A heads up about extensions in 3.8

[Xan Lopez <xan gnome org>]

Hi everyone,

as discussed in a thread[1] and a bug[2] some time ago there are some
problems with the traditional extension model in epiphany. I recommend
to read those links, but just to summarize:

- The traditional extension model available in Epiphany has several
serious problems.
- Extensions run in the main browser process, making it more unstable.
- The API surface exposed to them it's huge. Hard to keep it stable
when you want to improve the browser fast.
- Forces people to use relatively obscure technologies to do simple things.

On top of all these, and as we have said a number of times, our plan
for 3.8 is to switch epiphany to use WebKit2. This would immediately
invalidate all extensions (or at least the few remaining ones that do
actually work), so as you can see we are in a bit of a situation. For
this reason the epiphany maintainers have agreed:

- To integrate in the core browser the really popular extensions that
we receive feedback about and that people complain when they break.
This basically means 'adblock', which will be available in 3.7.1 as
part of the core browser.
- To remove the support for traditional extensions in ephy. This is
also already done in 3.7.1, so the existing extensions *will not* work
from now on.
- To start the process of defining the future extension model for
ephy, based on the out-of-process web-based technologies used in
Chrome or Firefox.

Obviously this last step requires a big effort, so we absolutely
welcome everyone interested in seeing a lot of well supported and
interesting extensions for ephy to join us in this project. We still
think a strong extension ecosystem around a lean core is a great idea,
and we hope this decision will actually get us closer to that future.

Cheers,

Xan

1: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/epiphany-list/2012-August/msg00002.html
2: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=646597#c18