Support Firefox Extensions

AltCode

Since the looming approach of manifest v3 seems to be generating a lot of discourse again (and somehow no one has suggested this yet), I thought I would be great to add support for Firefox extensions to Vivaldi.

Obviously, this would be no small task, but at least it would give a way to continue using those extensions that will cease to exist for chrome eventually.

A certain upcoming browser that already supports some (but aims to support all) Chrome and Firefox extensions was the main inspiration for creating this feature request.

Eggcorn

@AltCode said in Support Firefox Extensions:

Obviously, this would be no small task

Fortunately, you might be wrong about that. My understanding is: Modern Firefox extensions are mostly the same as Chrome extensions, because of a common extension standard between the browsers.

guigirl

@AltCode said in Support Firefox Extensions:

support for Firefox extensions to Vivaldi

Phwoah! Being able to run TST/Sidebery, & the full-featured uBO version, in my Snappie? Hell yeah, where do i sign?

Eggcorn

@guigirl You lost me there.

Tams80

@Eggcorn TST is Tree Style Tabs and Sideberry is a similar app (and a bit more polished).

Both are pretty powerful, but they also don't 'gel' with Firefox very well and look a bit out of place. As they aren't native, there are also some issues with them losing tabs sometimes.

Ayespy

@Eggcorn She's supporting your statement in principle. She would love to have everything she wants to use supported on Vivaldi (referred to as 'snappie' for Snapshot) as well.

LonM

It's been a while since I used Firefox, but it's probably worth noting that right now the extension format used by both firefox and chrome are very similar, and the M3 specification actually brings some of chrome's implementation closer in line with firefox's.

As proof of this I downloaded one of firefox's top recommended add-ons "onetab", unzipped the file, loaded it as an "unpacked" chrome extension into vivaldi and it works perfectly. uBlock almost works, but it looks like some of the API names are different between chrome and firefox.

So to me this looks achievable, but probably not easy. I don't know if there's a concrete list of API differences between both browsers, and keeping two different extension channels supported at the same time will be difficult, especially considering vivaldi's team size. After chrome removed support for it, it was difficult enough keeping the "app" API going when vivaldi used that, so if chrome fully removes the M2 APIs, that would add lots of extra work every time the team need to update the code from chrome.

Note: I doubt the old style 'XUL' extensions would ever be supported even in kagi (I'm not sure if even firefox support them any more), so I wouldn't get any hopes up for that.

guigirl

@LonM said in Support Firefox Extensions:

As proof of this I downloaded one of firefox's top recommended add-ons "onetab", unzipped the file, loaded it as an "unpacked" chrome extension into vivaldi and it works perfectly

Ooooh! Dare i hope that perchance Sidebery might also yield such success?

@Ayespy said in Support Firefox Extensions:

She would love to have everything she wants

She's a selfish cow!

@Ayespy said in Support Firefox Extensions:

referred to as 'snappie' for Snapshot

Ofc. Down here you get booted outta the country & your citizenship revoked, if you're ever caught wilfully failing to shorten common nouns then append either ie or o to them, depending on context.

guigirl

@guigirl Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

...and...

AltCode

Welp... it is what it is, I guess.

LonM

@AltCode Even though its marked as "will not do", this request will stay open and you can keep discussing it. Maybe at some point in the far future when vivaldi has more resources to work with it will get reconsidered. For now I think supporting other stores would be too much work for the devs.

Hadden89

@LonM said in Support Firefox Extensions:

I don't know if there's a concrete list of API differences between both browsers

There are. For example the sidebar API which is not chromium compatible.

I doubt the old style 'XUL' extensions would ever be supported even in kagi (I'm not sure if even firefox support them any more), so I wouldn't get any hopes up for that.

Yep. Not webkit/blink compatible. Pretty much dead and only live in the spirit inside goanna (fork of legacy gecko) on Palemoon and [partially] on Basilisk (hybrid of old and modern fox)

Said that, firefox extensions can be easily loaded as unpacked but the results are not guaranteed.