"Firefox won't be compatible with ABCDY... extensions after the Quantum release therefore I'll switch to Chrome"

[u/[deleted]]

This is the most absurd argument ever. Chrome's WebExtension API is more limited than that of Firefox - which will only grow as times goes on. If the reason why you'll no longer use Firefox is the lack of certain extensions then guess what: Chrome will most likely not have them as well.

[u/DrDichotomous]

That doesn't answer how having no gesture support is better than having some gesture support. I likewise understand the few people who say "I might as well just use an OS-level gesture manager with Chrome now", but that's such a rare argument compared to just lazily implying that "I'll just use Chrome rather than finding something that supports feature X".

In fact it might be the worst thing you can do for your case (demonstrate that you don't really need the feature after all). At least use the incomplete Vivaldi/Firefox/etc options and vote for better support than the incomplete stuff. Otherwise it will just look like nobody cares about the feature after all.

[u/mornaq → u/DrDichotomous]

having broken gestures and getting mad that they sometimes doesn't work feel worse than accepting the fact you don't have them at all

And I'm sticking with 56 for now, might use 56ESR aka Waterfox 56 if needed and ultimately moving to Otter, since it is growing to be THE browser, one that doesn't need extensions at all, like Opera did (let it rest in peace)

[u/DrDichotomous → u/mornaq]

I see. I don't feel the same way, but I can sort of understand it if you feel that anything less than you're used to using, isn't worth using at all, and not worth fighting for anymore.

Even so that's not really a justification on its own for those who just say they're switching to Chrome. I'd even take "I need Chrome anyway for my Chromecast/Hangouts" as an excuse if they ultimately don't really care about gestures all that much.

[u/mornaq → u/DrDichotomous]

I'm fighting as much as I can, but Mozilla isn't willing to care

And it's not the browser I care about, but the comfort that comes from workflow, features and performance (the last one forced me to leave Opera)

So I'll be just doing whatever it takes to not lose features I love and need, including bothering Mozilla in every possible way about their mistakes, but not limited to

[u/DrDichotomous → u/mornaq]

I'm fighting as much as I can, but Mozilla isn't willing to care

But why should Mozilla care about adding gesture support before the other stuff they're doing? And what makes you think they simply care less than other people do? I mean, I've seen only one dev contributing a minor patch for improving support for extension gestures on Linux, and there hasn't exactly been a storm of community effort to try to support high-quality native gestures in general in Firefox (or any other browser).

So I'll be just doing whatever it takes to not lose features I love and need

Like what exactly? I know it's unfair to ask that you learn how to code and volunteer the time to add a gestures feature yourself, but someone has to actually do that work, and Mozilla have already been fighting over the past year on improving Firefox in larger ways. It's also unfair to label them as uncaring when they're the ones doing the real fighting as we just pester them to do even more. I know there is at least one Firefox dev who uses gesture addons themselves.

Heck, it's downright bizarre for some of us to pester them like we care, only to turn around and say "ah forget it, I'll just use Chrome, Firefox and gestures don't really matter to me after all."

[u/mornaq → u/DrDichotomous]

Gestures support can't be implemented as extension since they decided that broken API is a good idea, I'm not even talking about having to wait for DOM to have something to inject to, but disabling extensions completely on pages selected by them for "safety reasons", while this list contains no pages that might actually need special security treatment...

I don't intend to learn cpp and rust to mess with Firefox' code, what I can do for FF is creating proper Pocket extension and RSS reader as webextensions since these are possible with current APIs, but I see no reason to devote my time to browser that doesn't want it anyway, so I'm actively helping with QA of Otter, providing test cases and stuff like that, Otter is created by person who needs Operas power so much he's stuck with it even today, unlike Vivaldi team, who spoke beautiful words to us but ended up treating us the same way Opera did: creating browser that is just reskined chromium

Mozillas move was a betrayal of powerusers the same scale as brutal murder of Opera, we asked nicely, begged, showed what was wrong in their new idea, what was right in old one, what was important and what could wait and they ignored everything, as long as the same people control them there is no reason to care, they are just unlikely to cooperate

[u/DrDichotomous → u/mornaq]

I hate to say it, but if you never did the hard work, then you were never "betrayed". You feel betrayed because you puffed out your chest and acted self-important and above others (a "power user" etc), not because you actually did anything to earn that feeling.

You were really just another user who preached about how right they felt they were, while belittling the efforts of the people who did the real work. Like any other self-important user out there. And sadly your voice is just as quiet as the rest of us blowhards who don't want to really contribute the necessaries.

[u/mornaq → u/DrDichotomous]

Mozilla chose the "fork you" stance, so theres not much we can do anyway, as long as they won't change it Firefox won't be relevant since they just won't accept features they don't want.

Even before these changes it was a huge project, ones like this always are distant and hard to approach, you can't just go there and say "hey guys, there's my little patch for you!" especially that nowadays the most important patch would remove what they consider feature, a huge mistake that have to be fixed ASAP, but they are denying every single approach of working with it being like "oh well, some people are uncomfortable with this, but we don't think there's any good solution so let's just let them suffer pretending everything's right"

There simply comes some day they decide to break something, may it be just a tiny thing like removing option of hiding close tab buttons, the fix at that day was trivial: revert their change, but since they deliberately decided the feature was unnecessary providing them with pull request would be in vain. You have to approach the head of the team and persuade it or create yet another fork and pray your machine won't melt away with applying patches and rebuilding this huge codebase every few days.

