[svlug] (forw) [DNG] Life After Firefox 56

[Akkana Peck]

Rick Moen writes:
[about Firefox's upcoming lockdown of extensions]

Yikes! Thanks for the alert, Rick.

I have to wonder: in a world where extensions can't run unless
they're signed by Mozilla.org, how can anyone develop extensions?
How do you test your changes on your own browser so you know it
works before you publish it on Mozilla.org? Seems like there's got
to be some kind of "developer mode" that lets you install unsigned
extensions.

Running firefox by itself with no extensions sounds like a disaster.
No control over scripts, cookies, flash or other security risks?
It sounds like a red carpet for malware, not protection against it.

I wish there were more open-source browser engines. Webkit used to
be great, but it seems to be bitrotting lately. Konqueror on a non-KDE
system wants to pull in 66 other packages including a lot of desktop
cruft. I'm not convinced any of the other mozilla-based browsers is
all that well supported (galeon was pretty good for a while, but
it's orphaned now), but Pale Moon looks pretty interesting: anybody
here use it? Do you trust them to keep up with security updates?
Chromium might be the best bet, but how is it on privacy and control
over scripts and cookies and such?

There's also firefox-esr, the Extended Support Release (which is the
firefox that Debian packages): with any luck, Mozilla may not lock
it down for quite a while, giving users more time before they have
to switch.

        ...Akkana