257

Vlad I would argue that this isn't a missing feature so much as a bug/flaw in an already implement feature: extension support. One that will lead to more and more unnecessary bug reports the longer it's left unaddressed. Or worse, people not reporting and just giving up on Orion.

When out of date extensions cause issues on websites the casual user will likely blame Orion because they have no way of knowing that their extensions aren't getting updated, whether they need updating, and have no obvious way to update them if they did know.

      Xyth Auto updating extensions will likely lead to more bug reports as newer versions tend to include stuff we do not support yet. This is why some of the extensions in "Popular extensions" refer older versions of the extension (eg Metamask and Grammarly) as those work, but newer do not.

      But that is irrelevant and not a factor in our decision making, I was merely trying to explain our thought process. Since updating extensions is already possible (just not in automated way) and there were so many actual bugs we prioritized the bugs. We will be looking into this soon.

      • Xyth replied to this.

          Vlad Auto updating extensions will likely lead to more bug reports as newer versions tend to include stuff we do not support yet. This is why some of the extensions in "Popular extensions" refer older versions of the extension (eg Metamask and Grammarly) as those work, but newer do not.

          That's why Orion needs to add functionality and UI elements for manual updates, not auto updates. I made a seperate ticket about this but it just got merged into this one.

          Vlad Since updating extensions is already possible (just not in automated way) and there were so many actual bugs we prioritized the bugs.

          As far as I can tell updating extensions is only possible by uninstalling and reinstalling. This is terrible because you lose all your settings in the process. For example, I use Dark Reader in whitelist mode. Every time I update it I lose my list of whitelisted sites. I also use extensions like Scratch Addons and FB Purity which have literally hundreds of settings. All lost when uninstalling and reinstalling. And an add-on like FB Purity has to be kept up to date because Facebook is constantly changing.

          Here's what I requested in my original post (merged into this thread), which is not the same as auto-updates:

          Xyth In the Extensions Panel there are Reload, Settings and Uninstall buttons. There needs to be a "Check for Update" button as well, that becomes a "Update to Version x.xx" button if a new version of the extension is detected.

          Additionally, clicking on the name of an extension in the Extension panel should open that extension's page in a new tab.

                  23 days later

                  "updating extensions is already possible (just not in automated way)" ... this is false. Uninstalling and reinstalling is NOT updating, it is a shabby workaround. It appears that in the newest RC it is still impossible to update extensions. Is there a specific timeline for when this issue will be addressed? Or is this issue still being postponed indefinitely?

                  • Vlad replied to this.
                    6 days later

                    paul_quixote Targettting 127. Nothing is postponed indefinetely, it is a matter of demand (this is high) and difficulity (this one is very hard). So we priorirtise fixing 50 bugs instead and it has been going for a few releases now.

                        6 days later

                        @Vlad What are the engineering challenges faced with implementing auto-updating extensions? Would it be possible to look at Chromium/Firefox to see how they implement it? I know that Orion uses a different browser engine so that may be an unfair comparison.

                        • Vlad replied to this.

                          Anatomy5803 The engineering challange is that the most issues on this forum, and there are over 2,000 open ones, are bugs. There is huge pressure to fix those bugs, which you might get a sense of if you just read the first 50 posts when you open the home page (I dare you do that! 🙂.

                          So between fixing many small bugs and spending considerable time to introduce a new feature (which will probably bring more bugs) we simply prioritize fixing many bugs, at least as long the backlog contains 2000+ open issues.

                              19 days later

                              I just updated all extensions in the dev build. This is landing in the RC this week and in beta in a couple of weeks.

                              Vlad Thats understandable. So till "autoupdate extension" feature is not implemented, I would suggest updating extensions in the dev build everytime a new version of Orion is released.

                              In this way, while the extension may not always be the latest, they would also not be very far from it.

                                  Presenting automatic extension updates. Landing in RC tomorrow.

                                  this was something that really annoyed me about orion, and kept it as my second browser. very happy to see this land.

                                    I confirm the update of three extensions 😃. Thanks for the effort.

                                    12 days later
                                    8 months later

                                    How about the mobile version of Orion? Can't find a way to update extensions there.

                                      No one is typing