NFN Smith wrote:
null wrote:
David E. Ross wrote:
On 7/6/2017 4:11 PM, no...@nonospam.org wrote:
I'm running SeaMonkey v2.46 on a Windows 10 Pro 64 bit system with the
Creators Update version 1703 installed.
This morning when I started SeaMonkey, it opened several tabs. Each one
said something like "SeaMonkey v2.46 would like to update your <plug-in
name> plug-in. Each of these mentioned a different plug-in.
>>>>>>John
First of all, PrefBar is an extension, not a plugin. There are
significant differences between the two. The Mozilla developers did a
serious disservice to users when they decided to lump the two together
under the term "add-on".
I was interested in your above comment because I too have always been rather
confused about the difference between an extension and a plugin, and I'm still
unclear!
Would be great if you could post some clarification of this - I'm sure there
would be others who would also find it helpful.
Answering in context...
A plug-in is an external program, which is normally installed via normal O/S
installation processes, and makes itself available to Seamonkey or other
browsers. And since it's an external program, it runs apart from the browser,
even if the browser provides the UI. Somewhere in the last couple of weeks
(perhaps in the Firefox support group), I saw a discussion that noted that if a
plugin crashes, it won't bring down the browser.
Adobe Flash is a plugin (and in the Add-ons section, it calls itself "Shockwave
Flash", even if Shockwave is a different tool (and also a plugin). Java (i.e.,
JRE) is also a plug-in (and not to be confused with the unrelated JavaScript).
Although the visibility of Java is considerably less than it was a couple of
years ago, it's still out there, and still a productive tool. It's just that
you don't want to expose Java applications to the Internet through your browser.
The primary weakness of plug-ins is that there's no easy way of authenticating
whether code is legitimate or malicious, and both Flash and Java have history of
being vectors for malware (e.g., drive-by downloads). Thus, developers are
moving away from doing things by plug-in. In particular, Firefox now has
deprecated access to all plugins except for Flash, and they'll be doing that to
Flash by the end of the year.
I'm currently a contributed build of Seamonkey 2.50, and I see that there are no
plugins visible in the AddOns manager (I quit running Flash some time ago),
although I think that's a development that may be more recent than the official
distribution of 2.46. In the past, my habit has been to set permissions on a
couple of plugins (such as Flash) to request permission before executing, and
explicitly setting others to access that is permanently denied. I'm working
from memory, but I know that Citrix (via tools like GoToMeeting or GoToWebinar)
provide plug-ins, and even Microsoft Office provides plugins. For me, since I
have no felt need for access for those tools in my browser (even if I make other
use of them), it's easy deny access to everything.
+1
Extensions are code that connect to your browser, and in the current Mozilla
architecture, normally distributed as .XPI files. The general purpose of
extensions is to extend the capacity of the browser (or in Seamonkey's case, the
mail client, as well), where the developers are not part of the core development
group, and in ways that are much more finely tuned to user preferences. By the
original Mozilla development philosophy of "light and fast", if users want more
capacity in certain areas, the better way of doing that is to do it through
extension, and let individuals who what that capacity to install the extension
themselves, without burdening all users with a lightly-used feature. The vast
majority of extensions are distributed through addons.mozilla.org, and dating
from a couple of years ago, all extensions there are digitally signed. I don't
know if Mozilla has had much in the way of problems, but I know that Google had
problems with their extensions system, of extensions projects that have been
abandoned, and then where malware writers take over the projects.
The other thing about extensions to be aware of is that Mozilla is in the
process of changing the API used from XUL to using the WebExtensions API used by
Google Chrome. Stuff done with WebExtensions will be interchangeable with
Chrome, but a lot of Mozilla extensions are done by small developers (and a
long-time evolution) and where they simply don't have the capacity of re-coding
their work for WebExtensions. So far, both Seamonkey and Thunderbird are
continuing to use the old API, but some extension writers who have extensions
that will run on either Firefox or Seamonkey have announced that they're
abandoning their work. Thus, depending on the extension, you may find that
extensions that work well in Seamonkey get abandoned.
For PrefBar (and I'm an enthusiastic user), I haven't yet seen whether the
developer will move to WebExtensions (although I doubt it), or if he'll continue
XPI development for Seamonkey users.
Smith
--
GérardJan Vinkesteijn-Rudersdorff
http://www.ciudadpatricia.es
https://facebook.com/gerardjan.vinkesteijn
User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0
SeaMonkey/2.49a2
Build identifier: 20161122013001
I never met a man I didn't want to fight.
-- Lyle Alzado, professional football lineman
_______________________________________________
support-seamonkey mailing list
support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
