Reviews for Stylish - Custom themes for any website
Stylish - Custom themes for any website by userstyles.org
Review by Rodentis
Rated 2 out of 5
by Rodentis, 7 years agoFirstly, please note, the score I gave is for the current (i.e. 3.0.1) version.
Stylish (up to 3.0.1) was a wonderful thing. You could style (that is, inject CSS into) websites (with various, like regexp, methods to define which urls to style), and, which is super important for me, you could style XUL (UI) in Firefox. Some may say, this can already in Firefox be achieved with userStyle/userChrome.css files in your profile dir, but stylish had a few advantages over those:
* you could split the rules into multiple parts and independently enable/disable those parts DYNAMICALLY while the browser is running (without even needing to reload the page or restart the browser)
* you could test rules dynamically and change them until you have what you want, again without restarting the browser or reloading the page
* you had a centralized system (userstyles.org) from which you can download rule sets and it's ultra simple (you don't even need to know anything about CSS)
Now, about stylish 3.0.1.
I don't really know the full set of changes it made. Some, or most of the advantages listed above might still hold. I don't know, because I have downgraded it immediately after restarting Firefox (after an upgrade) showed me the damage done.
What damage and why did I downgrade? Well, it's simple. The problem is XUL STYLING IS REMOVED.
XUL (Firefox UI) styling is what I mostly use stylish for, so without it it's basically useless to me.
Now, I know Mozilla has decided, against the wishes of many, to remove the ability to style XUL within the new web extensions API, which will be the only API for addons in Firefox 57 and beyond. And I know stylish developers wanted it to work in 57. But stylish 3.0.1 is advertised to work with versions from 48 to 57. So I would imagine, it should allow for XUL styling in 48-56 and only ignore it for 57. I think this is possible, as stylish could be a hybrid legacy/web extension addon like there are some.
Also, another thing is that stylish 3.0.1 doesn't tell you in any way on update "hey, some of your styles were disabled because of blah blah, here's the list: blah blah; if you want those to work, please downgrade". Nope, there's no such info, not even a "screw you". And I know it's possible to even display a new tab with info upon update, since NoScript does that for example.
So, in summary, my issues (could be possibly that there are more):
* My XUL styles stopped working, Firefox greeted me with it's default, (in my opinion) ugly, cramped and borderline unusable theme. It's possible all my scripts stopped working (including those for pages), but I didn't even check, as lack of XUL styling makes this version unusable for me.
* There was no message informing what happened and what I can do.
Here's what the stylish developers could to in order to fix those issues and increase my opinion:
* Include support for XUL styling fro Firefox pre-57, possibly by making a hybrid extension.
* If that's not acceptable, maybe fork stylish, with one fork for 57+ and another for pre-57 with XUL styling support, with both maintained.
* If you want to keep not supporting XUL styling:
* Stop advertising this extension as working with pre-57, because it's a lie - currently it's crippled in pre-56 to fit the requirements of 57+.
* Please note so clearly in the release notes, so one can click on release notes in updates in about:addons and see this update is unacceptable without wasting time by updating, figuring out what happened and downgrading. 99.9% of users won't read your website or github before updating; probably also nearly no one will read release notes, most people will get an auto-update, but some will and so such note would be helpfull.
* Also, please show a page upon update explaining what happened (some of your styles were blocked because X and the list of them is Y), what can you do to resolve this (e.g. downgrade) if something (e.g. blocking of some styles because of X). This will be very beneficial to those with problematic update, because they will: a) know what happened; b) know how to fix; c) be able to evaluate wether they can accept the update or have to downgrade. And it will probably for many significantly reduce wasted time (if an addon malfunctions due to an update, I can sometimes waste a few hours trying to figure out what happened before I find the culprit and downgrade, because upgrades are often done in bulk and you don't know which addon to blame, or is it maybe the combination of addons that causes this, or if it's a firefox version-addon version combo, or just firefox, etc etc. and also the issue can manifest itself weeks after the update, making the investigation even harder).
* I had something else to list, but I''m so furious and have been editing this comment for an hour, that I forgot. Sorry.
Anyway, if you ignore AMO comments, please let me know, so I can nag you on github or whatever.
AND NOW SOME NOTES TO USERS AFFECTED BY THIS TRAGEDY:
1. You can downgrade to the previous version, 2.1.1. On the addon page on AMO, there's a sidebar on the left with "More information". There's a link there "See all versions". Click it and in the opened page, find the version you want and click on "Add to Firefox".
2. In my case at least, after downgrading my styles were there. But in case you're afraid of loosing your data, best to backup the profile directory, or at least the stylish.sqlite file inside of it - it's an sqlite database file, which contains a table of all your styles (both enabled and disabled) with their ids, names, and content. If you think you lost the data after an upgrade and don't have a backup of this file, then don't panic and:
* Close Firefox.
