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Chromification Continues: Firefox May Use Chrome's PDF and Flash Plugins (softpedia.com) 113

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla announced today Project Mortar, an initiative to explore the possibility of deploying alternative technologies in Firefox to replace its internal implementations. The project's first two goals are to test two Chrome plugins within the Firefox codebase. These are PDFium, the Chrome plugin for viewing PDF files, and Pepper Flash, Google's custom implementation of Adobe Flash. The decision comes as Mozilla is trying to cut down development costs, after Firefox took a nose dive in market share this year. "In order to enable stronger focus on advancing the Web and to reduce the complexity and long term maintenance cost of Firefox, and as part of our strategy to remove generic plugin support, we are launching Project Mortar," said Johnny Stenback, Senior Director Of Engineering at Mozilla Corporation. "Project Mortar seeks to reduce the time Mozilla spends on technologies that are required to provide a complete web browsing experience, but are not a core piece of the Web platform," Stenback adds. "We will be looking for opportunities to replace such technologies with other existing alternatives, including implementations by other browser vendors."
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Chromification Continues: Firefox May Use Chrome's PDF and Flash Plugins More

Chromification Continues: Firefox May Use Chrome's PDF and Flash Plugins

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  • So... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Why don't I just use Chrome?

    • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bjdevil66 ( 583941 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @01:33PM (#52990547)

      While I'm not as happy with Firefox as I once was, there is one reason I stay with it that will never go away (and Chrome users just accept as a fact of life, which I'm not ready to do) - Google's tracking/privacy views. There is still a shred of privacy left from Google's prying eyes with using Firefox.

      If Firefox ever starts willfully tracking and profiling me personally (and collecting/selling my usage data), I'm out.

      • I still use Firefox simply for its hackability. One problem I keep running into though is that it's slow as hell on a lot of sites. For example, notice how slowly it zooms on Google maps compared to every other browser.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by rudy_wayne ( 414635 )

          I still use Firefox simply for its hackability.

          I used to use Firefox for it's customizability. Then along the Assholio release that wiped out many of the things that made Firefox attractive in the first place. So I switched to the Palemoon fork.

        • Double check your help|troubleshooting page to see if acceleration / directX is disabled. I had the same problem, found that an old buggy driver had caused FF to disable all acceleration (despite the setting being checked) because of crashes. Now google maps is much faster and smoother. Probably not up to chrome standards but it was a non-usable to usable transition.

          • Re: So... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Blaskowicz ( 634489 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @08:39PM (#52992559)

            Thus the issue is that the website expects acceleration to work properly. The website can be blamed for being slow, and for doing this to promote Chrome.
            It's a lot easier to get enough basic OpenGL in non-browser apps running : Google Earth invariably runs a lot faster than Google Maps, and can be used on old hardware, even in Linux and even with an open source driver.

            I tried KDE "Marble" but I wasn't impressed (blocky, slow, hard to navigate at all, looks like it was made in the mid 90s)
            I've tried gnome-maps right now : it works but there are no UI preferences (what do you expect). The zoom is too fast and coarse, with a transition effect that hurts the eyes. You hit "mousewheelup" and it looks like you're going to crash into the ground at 300 mph. You hit mousewheeldown and it flashes a blank tile that fades in to the maps. Perhaps someone can fork it and turn it into a normal app?

            I don't want browser acceleration. How can I be guaranteed it won't make the browser crash, or actually slow down perhaps to a stand still because of overhead?, if not crash the whole X session.
            There's Google Earth as a 10x faster version of Google Maps, or openstreetmaps website, or others.
            Amazon will also slow down your browser, that's because the web site is defective. So don't go to Amazon (there's ebay for the odd things anyway) or keep only one tab or don't forget you can use a secondary Firefox instance on a secondary profile, where you can either use slow things there or use things you don't want be slowed down.

            • I don't want browser acceleration. How can I be guaranteed it won't make the browser crash, or actually slow down perhaps to a stand still because of overhead?, if not crash the whole X session.

              Having hardware acceleration enabled and visiting certain sites in Chrome (such as the Chrome Web Store) crashes the GPU in my old laptop (Intel GMA965) so hard that the only a power cycle can recover it.

              Can't find the bug report at the moment but this has been an issue in Chrome for more than a year now.

            • The thing is, *every* other web browser, including shitty IE, renders google maps really smoothly, except firefox. I've checked, all of the acceleration stuff is enabled.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        >Chromium

        It exists. Use it! It's like seeing into the future of firefox! Only it's not pig-shit gecko based!

      • Any links as to what Chrome collects?

        • Any links as to what Chrome collects?

