View exIF: Browser extension to view metadata of an image
There has been a significant update in the browser add-ons ecosystem in the past two years. Browser add-ons are the little programs that extend the functionality of a browser. They are the top biggest marketplaces after mobile app stores and play stores. They make our online life easier and give us a better browsing experience.
The web was built with a vision to write once and run everywhere. However, the ecosystem was broken as each browser had its own architecture and APIs to build the extensions, which required different code and skills for each extension. Due to which, a developer has to write one for each browser. The gap had been filled when Firefox adopted to wonderful WebExtension architecture. This, in turn, has improved the performance, security, and also made the developer job ridiculously easy to build browser add-ons. However this came up with a price, all XUL and XPCOM based add-ons became obsolete/deprecated with the launch of Firefox Quantum. Many beautiful add-ons were being ported to WebExtensions, but few were left out for many reasons.
I have been using this helpful add-on FxIF for a quite long time, and one day I came across that this add-on has been deprecated as this add-on is not compatible with the current version of Firefox. Also, the developer has clearly mentioned in the description that he won’t be able to update this add-on. Having an experience in building add-ons and mentoring people to build one, it urged me to port FxIF to Web Extension. I gave it a name: View exIF
While browsing the Internet on our laptop, we come across lots of picture, and sometimes a few of them catches our attention. We start wondering about the details behind that photo being taken. We are always interested to know the camera being used, settings being set and other meta information related to that image. This add-on provides the meta information of an image right on the browser itself. Most of the cameras and many editing software add EXIF data to the images. This add-on is written purely in JavaScript and uses the library Exif.js to extract the information and display it to the user.
Steps to use View exIF:
- Install View exIF on Firefox. (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/viewexif/)
- Right click on an image, then click view image details. The meta data will be displayed in a new pop up window.
There are currently 12k users for FxIF which is not compatible. I believe my little efforts could help those users. I have also made the source code of this add-on available on GitHub. Please create an issue or send us a PR. You can contribute to it through this link.
Help us by reviewing this add-on. If you like this add-on, please share among your peers.
Thank you so much Jyotsna, \o/ for helping me and pushing me to get this up and published.
PS. This add-on is free to use, and will be free forever.
