Videochat Extension Discontinues Firefox Add-On Support Due to Compatibility Issues

Hey, 1,177 Firefox users, we need to talk. It's likely that only a few of you will see this post, but I still need to share it to explain what's going on.

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As we have over 150,000 Chromium users, we faced a tough decision in light of recent events that required capabilities not yet available in Firefox.

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We've recently pushed the v2.1.2 update, which is specific to Firefox. This update disables the geolocation internal API and recommends that all active users switch to the latest version available on the Chrome Web Store.

All non geolocation-based features should continue to work as expected.

There will be no updates to the Firefox version until the compatibility situation improves, which may take years.

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To continue using the full-featured Videochat Extension, you will need to download a Chromium-based browser on your PC.

We recommend checking out Brave!

Brave is a robust, well-funded, ungoogled Chromium-based browser. Notably, Brave was co-founded by the individual who also co-founded Mozilla Project and created the JavaScript language that powers most of the web today.

Once you have installed Brave, you can simply add the extension from the Chrome Web Store.

And no, you don’t have to change your main browser!

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Why?

The Firefox version has been stuck at v1.9.0, dating back to the days when Omegle was still alive. Firefox users have already missed seven new releases (!!!) due to minor compatibility issues and a lack of time to address them.

We've invested a LOT of time into adding Firefox support to the Videochat Extension, as Chromium and Firefox browsers are very different internally, leading to numerous minor incompatibilities that required us to spend DOZENS of hours figuring out.

Unfortunately, our core feature—geolocation—now requires the ability for pages to connect directly to the extension, a capability that Firefox has lacked for eight years (!!!).

We also have amazing plans for the future of the extension, which would require using the latest Chromium extension APIs and other features that are unlikely to achieve adequate compatibility in Firefox in the near future.

It's not that Firefox is bad; it remains an excellent alternative to Google (despite the fact that Google likely still pays Mozilla around $500 million per year).

We simply do not have the resources to maintain compatibility for less than 0.5% of our users. Being Chromium-dependent is also a significant factor that eliminates multiple blockers for our 99.5% of users.

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Supporting the Firefox version of the extension was very important to us because we wanted to provide an alternative to Chrome.

However, as of today, creating and maintaining our own Chromium-based browser would take significantly less time than trying to maintain compatibility with Firefox for less than 0.5% of our users.

There are days on Chrome when we have more installs than our entire Firefox user base has accumulated over its entire existence!!!

Firefox did nothing wrong. We just aren't able to continue supporting it effectively.

We will return to the firefox if the compatibility situation improves.

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