Add-on (Mozilla)

Add-ons categories

Themes

Early versions of Firefox supported themes that could greatly change the appearance of the browser, but this was scaled back over time. Current themes are limited to changing the background and text color of toolbars, formerly called personas, now called Firefox Themes.

WebExtensions

Starting with Firefox 57, only the new WebExtensions API is supported for extensions, relegating the older extension technology as legacy.

Legacy extensions

Prior to 2017, Firefox supported extensions developed via various APIs: XUL, XPCOM, and Jetpack. Mozilla now refers to these as legacy extensions.

Plug-ins

Plug-ins are no longer supported in Firefox. In the past, they were used to handle media types for which the application did not have built-in capability. They were deprecated due to security concerns and improvements in Web APIs. The last one that was officially supported was Adobe Flash Player, which Adobe discontinued in 2020.

Security

Mozilla had no mechanism to restrict the privileges of legacy Firefox extensions. This meant that a legacy extension could read or modify the data used by another extension or any file accessible to the user running Mozilla applications. But the current WebExtensions API imposes security restrictions.

Starting with Firefox 40, Mozilla began to roll out a requirement for extension signing. It is now required in all official Firefox releases.

Website

The Mozilla add-ons website is the official repository for Firefox add-ons. In contrast to mozdev.org which provides free hosting for Mozilla-related projects, the add-ons site is tailored for users. By default, Firefox automatically checks the site for updates to installed add-ons.

In January 2008, Mozilla announced that the site had accumulated a total of 600 million add-on downloads and that over 100 million installed add-ons automatically check the site for updates every day.{{Cite web

References

References

1. "Official Add-on website". Mozilla.
2. (21 August 2015). "The Future of Developing Firefox Add-ons".
3. (10 August 2017). "Upcoming Changes in Compatibility Features".
4. (12 August 2017). "How to enable legacy extensions in Firefox 57 - gHacks Tech News".
5. "Porting a Google Chrome extension". Mozilla.
6. "Search results (Extensions) – Add-ons for Firefox (en-US)". Mozilla.
7. "Search results (Themes) – Add-ons for Firefox (en-US)". Mozilla.
8. "Themes – Add-ons for Firefox (en-US)".
9. "Personas are now Firefox Themes".
10. "Browser extensions". Mozilla.
11. [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/Overlay_Extensions/Firefox_addons_developer_guide/Technologies_used_in_developing_extensions Chapter 2: Technologies used in developing extensions - Firefox addons developer guide. MDN] {{Webarchive. link. (2016-10-05 . Developer.mozilla.org. Retrieved on 2013-07-21.)
12. Smedberg, Benjamin. (8 October 2015). "NPAPI Plugins in Firefox". [[Mozilla Foundation]].
13. Lardinois, Frederic. (25 July 2017). "Get ready to finally say goodbye to Flash — in 2020". TechCrunch.
14. "End of support for Adobe Flash". Mozilla.
15. "Abusing, Exploiting and Pwning with Firefox Add-ons".
16. "Security Best Practices". Mozilla.
17. (12 August 2015). "Firefox 40 Begins Warning Users About Unsigned Add-Ons".
18. "Extension Signing". Mozilla.
19. "Updates".
20. "Firefox Add-ons Cross More Than 3 Billion Downloads!". The Mozilla blog.