PLEASE DO SOMETHING: Mozilla's restrictions cause a lot of bad reviews for my add-on

Add-ons addons.mozilla.org
#1

New Tab Override is available as WebExtension since yesterday, yay! \o/ Now I get A LOT of bad reviews only because of Mozilla’s restriction to disallow local file access. It’s one thing to restrict the possibilites of add-ons. But now I have A LOT OF WORK to reply to all reviews and flag these for deletion because it’s not okay to give the developers of add-ons bad reviews if it’s not the fault of the add-on but only because of Mozilla’s restriction.

There is an add-on description with explanation, there is a changelog with explanation AND there is a explanation within the add-on. It’s not enough, the users don’t read this.

There are also already five (!) opened issues within one day (!) on GitHub for the same reason. But this is not your problem…

But regarding AMO reviews… Please do something, I don’t have the time to answer to reviews all 20 minutes, I have a full time job and the development of add-ons is a hobby and I have to get my work done…

It’s also bad for the users because my answers are a bit angry now… There are so many explanations and they don’t get it…

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#2

Not sure that this is appropriate, but maybe you can set the minimum version to 57.* for functions weakened.

As well as, you should check and provide an instructions within the add-on, such as how to install the old version and set it to no update in Add-ons Manager, and which bugs prevent you doing, not just I cannot do it.

#3

Unfortunately I had to set the minimum version to Firefox 55 otherwise I would loose the “featured” state in two weeks…

There is already a lot of text in my add-on only for missing features. And it’s already clear that a lot of users don’t read so more text doesn’t change anything.

#4

Access to local files is no longer possible for extensions. is not enough to understand why, it should be linked to a well-related issue or bug, and not a long story. In addition, guide users to install the old version.

#5

There are other explanations for users of the legacy version, too (not visible for fresh installs). It also doesn’t matter why it’s not possible. It’s not possible and I can’t do anything. And no, I won’t tell the users that they should install an old version, that’s not an option. There is no alternative in Firefox 57 and Firefox Nightly is already on version 57.

#6

I’m sure this is all very frustrating for developers. I found an alternate for my needs. I disabled automatic upgrades and downgraded to Firefox 54.0.1 then installed “New Tab Homepage” by Ben Basson. Works for my needs. Sorry that Firefox changes messed up the local file access for New Tab Override. Frankly, i never understood why a custom new tab address isn’t a Firefox built in option.

#7

That’s not the topic AT ALL.

#8

When the error fist came up yesterday i had no idea why your extension stopped working for my locally saved homepage. So i did a Google search for “Access to local files is no longer possible for extensions”. This thread was the only hit. Now i know why it no longer works and i thought perhaps others might find my solution to be helpful. If not that’s fine too.

#9

Now someone is rating ALL of my add-ons with one stars. I reported this to Mozilla, the reviews were deleted and now the same user rated again all my add-ons with one star and spam comments. That’s so stupid… :frowning:

#10

Now someone is rating ALL of my add-ons with one stars. I reported this to Mozilla, the reviews were deleted and now the same user rated again all my add-ons with one star and spam comments. That’s so stupid…

I’ll contact you off-discourse about this.

Eric

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