Firefox 55 add-on incompatibilities are being resolved. I think.

[otherego]

I didn't realise how much I used the task bar on Firefox - or more specifically, the hover-over links function which shows the link destination on the task bar.

When Firefox went for the grotty "Australis" layout, this useful feature vanished. As far as I know, one needs the Status-4-Evar add-on to bring it back.

The update to Firefox 55 broke this useful function.

However, an update to Status-4-Evar has brought things back to normal for me today. I see NoScript has also been updated - although that happens a lot, anyway - a very switched on developer.

With all the legacy add-ons (virtually all of them - Ghostery is an exception) scheduled for execution with Firefox 57 (I think), there might be merit in disabling auto-updating for Firefox until suitable updates/replacements for all one's favourite add-ons are available. This applies especially if, like me, you find all the available and high quality add-ons are what really "make" Firefox.

Another option is to use the extended support version of Firefox, which should last about half way into next year, IIRC.

[*scyllabub*]

Would switching to Waterfox be a solution, OE?

[otherego]

Hi there, Scy.

Folk like you and Cee Dee are far more clued up on browsers than me.

My own preference is to use whatever is available in the repository of the Linux distro I'm using at the moment. Trouble is, some of Firefox's changes worry me a little, and I might need to work a little harder!

As long as they are maintained, I'm sure all the variations on the Firefox theme - Waterfox, Ice Weasel, Ice Ape, Pale Moon and so on - are fine. They just seem rather more vulnerable to being abandoned if they become too much of a hassle for their developers.

That could work the other way, of course. At least with Firefox source code being open, it should be possible for those with the skills to continue to develop and maintain it even if anything happens to Mozilla.

Have you tried the long-term support version? I'd forgotten about it, but it came as standard with the version of Linux AntiX I tried recently. As far as I can see, it is only update six-monthly compared with the month and a half release cycle of the conventional Firefox. This would give one time to find out about problems with new versions before they actually affect one's own machine.

Available here:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all/