If you are switching now from Firebug to Firefox DevTools, you will of course notice differences. Also, over 40 bugs were fixed to close the gap between DevTools and Firebug.įor curious readers, a couple of articles on and on the Firebug blog go into more detail. Several features have been absorbed: The DOM panel, the Firebug theme, Server-side log messages, the HTTP inspector (aka XHR Spy), and various popular add-ons like FireQuery, HAR export, and PixelPerfect. Other Firebug Working Group members like Sebastian Zartner and Florent Fayolle are also active DevTools contributors.Ī huge thank you to them for bringing their expertise in browser developer tooling to the project! In practical terms, what does it mean to merge Firebug into DevTools? Many of Firebug’s core developers are on the DevTools team, including Jan ‘Honza’ Odvarko and Mike Ratcliffe. The decision was made that the next version of Firebug (codenamed Firebug.next) would build on top of Firefox DevTools, and Firebug would be merged into the built-in tools.Īnd perhaps most importantly, we joined forces to build the best developer tools together, rather than compete with each other. Additionally, Firefox’s built-in developer tools have been gaining speed, so it made sense to base the next version of Firebug on these tools instead. The Firebug Working Group agreed they didn’t have enough resources to implement such a massive architectural change.

Unfortunately, Firebug wasn’t designed with multiprocess in mind, and making it work in this new scenario would have required an extremely difficult and costly rewrite. With multiprocess architecture, if a website crashes, it doesn’t also crash the whole browser. Electrolysis’s multiprocess architecture makes it possible for Firefox to run its user interface (things like the address bar, the tabs and menus) in one process while the content (websites) runs in other processes. The reason for this huge change is Electrolysis, Mozilla’s project name for a redesign of Firefox architecture to improve responsiveness, stability, and security. As you might have heard already, Firebug has been discontinued as a separate Firefox add-on.

Firebug for firefox developer edition