Important news for users of the Safari version of the FB Purity browser add-on

FB Purity lets you clean up and customize Facebook making using FB a much pleasanter experience.

Safari FB Purity lets you clean up and customize Facebook. Get rid of the junk features of Facebook that you don’t want to see:
Get FBP today

Important news for people using the Safari extension version of FB Purity.

Apple a company with a net worth of over 733 billion dollars has decided that developers of Safari browser extensions must pay them $99 per year, for the privilege of toiling long hours developing free browser extensions. This is quite frankly obscene, and not fair in the slightest. None of the other browsers charge developers to develop free extensions.

The other issue of course is that the latest versions of Safari are only available on the Mac platform, and I am a PC developer, so that is the other roadblock.

This means I can no longer develop FB Purity for Safari. The currently available version of the FBP Safari extension, still seems to be working, but I will no longer be able to provide updates for it, and I do not know how much longer it will remain working.

The options available for you in future will be to switch to using FBP on one of the other supported browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Maxthon.

I think Apple have shot themselves in the foot here, watch Safari’s (already small) share of the browser market plummet, as the extensions that Safari users love using cease being developed.

If anyone wants to leave feedback for Apple on this policy, you can do so via the following form:  https://www.apple.com/feedback/safari.html Though I think its unlikely to have any effect.

Best Regards,

Steve

PS. This story has also been posted on Facebook here

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6 Responses to Important news for users of the Safari version of the FB Purity browser add-on

  1. Chelle says:

    Good on you for standing your ground! I agree what Apple are doing is ridiculous and borders on greed! Hope they fold one day. I love your extension, it’s so helpful and awesome. I hope to see it for Android one day soon :)

  2. Dave Webb says:

    I believe you can continue to produce extensions for safari, just not have them auto-updated via apple or hosted in their ‘extensions gallery’. as most users get it from your website and update it when you post one I don’t think you need to pay any ransom to apple.
    ‘Developers can still distribute extensions outside of the Extension Gallery, but they will miss out on the benefits of Apple’s distribution system’.
    http://www.pcworld.com/article/2933692/apple-now-charges-safari-extension-developers-for-distribution.html

    • admin says:

      Sorry, but you are wrong. The Apple documentation clearly states:

      Important: To develop extensions for Safari, you need to sign up for the Apple Developer Program online at http://developer.apple.com. After joining the program, you must obtain a signed certificate in order for your extension to work; the extension will not load until your certificate is installed. To request a certificate, follow the “Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles” link from the Developer Member Center homepage.

      and in order to sign up for the apple developer program, you need to pay them $99 per year…

      • Moreno says:

        From Xcode 7, you can sign your project for free, even to load ’em on your iDevice. You just need to sign up in developer program, that is free. You have to pay only to use App Store and such.

        • admin says:

          Xcode 7 has nothing to do with it, you are clearly not a browser extension developer. Trust me, it is impossible to develop browser extensions for safari without paying Apple $99 per year.

  3. Dave McClelland says:

    Sorry you’ve had to give up on Safari and I can fully understand your reasons.
    It looks like, for me anyway, that the latest version for Safari is now broken. Every time I clicked on an external link in Facebook Safari crashed. I disabled FBPurity and links now work again. Sad day. Firefox has other issues for me, so I’m living without FBPurity goodness for the first time in years…. I miss it.
    Happy new year to you!

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