* Copy stylish.sqlite somewhere.
* Start Firefox, downgrade stylish, restart, check if styles are present.
* If not, check if the database file (stylish.sqlite) you copied contains the style data. You can do that by loading the file with sqlite3 tool and issuing "select * from styles;". This can be done with "echo 'select * from styles;' | sqlite3 stylish.sqlite" on unix. If you have trouble, send me this file in an email and I'll check it. Don't worry, it doesn't contain any sensitive data. If the data is present, you can just create styles you want and copy-paste the css code into them.
Stylish (up to 3.0.1) was a wonderful thing. You could style (that is, inject CSS into) websites (with various, like regexp, methods to define which urls to style), and, which is super important for me, you could style XUL (UI) in Firefox. Some may say, this can already in Firefox be achieved with userStyle/userChrome.css files in your profile dir, but stylish had a few advantages over those:
* you could split the rules into multiple parts and independently enable/disable those parts DYNAMICALLY while the browser is running (without even needing to reload the page or restart the browser)
* you could test rules dynamically and change them until you have what you want, again without restarting the browser or reloading the page
* you had a centralized system (userstyles.org) from which you can download rule sets and it's ultra simple (you don't even need to know anything about CSS)
Now, about stylish 3.0.1.
I don't really know the full set of changes it made. Some, or most of the advantages listed above might still hold. I don't know, because I have downgraded it immediately after restarting Firefox (after an upgrade) showed me the damage done.
What damage and why did I downgrade? Well, it's simple. The problem is XUL STYLING IS REMOVED.
XUL (Firefox UI) styling is what I mostly use stylish for, so without it it's basically useless to me.
Now, I know Mozilla has decided, against the wishes of many, to remove the ability to style XUL within the new web extensions API, which will be the only API for addons in Firefox 57 and beyond. And I know stylish developers wanted it to work in 57. But stylish 3.0.1 is advertised to work with versions from 48 to 57. So I would imagine, it should allow for XUL styling in 48-56 and only ignore it for 57. I think this is possible, as stylish could be a hybrid legacy/web extension addon like there are some.
Also, another thing is that stylish 3.0.1 doesn't tell you in any way on update "hey, some of your styles were disabled because of blah blah, here's the list: blah blah; if you want those to work, please downgrade". Nope, there's no such info, not even a "screw you". And I know it's possible to even display a new tab with info upon update, since NoScript does that for example.
So, in summary, my issues (could be possibly that there are more):
* My XUL styles stopped working, Firefox greeted me with it's default, (in my opinion) ugly, cramped and borderline unusable theme. It's possible all my scripts stopped working (including those for pages), but I didn't even check, as lack of XUL styling makes this version unusable for me.
* There was no message informing what happened and what I can do.
Here's what the stylish developers could to in order to fix those issues and increase my opinion:
* Include support for XUL styling fro Firefox pre-57, possibly by making a hybrid extension.
* If that's not acceptable, maybe fork stylish, with one fork for 57+ and another for pre-57 with XUL styling support, with both maintained.
* If you want to keep not supporting XUL styling:
* Stop advertising this extension as working with pre-57, because it's a lie - currently it's crippled in pre-56 to fit the requirements of 57+.
* Please note so clearly in the release notes, so one can click on release notes in updates in about:addons and see this update is unacceptable without wasting time by updating, figuring out what happened and downgrading. 99.9% of users won't read your website or github before updating; probably also nearly no one will read release notes, most people will get an auto-update, but some will and so such note would be helpfull.
* Also, please show a page upon update explaining what happened (some of your styles were blocked because X and the list of them is Y), what can you do to resolve this (e.g. downgrade) if something (e.g. blocking of some styles because of X). This will be very beneficial to those with problematic update, because they will: a) know what happened; b) know how to fix; c) be able to evaluate wether they can accept the update or have to downgrade. And it will probably for many significantly reduce wasted time (if an addon malfunctions due to an update, I can sometimes waste a few hours trying to figure out what happened before I find the culprit and downgrade, because upgrades are often done in bulk and you don't know which addon to blame, or is it maybe the combination of addons that causes this, or if it's a firefox version-addon version combo, or just firefox, etc etc. and also the issue can manifest itself weeks after the update, making the investigation even harder).
* I had something else to list, but I''m so furious and have been editing this comment for an hour, that I forgot. Sorry.
Anyway, if you ignore AMO comments, please let me know, so I can nag you on github or whatever.