          No, because there is no law which requires a company to publish an honest privacy policy. And even if there was, there is no way in hell Google will ever allow any regulatory body to pry around their data centres and entire database and archives to ensure that they are indeed not spying or doing nasty things with data, like selling to insurance companies, government bodies, highest bidder, etc.

          And even if there was such a thing as a regulatory body to monitor Google, Google will simply pay them enough to sh

      • Firefox is fine for what I do. Emails and browsing. I am however, frustrated with using FF for flash. Its always complaining that adobe flash is out of date.

        Since FF is rendering info faster than I can read, and since I am a creature of habit, I don't think that I will change to something else, unless FF disappeared.

    • Abstract version of every Firefox story every:

      $name, Mozilla's director of $whatever, today announced a new policy of $random. "We have no idea what to do any more with our product so we're announcing a new policy of $random, which we will pursue until $current_time + delta at which point we'll abandon it and leave users hanging". Mozilla creative director $other_name added "We ran out of ideas in 2012 so this is just another attempt to copy Chrome. This position is quite a good job really, I haven't had a single creative thought for four years but I can maintain my position by mimicking whatever Google does and still get paid!". The markets responded through Firefox's market share dropping another 3 percentage points, now rating below WebWombat 2.0 for the Amiga".

  • Flash? turn it off? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ArtemaOne ( 1300025 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @12:27PM (#52990053)
    Can you turn that off? I haven't used Flash in so many years and do not want a mandatory plugin.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zitchas ( 713512 )

      I certainly hope it is removable. I haven't had Flash on my computer for the better part of a decade. (and the only reason I have it now is because it comes baked into Windows 10. Which I *really* dislike.)

      What I'd really like to know is why they are wasting time on either of these projects? Both flash and pdf support is easy to get through a whole variety of mechanisms. Wasting time on supporting a platform that a) many of us would like to see go quickly, quietly, and firmly into the night, and b) isn't te

      • chrome://plugins/

        Just turn it off. I turned Native Client off as well.
      • Agreed. Flash is nothing but a security hole that has been long replaced by better functions. I can watch Prime, Netflix, Youtube, and most other videos without it. Plus I have a PDF program on my computer. Why would I want it to show up in a browser window in the first place? I never understood that.

        • There is one small advantage to having a PDF viewer in the browser, but it's a [beneficial] side effect for a missing browser feature.

          If you do a google search for something and on the results page is a link to a PDF, the link _isn't_ a direct link to the final PDF file. It's a "result" link that actually points to google (e.g. google?url?sa=t&foo=bar). It redirects when you actually click on it. So, if you right click and select "copy link location", you'll get the link pointing to google and not the f

        • ...because opening in browser (and saving to a temp directory, automatically cleared after I close the browser) is better than having the PDF saved to my downloads folder and then launch an entirely separate program before I can even see if the file is worth keeping. I have colleagues who pull PDFs of journal articles, glance, and then decide they didn't need it after all ... and end up with hard drives that are full because of the hundreds of gigabytes of PDFs in the downloads folder.

          A simple PDF viewer li

      • The only reason to stay on Firefox is that it's addons are better. Whatever your need, there's an addon for that.

        https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]

        • The only reason to stay on Firefox is that it's addons are better. Whatever your need, there's an addon for that.

          Can't seem to find KillAsaDotzler.xpi for some reason, can you send me a link to it?

  • Miss FF 3.6 already? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sinij ( 911942 )
    When I all but called this when FF moved on from 3.6 people here thought I overreacted. Welcome to FireChrome.

    I strongly suggest moving on to Pale Moon. NoScript works with it, so what are you waiting for?

    • I strongly suggest moving on to Pale Moon. NoScript works with it, so what are you waiting for?

      I'm waiting for tree-style tabs to work on Pale Moon. The way things have gone with FF the last few years, I've been looking for something else. But I have to have vertical tabs, preferably nested. So far, Opera with it's vertical tabs is the best option I've found. But it's not nested and it also duplicates the tabs horizontally as well. Opera also appears to create a new process for every tab. Which I find kind of annoying as I normally have a dozen, or more, browser pages open with 5 to 20+ tabs open in

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sinij ( 911942 )
        I personally don't get this type of use-case. Why not simply use bookmarks/RSS?

        • Because the proliferation of pages is not due to repetitive viewing of the same sites, it's due to a tree traversal over the pages linked from a starting page. Sooner or later, I plan to be finished reading them all and close the vast majority of the tabs without any intention of reopening them later.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sinij ( 911942 )
            I see. Interesting.

            I use 'open new window' method, where all tabs for any given topic are in the same window.

