What will happen with the Add-On and Plug-In Archive / Database after Firefox no longer supports them?

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nimanima
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What will happen with the Add-On and Plug-In Archive / Database after Firefox no longer supports them?

Unread post by nimanima » 2017-03-21, 23:00

So, this question came up when some members of my Family Research Groups recently encountered problems. They use djvu viewer plugins for reading djvu files (most Polish archives and libraries use this somewhat obscure format to digitize and make available old sources) right on the screen in their browsers, and obviously according to one of the members in this group "no modern browser" currently supports the plugins necessary for this and also downloading djvu files should according to them no longer work.

Since I have been until last night successful in downloading djvu files with both the current IE version as well as Pale Moon 27.1.2. (now I am writing this with 27.2. but not yet tested this on djvu downloading), and these two in my eyes qualify as "modern browsers", I have recommended these two to my fellow researchers, and especially Pale Moon to those who use Firefox. I hope I did not make false promises in doing so?
I have never used these djvu plugins myself since I prefer to download such files and open them with external programmes such as Irfan View.

However this Firefox dropping support for add-ons and plugins now makes me think, of course, for how long such add-ons and plugins will still be available and updatable for people. I use a few Plugins and several Mozilla add-ons myself. Do you know what will happen to the Mozilla add-ons download website? Do we all have to think on hamstering add-ons and plugins now? Or is there an agreement between Moonchild and Mozilla to keep the add-ons download page up and available for everyone (Mozilla does no appear to me to be so kind)?

Andrew Gilbertson

Re: What will happen with the Add-On and Plug-In Archive / Database after Firefox no longer supports them?

Unread post by Andrew Gilbertson » 2017-03-22, 12:20

The short answer is "we don't know".

The long answer has already been discussed on this forum in other threads, notably "plan for [External] items?" and I believe some other threads as well but I'm not sure what keywords are going to bring them up in search.

BenlyHar

Re: What will happen with the Add-On and Plug-In Archive / Database after Firefox no longer supports them?

Unread post by BenlyHar » 2017-03-22, 13:02

Djvu isn't supported on all browsers. I've tried chrome for this purpose. Not worked. Firefox not worked. Opera not worked. Explorer not worked. :D

BenlyHar

Re: What will happen with the Add-On and Plug-In Archive / Database after Firefox no longer supports them?

Unread post by BenlyHar » 2017-03-22, 13:03

Some sort of modification has to take place in order to run add ons and Plug-ins to work if the browsers aren't supporting them anymore.

Searched it on this forum and I couldn't find any other thread discussing this issue.

nimanima
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Re: What will happen with the Add-On and Plug-In Archive / Database after Firefox no longer supports them?

Unread post by nimanima » 2017-03-23, 01:11

Well, I suppose that since PM does support NPAPI plugins and obviously the Firefox plugins have beeen NPAPIs, too, these should work with PM, too. Maybe it would be just worth installing and seeing what happens. Funny thing is that without any djvu viewer plugins on IE I can view most of these Polish DjVus with it, it is just enervating since turning pages takes so long and you also see only a few lines per page, or the picture is so small that you can't read anything . That's why I prefer to download them and then open and read or convert them to PDF with Irfan View. But that's of course my personal method that suits me best, others might prefer to do it differently.

I am glad to see others here have been thinking into the same direction regarding a possible closedown of Mozilla's add-on page and what can be done to save the files. I can understand the rights problem, but since Pale Moon is still quite unknown (at least I don't know anybody personally who has ever heard of it, well maybe through me mentioning it, but not through own experience), I have my doubts the developers will be really interested in switching over to supporting Pale Moon . This seems to be a case of the typical "what the farmer doesn't know, he doesn't eat" phenomenon (German saying).

BenlyHar

Re: What will happen with the Add-On and Plug-In Archive / Database after Firefox no longer supports them?

Unread post by BenlyHar » 2017-04-19, 13:19

nimanima wrote:Well, I suppose that since PM does support NPAPI plugins and obviously the Firefox plugins have beeen NPAPIs, too, these should work with PM, too. Maybe it would be just worth installing and seeing what happens. Funny thing is that without any djvu viewer plugins on IE I can view most of these Polish DjVus with it, it is just enervating since turning pages takes so long and you also see only a few lines per page, or the picture is so small that you can't read anything . That's why I prefer to download them and then open and read or convert them to PDF with Irfan View. But that's of course my personal method that suits me best, others might prefer to do it differently.

I am glad to see others here have been thinking into the same direction regarding a possible closedown of Mozilla's add-on page and what can be done to save the files. I can understand the rights problem, but since Pale Moon is still quite unknown (at least I don't know anybody personally who has ever heard of it, well maybe through me mentioning it, but not through own experience), I have my doubts the developers will be really interested in switching over to supporting Pale Moon . This seems to be a case of the typical "what the farmer doesn't know, he doesn't eat" phenomenon (German saying).

Well, it was and still is not running on my browsers.

BenlyHar

Re: What will happen with the Add-On and Plug-In Archive / Database after Firefox no longer supports them?

Unread post by BenlyHar » 2017-04-19, 13:21

And by browsers I mean, Chrome, Firefox and Explorer. Djvu is not touchable for me. :|

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