AND NOW SOME NOTES TO USERS AFFECTED BY THIS TRAGEDY:
1. You can downgrade to the previous version, 2.1.1. On the addon page on AMO, there's a sidebar on the left with "More information". There's a link there "See all versions". Click it and in the opened page, find the version you want and click on "Add to Firefox".
2. In my case at least, after downgrading my styles were there. But in case you're afraid of loosing your data, best to backup the profile directory, or at least the stylish.sqlite file inside of it - it's an sqlite database file, which contains a table of all your styles (both enabled and disabled) with their ids, names, and content. If you think you lost the data after an upgrade and don't have a backup of this file, then don't panic and:
* Close Firefox.
* Copy stylish.sqlite somewhere.
* Start Firefox, downgrade stylish, restart, check if styles are present.
* If not, check if the database file (stylish.sqlite) you copied contains the style data. You can do that by loading the file with sqlite3 tool and issuing "select * from styles;". This can be done with "echo 'select * from styles;' | sqlite3 stylish.sqlite" on unix. If you have trouble, send me this file in an email and I'll check it. Don't worry, it doesn't contain any sensitive data. If the data is present, you can just create styles you want and copy-paste the css code into them.
Developer response
posted 7 years agoHi,
Thanks for your review.
We are aware of the issues/irregularities with the latest Stylish version for Firefox.
We are doing our very best to release a new version with fixes as soon as possible.
If you’d like to send us a bug report, please email Stylish via contact@userstyles.org along with the following info: the operating system you’re using + version, the browser you’re using + version.
We appreciate your feedback and apologize for the inconvenience.
Kind regards,
Stylish Support
Thanks for your review.
We are aware of the issues/irregularities with the latest Stylish version for Firefox.
We are doing our very best to release a new version with fixes as soon as possible.
If you’d like to send us a bug report, please email Stylish via contact@userstyles.org along with the following info: the operating system you’re using + version, the browser you’re using + version.
We appreciate your feedback and apologize for the inconvenience.
Kind regards,
Stylish Support
957 reviews
- Rated 1 out of 5by James Zersche, 2 months ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by BlueSnow, 2 months agoNe fonctionne pas du tout et en plus quand on accède au site de l'extension le message bad gateway 502 s'affiche.
- Rated 1 out of 5by Raven9000, 3 months agoConsider uninstalling the malicious Stylish extension. In 2016, with no input from the userbase, through some guy, pretending to be an independent developer, it basically was sold to a shady web analytics company, Similarweb. Since then, it is actively sharing your entire non-anonymized browsing history demo with them, assuming you ever clicked on one of the flashy "Agree" buttons. It initially did this without even asking for consent, and was banned from extension stores afterwards. Currently, it still breaks store policies, yet is not banned for unknown reasons. A safe alternative is Stylus.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 12579719, 3 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by ZenoAddons, 5 months ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by mth, 5 months ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Marty, 6 months agoThis extension is a complete hoax. The homepage userstyles.org is not accessible with the Firefox browser. On all Chrome-based sites, userstyles.org is accessible without any problems. It's a shame how Firefox users are being fooled here.
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 15608356, 7 months ago
- Rated 2 out of 5by combdn, 7 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Beyk, 8 months ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Qtsuin, 8 months ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Lex, 10 months ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Ariana, 10 months agothis is no longer the extension for this addon it is not called stylus for firefox cause i tried installing a them from stylish main page and it installed to that extension on my firefox browser so i reccomend picking that extension up if you wanna continue using it this is the link for that extension https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search
- Rated 1 out of 5by Alfredo Traviatto PutoKuñao, a year agoLo siento, pero esta utilidad no funciona. No hay manera de activar los estilos. Tampoco se pueden editar.
¿Qué habéis hecho? ¿Cómo es posible que un desarrollo como el que habéis tenido que hacer para crear esta herramienta, haya dejado de funcionar? Creo que es una falta de respeto porque, ahora, tendremos que perder el tiempo buscando otra utilidad.
¡Qué vergüenza! En mi grupo, dedicamos más del 30% a pruebas de software y a detectar regresiones. - Rated 1 out of 5by alberto.villar, a year agoZero stars because for many years I have supported the product and recommended it to whomever asked for web-page tailoring. To my surprise, I have found today (a new installation) that I cannot import the exported styles. I cannot create a new one because no edit box appears. With the new release, the product was of no use. This reminds me of Microsoft's attitude breaking old stuff.
I have supported the tool for many years. Stylish, along with Greasemonkey, were my main recommendations for tailoring web pages.
The exact day when I see I can import and edit scripts, I'll come back to the 5 starts. Now I have to find a different set of tools. - Rated 1 out of 5by Smartik1, a year agoSpyware, privacy policy doesn't load, asks for permissions to track every URL you visit.