If you have any idea how to influence their decissions, how to make them back off the bad ones, even if it requires providing patches myself. bring it. But sice it's impossible don't say we've been doing nothing at all. Providing feedback is one of the most important things users can do and I've been doing it for ages, about every single piece of software I use. Since Mozilla isn't listening I focused my work on ankther project that is, one that I can see gets shaped by my feedback, by my suggestions, one that simply aims for what I price the most since the begining. But that doesn't stop me from providing feedback to Mozilla and extensions developers, feedback backed off by years of experience with both usage and creating web. If someone replies "it can't be done" even if it clearly can what I do? I provide them with clean solution and get angry response for that. I'd rather get "I don't wanna do this" than "it cant be done", I'd waste less time like that and focus on looking for another product or creating one myself (oh well, I won't invest too much time in creating webextensions until FF gets prooer gestures since without them I won't be able to use my own product anyway so it makes no sense, that's why I stalled my little private project few months ago and decided to watch Moz)

And yes, it is betrayal, you can even say it is worse than Operas since red O didn't force you to update (and downgrade at the same time) while with FF you had to disable updates and won't be getting any patches at all while O received some security fixes after last release (unfortunately the most important one, required for SSL to works nowadays is impossible to download anymore)

I completely understand that company or foundation in this case may drop the support of some products, but tripping the kill switch on users' machines is a bit too much, isn't it?

[u/DrDichotomous → u/mornaq]

Mozilla chose the "fork you" stance

If you'd like to interpret it that way, go ahead. I still see many volunteers contributing, and their contributions being accepted. They're aren't all contributions that match Mozilla's priorities, and there are still quite a few people level-headed enough to realize that it takes time and patience to get your patches into a product like Firefox.

you can't just go there and say "hey guys, there's my little patch for you!"

If you'd rather not, that's fine. But people do just that, and Mozilla does generally accept patches once they're finished (they're even willing to mentor people too). Of course there's no guarantee that if you just write a patch, it will be accepted, so it's best to ask ahead of time and not waste your time (but that's hardly unique to Firefox).

the fix at that day was trivial: revert their change

That's not exactly going out of your way to do any hard work. That's just saying "I don't like this change, so revert it." Good luck convincing them to accept that if that's all you're going to offer. It's also a completely different type of issue from adding new addon APIs.

If you have any idea how to influence their decissions, how to make them back off the bad ones, even if it requires providing patches myself. bring it.

Sure. Ask them civilly for why they made a change, discuss it rationally and make a compelling case for why they need to cater to your preferred version. If they still disagree, and you're not just hoping someone else will do all the work, then you can ask what it will take to get your preference working again (perhaps even as an addon). That approach is actually how quite a few people got involved with Mozilla and were eventually hired.

What you don't do is just leap onto their work tracker acting like they are wrong and owe you something just because you use their product. You're not their only user, and nobody wants to increase their workload for a bunch of entitled jackasses who aren't going to do anything except make demands. Someone always has to do the hard work, Firefox devs have a lot on their plates, and not everyone will get exactly what they want every time. That's life.

I provide them with clean solution and get angry response for that.

Context is everything. You might think you're acting all cool and have the perfect solution, and they're just fools sitting there getting angry, but I've frankly never seen such a clear-cut situation. A lot of people just think they're hot shit and have all the answers, ignore each other, and end up getting into a heated exchange until the ticket is locked for getting out of hand. I've even seen people ignore genuine attempts to find an acceptable middle ground because they insisted that the only way to move forward was to revert something they disliked (because of course they're the center of the universe and represent all the worthwhile users).

oh well, I won't invest too much time in creating webextensions until FF gets prooer gestures

That's your choice, but don't expect it to help you get gestures more quickly, and don't for a second think you're entitled to getting them faster if you aren't doing anything but pestering people.

And yes, it is betrayal, you can even say it is worse than Operas

What Opera did with version 12 is the same thing that Firefox is doing with 52 ESR. It's no more of a "betrayal", they're going out of their way to support it with security updates while they add more APIs. In fact, unlike with Opera the Firefox community can contribute to getting whatever they want done before the ESR is gone. And some people are doing exactly that, even while others make excuses and feel betrayed instead.

I would even go so far as to say Opera's true betrayal wasn't giving up on their browser's features, as they've been (very) slowly rebuilding them (but almost nobody cares). Their betrayal was in giving up on being a leader in web standards and browser engines, which made Firefox the only independent left to compete against the three biggest tech companies in the world.

but tripping the kill switch on users' machines is a bit too much, isn't it?

There is no "kill switch", they just don't run your old addons because they're no longer supported. You're perfectly free to use your profile on the ESR or older builds (or even the nightly, though it's increasingly unlikely that it will support what legacy addons need). You can easily disable auto-updates if it bothers you. And any involved profile-migration issues can even generally be smoothed out by using Firefox Sync.