Mozilla Lays Out Security-Focused Future Of Firefox And Its Extensions Lockdown

Mozilla on Friday spelled out major changes to one of Firefox’s strengths – its deep ecosystem of add-ons – that will make it easier for developers to port Google Chrome extensions to Firefox. “In addition, we’ve noticed that many Firefox add-on developers also maintain a Chrome, Safari, or Opera extension with similar functionality”. Part of this reason is the XPCOM & XUL employed by Firefox while building extensions. This allowed the browser to be written primarily in JavaScript, in addition to granting access to numerous browser’s underlying features. WebExtensions API allows the developers to make plugins that are cross platform, and so Mozilla Firefox will be able to support them over the same code base.

Beginning with the release of Firefox 42, the extensions created by developers will also be first reviewed and then signed by Mozilla before they are deployed. This will have to be done manually, and will begin with an initial submission that has to pass a full review to ensure it meets guidelines.

“Our goal is to increase automation of the review process so that the wait time for reviews of new WebExtensions listed on addons.mozilla.org can be reduced to five days, and that the wait time for updates to existing WebExtensions can be reduced to one to two days”, notes Mozilla’s Kev Needham.

The effect of these changes are that existing add-ons will have to be re-engineered and some may not make it through the approvals process which will not please users who rely on rejected add-ons.

Mozilla today announced major changes to how Firefox will implement add-ons going forward.

By switching to new technologies like Servo and Electrolysis, Mozilla is changing not only the way extensions interact with the browser and its content, but also how the browser works. In doing so, Opera was able to piggyback on Chrome’s successful market for add-ons, which is important since so few people use the browser, and there were few native add-ons available for it.

Mozilla’s new announcement may disappoint many if its fans, but the move will hugely benefit the long term survival of the Firefox brand amidst the rise of Chrome and the critically acclaimed Microsoft Edge.

Next up is moving to a multi-process design – a project codenamed “Electrolysis”. It will cause incompatibilities with certain add-ons though, so developers are being urged to test their codes in preparation for the change.

While Mozilla devs are seeing this as a way for “their” extensions to work on other browsers, let’s not forget this can be seen the other way as well.

The risk for Mozilla, however, is that it’s slowly doing away with numerous features that made its browser unique.