>Wrapping the IE rendering engine in a different UI is a different browser, but further than that, you can also embed Gekko, Firefox's rendering engine in a custom UI.
>Examples of browsers that embedded Gekko: Camino (a Firefox fork for OS X that happened in a time when Firefox wasn't as polished for OS X), Flock and K-Meleon. Google's Picassa for Linux was also using Gekko.
True, but only goes to show my point - if firefox's extension mechanism made it so super-customizable, surely there would be no need for such browsers?
>Firefox's UI toolkit is not GTK, but rather XUL+XPCOM
Fair enough, but the point stands; when writing extensions you're restricted to using the XUL toolkit. Contrast with e.g. activex-based add-ons in Internet Explorer, where AIUI you get the standard windows API and can thus use any toolkit you like.
>Imagine a browser who's every facet and functionality is customizable by HTML5/Javascript extensions that you can install with one click.
I'm happy to believe that Firefox is the browser that's easiest to customize in HTML5/Javascript, I just think that's a very arbitrary line to draw. IE addons can be any language you like (because again they're just using the standard APIs) and can be installed with one click.
There are plenty of good things about firefox, but I don't think you can say it's more or less customizable than the alternatives without defining customizability in a very arbitrary way. All browsers have a succession of methods of customization, from simple userjs to custom extension formats to embedding the engine in a new executable, with the power and complexity increasing at each step. That firefox's "extensions" lie at a bit more powerful and complex point along the line than chrome's is not the basis for this blanket claim of greater customizability.
True, but only goes to show my point - if firefox's extension mechanism made it so super-customizable, surely there would be no need for such browsers?
>Firefox's UI toolkit is not GTK, but rather XUL+XPCOM
Fair enough, but the point stands; when writing extensions you're restricted to using the XUL toolkit. Contrast with e.g. activex-based add-ons in Internet Explorer, where AIUI you get the standard windows API and can thus use any toolkit you like.
>Imagine a browser who's every facet and functionality is customizable by HTML5/Javascript extensions that you can install with one click.
I'm happy to believe that Firefox is the browser that's easiest to customize in HTML5/Javascript, I just think that's a very arbitrary line to draw. IE addons can be any language you like (because again they're just using the standard APIs) and can be installed with one click.
There are plenty of good things about firefox, but I don't think you can say it's more or less customizable than the alternatives without defining customizability in a very arbitrary way. All browsers have a succession of methods of customization, from simple userjs to custom extension formats to embedding the engine in a new executable, with the power and complexity increasing at each step. That firefox's "extensions" lie at a bit more powerful and complex point along the line than chrome's is not the basis for this blanket claim of greater customizability.