            • I use 'open new window' method, where all tabs for any given topic are in the same window.

              My monitors are 16:9 and having the tabs along the side is a better use of screen real estate. Plus it allows me to make them all wide enough(slightly narrower than the width of a single horizontal tab) to be able to read them without having to search through every one to figure out which one I'm looking for. Try having 25 tabs open with them placed horizontally across the top of the browser. You'll be lucky if you can see the first three letters of each page.

        • Because I'm often times researching several things at the same time and like to keep them grouped together on different pages rather than having over 100 tabs open on one window.

          I also have multiple monitors and will have a group of publications open on one and another group that I'm cross-referencing and comparing on the other. If it's something that I'm not going to use for a couple of months, I may bookmark the entire group and save it to bookmarks. But my bookmarks folder is enormous, so if it's somet

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by ChoGGi ( 522069 )

            which bookmark editing features? The manage bookmarks window (library) and bookmark properties both look the same as Firefox 48.

            • which bookmark editing features? The manage bookmarks window (library) and bookmark properties both look the same as Firefox 48.

              They had been removed long before 48. It's been quite a few years actually.

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by ChoGGi ( 522069 )

                I meant compared to Palemoon, but I still don't know which features you mean. Firefox 4.0 still has the same manager/properties

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by aix tom ( 902140 )

        Funny enough, one of the *main* reasons I switches from Firefox to Pale Moon about five years ago was that FF yet again broke TreeStyleTabs back then, and they have been working beautifully without any interruption for me since then in Pale Moon.

        http://www.thomasx.de/download... [thomasx.de]

        • Can you please post a link to where you downloaded a working version of TreeStyle tabs from? I've tried to make it work in Pale Moon a couple of times, but it never would TIA.

  • I was a die hard Mozilla fan until they began releasing faster than the plugin community could update their plugins.

    I got sick of that song and dance on 3 computers I had been keeping passwords and bookmarks in sync and switched to Chrome years ago.

    Been watching the HMS Mozilla flounder in the bay ever since. Time to grab a new bucket of popcorn.

  • Hey Mozilla! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30, 2016 @12:32PM (#52990097)

    Hey Mozilla!

    Just fork Chromium already

  • Chromification (Score:5, Informative)

    by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @12:35PM (#52990133)

    If all browsers end up being front ends on top of Chrome it will make Web Page development and testing slightly easier. However, it will also make hijacking any found vulnerability more profitable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )
      Not really, unless the API has a vulnerability. Otherwise Mozilla's plugin code is likely considerably different than Chromes.
    • ... And really no different than iOS, which forces all browsers to be cheap skins on top of Safari. So much for diversity.

    • I understand your point, but I seriously doubt that any monoculture makes things "easier", even from a developer's perspective.

  • Meaning (Score:3)

    by ThatsNotPudding ( 1045640 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @12:38PM (#52990159)
    "There are a lot of egg savings to be had by using just one basket."

    I am also reminded of the Pontiac Vibe, which was basically a Toyota Matrix, but - naturally - far uglier. What doe Firefox want to be when in grows up? Indistinguishable from Chrome.

  • PDF Plugin? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Matt_Bennett ( 79107 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @12:50PM (#52990261) Homepage Journal

    The PDF plugin is the worst part of Chrome, on every new install I have to remember what I did before to disable it before. I look at a lot of datasheets, and the built-in-viewer really sucks for doing anything but scanning to see if you want to search through your downloads directory to open it up in a read PDF viewer.

    • The PDF plugin is the worst part of Chrome, on every new install I have to remember what I did before to disable it before. I look at a lot of datasheets, and the built-in-viewer really sucks for doing anything but scanning to see if you want to search through your downloads directory to open it up in a read PDF viewer.

      And it is the source of 90% of the serious security issues in Chrome, just look at their issues fixed in each release.

      Not sure why anyone would volunteer to use something based on pdfium.

  • Why? (Score:2)

    by PPH ( 736903 )

    Firefox's native PDF viewer works just fine.

    Flash is dead. Use HTML5 video. Flash is being blocked in some workplaces because it is pretty much just used for porn.

  • So what (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by LichtSpektren ( 4201985 )
    Seriously, who cares? Nobody uses Firefox because it has the best performance. They use it because Mozilla cares more about users' privacy and rights than Microsoft, Apple, and Google do, and also the superior extensions and built-in privacy/security features.

    If Mozilla wants to nab some of the things that are better in Chromium right now like the PDF viewer, all power to them. Less work for the Firefox devs, and surely Google couldn't care less.

