[releases] Publish New Release Versions To Extension Stores?

[Nezteb]

Hello!

The currently-published browser extensions haven't been updated since 2020:

• Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/redirector/
• Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/redirector/ocgpenflpmgnfapjedencafcfakcekcd

I saw the README and this commit e0bd141. It's not explicitly stated, but it seems the maintainer has passed away? That's incredibly sad; rest in peace Einar.

I couldn't find any active/published forks of Redirector: https://github.com/einaregilsson/Redirector/forks

@Gitoffthelawn you seem to be the primary external contributor. Would you be willing to fork the extension and publish new veresions to the stores? With explicit mention of and attribution to Einar Egilsson and one of their many life's works? Just an idea. 💙

[Gitoffthelawn]

Hi Noah!

I've been making efforts towards releasing Redirector updates under the current projects so that, hopefully, a fork will not be required. Kindly see #329 and Gitoffthelawn/Contact-Gitoffthelawn#8.

I'm just waiting for full access so we can proceed. The backup plan will be to fork, but I want to give Gissur (@gzur) more time to respond. I'm guessing they are very busy.

[lylebrown]

@Gitoffthelawn If there are still obstacles in the way of publishing to the extension stores, can I suggest publishing a release on this Github repository?

Or, if that is a concern for stability issues, etc., perhaps some straightforward instructions to build the extension from source? (I see a build.py file which I assume will do this, but I would recommend creating a BuildFromSource.md (or similarly named markdown file), putting the basic instructions there, and then link to it from the main README.md.

I'll give the build.py a shot on my own later, and if it's simple enough, I can even contribute this change. But I'm unfamiliar with this project and might miss some details that devs who have contributed would know about.

[Gitoffthelawn]

@lylebrown Hi Lyle! We aren't going to be able to publish a new release to the extension stores under the same exact ID, as the credentials have been lost with Einar's passing. So the plan is to submit a new release under a new ID. It's just a matter of having enough free time to do it (I've been incredibly busy, and I keep hoping things will slow down, but they haven't).

I like your idea of providing a release here on GitHub, as that has a bit less overhead, yet I don't know if there is much demand. It takes a little work for the user to install an extension from outside an extension store. From what I recall, at least for Firefox, if such an installation is to be durable (able to withstand closing and then reopening the browser), the developer or nightly version of Firefox must be used, which most people likely aren't using.

Your thoughts?

[lylebrown]

Ah, I do use Firefox but never looked into this, so I wasn't aware of the limitation. I agree there isn't much benefit in that case.

I haven't used Chrome in a good while but I don't remember anything similar occurring when installing addons locally. Though it seems like with Manifest V3 someone else is working on a fork? So I'm not sure if a local release of that would be very useful either.

That's probably too many words to just say that I agree with you. :)

[corobin]

sounds like the effort is best used toward the new release tbh, it'll be easier to update once that's done