonchild » 2019-01-10, 13:19

doofy wrote:Good luck with that.
People don't read forums; they post to them.
Posting without reading is a pointless exercise. But I guess since you're talking from experience, you won't be reading my reply here either.. unless of course it triggers you :P
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by doofy » 2019-01-10, 13:28

Moonchild wrote:But I guess since you're talking from experience, you won't be reading my reply here either.. unless of course it triggers you :P
How can I be triggered by something I don't read?

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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by vannilla » 2019-01-10, 15:13

doofy wrote:
Moonchild wrote:But I guess since you're talking from experience, you won't be reading my reply here either.. unless of course it triggers you :P
How can I be triggered by something I don't read?
Apparently some people can. :coffee:

That aside, thanks Moonchild for this post.
I didn't know there was this kind of hostility. I wonder why.

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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by doofy » 2019-01-10, 15:17

My post wasn't remotely hostile; it was facetious.

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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by back2themoon » 2019-01-10, 16:34

doofy wrote:My post wasn't remotely hostile; it was facetious.
I think vannilla was not referring to you, but the situation described in the first post.

I am guessing most of these developers are fed up from the amounts of user complaints received over the years for their free extensions, and can't/won't take any more, even if they are legitimate and minimal-work requests. They also had to deal with Mozilla's various questionable decisions on top. Indeed, the community needs to step up.

As for the Flagfox developer, he does seem a bit excessively jumpy and opinionated in these last "transitional" months, but I can't really blame him either. I just wish he were a bit more open-minded and it does seem that maintaining the current Flagfox v5 version with just the database updates shouldn't be a hassle. His work, his decision though.

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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by floatingkeyboards » 2019-01-13, 15:21

Cheers & long live Pale Moon

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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by __NM64__ » 2019-02-02, 19:40

Bit late on this, but I've also found that IceWeasel-UXP's list of extensions seem to work perfectly in Pale Moon (at least the few that I've tested anyway):

https://wiki.hyperbola.info/doku.php?id ... uxp_addons

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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by back0rifize » 2019-02-22, 13:49

Seems to me, this situation is very strange, because the most part of devs were against the "WebExtensions". And now they said: "Who's not with us - he's against us!"... It's a pity, for real.
Then again, do I really need to be surprised, if Mozilla deleted all the extensions (and all devs pages too), who don't want to endorse they politics. At least, my pages was deleted permanently.

01101001b

Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by 01101001b » 2019-03-07, 11:51

Moonchild wrote:Legacy Collector's simple web list of legacy extensions. http://www.legacycollector.org/firefox-addons/index.html
Thanks so much for this post! It's quite a lifesaver. I installed Space Advance addon for PM but soon the browser began to stall frequently. I remembered the addon, uninstalled it and problem solved. However I couldn't find anywhere Space Next to give it a try until this post. At the end, NextPage 1.4.1 seems to work better; everything silky smooth so far.
Thanks again! Regards!

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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by THX-1139 » 2019-06-29, 16:13

Thanks for the "legacy" list and all the others, and for the Pale Moon browser (new user). Not using FF anymore thanks to Pale Moon...IMO FF went someplace I could/would not follow.
My PM install is just the way I want for my personal productivity and QOL browser, replacing FF vr56.
Using PM vr28.5.2 (64) now, and it all works like a charm with these extensions installed:
Adblock Latitude
Complete youtube Saver
Downloads Window
File and Folder Shortcuts*
Sidebar Tools
The Good 'ol Sidebar (AIOS*)
Theme Tweaker
uBlock Origin
uBlock Origin Updater
Zoom Page*
nMatrix
* denotes FF legacy
In conclusion; IMO PM is "Perfect".....ZERO complaints. Thank you :mrgreen:
Pale Moon 32.5.0 (64) Win7 pro (64) Intel Core i5-3570 3.4GHz-16 GB DDR3

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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by Juju Dredd » 2019-08-27, 13:25

Hello.

I am trying to create a basic extension, but it's a bit difficult to find online XUL documentation without the "we will delete everything by 2020". Is there anybody trying to archive all available documentation about creating XUL extensions?

I don't know how to do it by myself.

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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by thosrtanner » 2019-08-31, 20:26

it's currently still on the mozilla site, if you don't mind the whole page being in red. Otherwise i guess the wayback archive would help

This is a reasonable place to start: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/doc ... a/Tech/XUL (and talks about overlays and is not in bright red for some reason)

harryhaller

Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by harryhaller » 2019-10-20, 20:36

Moonchild wrote:
2019-01-10, 11:41

Legacy Collector's simple web list of legacy extensions. Missing a number of extensions and is bare-bones, but very accessible to anyone:
http://www.legacycollector.org/firefox-addons/index.html
Legacy Collector is going to close his site in December.
I've been in contact with him about how to save the addons.
He's suggested downloading them by torrent, thus he's sent me this email:
A torrent is now available:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:2332zbsojxkxt36szehrjnck5nn4pxf4&dn=legacycollector.org.tar.xz
So it's up to us to rescue them... :)

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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by coffeebreak » 2019-10-21, 01:25

harryhaller wrote:
2019-10-20, 20:36
Legacy Collector is going to close his site in December.
[...]
He's suggested downloading them by torrent, thus he's sent me this email
Please see:
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=23110&start=20#p176888.

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Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by Moonchild » 2019-10-21, 04:28

Updated the original post to reflect the shutting down of Legacy Collector.
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

John connor

Re: The future of extensions on Pale Moon and other UXP browsers.

Unread post by John connor » 2019-10-21, 17:14

Now who the hell would threaten him over this? Why? Unreal.

I'll download it from the magnet link and seed. I have 4 TB of HDD space so it's no problem.

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