I created a Firefox extension that removes the opinion section from the Washington Post. You can get it here.

Some of my friends suggested doing the same thing for the New York Times. I think that if someone else wanted to do that it would be a fine idea, but I personally find the New York Time’s opinion section unobtrusive and easy to ignore since it is off to the side. By contrast the Washington Post the opinion section breaks up the the front page stories, and other articles that I will be interested in reading. I think my extension creates a better reading experience for the user.

You may be wondering why I haven’t created a Chrome extension as well. Publishing to Firefox was refreshingly easy. The MDN pages were clear and well organized, and walking through the process to publish was hassle free. Meanwhile I felt like I was navigating an opaque bureaucracy trying to add something to the Chrome store. Every step of the way they included some information that had me second guessing whether I was following along the correct path. There was also a developer fee attached that, although a negligible amount, was nonetheless more than I wanted to spend for an extension that consisted of two lines of JavaScript.

I think this process for extension publication is very reflective of the companies. Google has its sprawling Chrome/Android ecosystem, and it is mostly interested in getting developers and users to build things for the web and use the web in a way prescribed by that ecosystem. Mozilla’s approach is much more hands-off, while at the same time being much more approachable, and more closely resembling the original vision of the web. Google of course is an unstoppable juggernaut, and dominates marketshare, but I know which approach I prefer.