Now, the extensions that will be seen in Firefox are not going to come only from Mozilla. The web company has widened the compatibility of its browser. This allows extensions written for Chrome and possibly, Microsoft Edge, that is able to work for Firefox.
This comes after Mozilla's implementation of a new API called Web Extensions, which enables easier development of extensions that are compatible with many web browsers.
According to Rapid News Network, the newly implemented Web Extensions API will be compatible to Blink, which is the WebKit tool of search giant Google. As such, Mozilla is putting on effort to veer away from what critics call a 'tight coupling between the browser and its add-ons'.
Changes that are bound to come with the new API will be a larger variety of add-ons which users can choose over Mozilla's own. Because of this, Mozilla has come up with a sign-in process for extensions that will be made available to Firefox. Any extension that will be brought to Firefox has to be approved by the company's add-ons team.
Firefox 41 will be launched in September, and beginning next month, the company will be blocking every unsigned extension on Firefox. Users can still wish not to use this option should they choose to retain such add-ons of their choice. How this will affect other existing add-ons in the system is still unknown.
The issue of extension exclusivity for the search engine is long-standing and has been speculated as a reason for it being considerably less popular than other web browsers.
Veering away from how it used to treat extensions is viewed by some as an effort to bring its more popular competitors like Google Chrome, to a tighter competition. Others, however, argue that this is a step towards the company making itself less unique as a web browser.
Mozilla Firefox has been the subject of tech news over the past few weeks. The internet browser has been plagued by a hack that 'snatches' developer files from the victims. Mozilla has been able to address this by getting users to upgrade its latest version, which comes with fixes for the vulnerability. Mozilla Firefox has a 7.6 percent share of all internet users.