  • So I guess Mozilla is going to think about dissolving in the next few years?
    I mean, if they are going to stop developing their own technologies and Firefox is to become just a special skinned version of Chrome, there's no need for all those developers -- of some well-paid (but productively useless) board of directors.

  • After getting rid of Flash from my Linux install, I don't want a browser to have it built in. Why can't Firefox just fix all the problems and user UI screw-ups they've done in recent years?

  • Misunderstood (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kangsterizer ( 1698322 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @01:55PM (#52990671)

    There seems to be a lot of confusion and in traditional Mozilla fashion all this is poorly communicated.
    First, Flash no longer gets updated for NPAPI (Netscape API) which is the way it talks to Firefox. Only PPAPI (Pepper API) gets updates, which is what Chrome uses.
    Mortar adds support PPAPI and deprecates/removes NPAPI.
    It does not mean you need flash or that it adds stuff you "don't want". It just means it still works for the people who need it - that's it.

    By that means it also means any other PPAPI plugin works, so the PDF reader too. It doesn't mean PDF.js (Firefox' own reader) goes away. It just means you can also use PPAPI stuff. If Chrome's PDF reader ends up being better than PDF.js over time, then they can switch over to it as default.

    It's not using Chrome's rendering, layering, etc. engine. It's not using Chrome's UI. It's not browsing the web with Chrome, at all.

    • Re:Misunderstood (Score:4, Informative)

      by Barefoot Monkey ( 1657313 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @03:00PM (#52991041)

      Agreed. I read the article and it's... basically just trying to stir up panic over nothing.

      NPAPI had a good run. It was made in 1995 and was used by Chrome, Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator and Firefox, Opera and many other browsers (obviously not in that order). But it's been showing its age for a long time, and most browsers have dropped support for it years ago - Firefox keeps it alive purely because of Flash. But Flash is also implemented for the Pepper API, so if they can get enough of Pepper implemented to run Flash through that then they can finally ditch NPAPI. The alternative would be to invest a fortune inventing a whole new Mozilla-specific architecture just for Flash on Firefox and hope that Adobe still cares enough about both Flash and Firefox to reimplement the plugin for them - not likely.

      Getting PDFium to work was the proof-of-concept for a minimal Pepper implementation on Firefox. Just enough Pepper API to run Flash is the end goal for now. Maybe they'll eventually decide to do a full Pepper implementation, but I don't think that's a concern for now.

      This doesn't mean they plan to replace PDF.js with PDFium (which doesn't mean that they won't do so; I hope they don't, because PDF.js has been working very well for me and doesn't require any plugins)

    • There seems to be a lot of confusion and in traditional Mozilla fashion all this is poorly communicated.
      First, Flash no longer gets updated for NPAPI (Netscape API) which is the way it talks to Firefox. Only PPAPI (Pepper API) gets updates, which is what Chrome uses.
      Mortar adds support PPAPI and deprecates/removes NPAPI.
      It does not mean you need flash or that it adds stuff you "don't want". It just means it still works for the people who need it - that's it.

      By that means it also means any other PPAPI plugin works,

      No, not really. The basic PPAPI can do very little, and both Flash and PDF uses special priviledged extensions to PPAPI to even work (called PPAPI PDF, PPAPI Flash and PPAPI Private). So while Firefox have obviously implemented all of those, these two plugins are not really PPAPI, they are their own special things with their own special priviledges and APIs.

      NaCl is PPAPI too, and also have their own set of special crap, Firefox would probably have announced it if they had implemented that.

  • Fine, but please don't replace your renderer (Score:3)

    by kriston ( 7886 ) on Friday September 30, 2016 @02:34PM (#52990907) Homepage Journal

    Fine, but please don't replace your rendering engine. We need to have an independent page rendering engine that competes with WebKit.

  • suggestions of features for Firefox 50 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I think that for the next version Mozilla should create a default skin for Firefox to make it ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL to Chrome. The main window, the menus, the options, EVERYTHING the exact same. They should also remove every option that can be changed in Firefox which cannot be set in Chrome (disabling the about:config would go a long way towards that goal). Finally, they should finally deprecate their old plugins APIs, which is something they were planning to do anyways. This way, for Firefox 51, they can t

  • Project Mordor?
    Wait, perhaps I did not mis read after all. What could possibly go wrong with a mono culture?

  • Mozilla says that these changes are to help reduce the time it spends on non-core technologies. If you want to free up developer time how about stop working on all of the crap you've been adding in like Pocket and Hello that nobody has been asking for.

    Not that it matters to me anymore. I moved over to Safari one or two versions ago. While I preferred, or at least was used to, Firefox, I was finding that too many sites that I regularly visited were having problems rendering even when I turned off the ad b

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