What it’s essential to know
- Mozilla guarantees to carry extension help for Firefox for Android by the tip of this 12 months.
- The exact date of launch is more likely to be introduced early subsequent month.
- In the meantime, builders can begin testing their extensions by way of Firefox’s Nightly builds.
Having extensions in your browser makes the expertise a lot better. Whereas it’s at the moment sorted for desktop browsers, most cellular browsers on Android like Chrome nonetheless lack extensions for essentially the most half, and Mozilla is attempting to repair it quickly by enabling a full vary of extensions for its Firefox for Android.
As famous in a latest weblog submit, Mozilla has assured that within the coming months, will probably be launching help for an “open ecosystem of extensions on Firefox for Android on addons.mozilla.org (AMO).” Whereas the launch date remains to be not exact, Mozilla signifies we would see it by the tip of this 12 months. We will count on extra particulars concerning the identical early subsequent month.
Mozilla says it has been attempting to strengthen Firefox for Android for the previous few years and has solely supplied a small subset of extensions. It believes the required infrastructure is now prepared for Firefox on Android telephones to help an open extension ecosystem. And to jump-start the method, Mozilla is asking its Firefox browser’s desktop extension builders to rapidly optimize their desktop browser extensions for cellular use.
Mozilla assures to offer further guides, assets, and host group occasions for builders to assist them have a smoother transition.
“There’s a lot inventive potential to unlock inside the cellular browser house. Mozilla desires to offer builders with the most effective help we are able to so that they’re geared up and empowered to construct fashionable cellular WebExtensions,” stated Giorgio Natili, Firefox director of engineering.
Firefox for Android at the moment has nightly builds the place builders can take a look at their extensions each time they’re prepared for the cellular model. The corporate has supplied the required tips for a begin within the aforementioned weblog submit, and builders can even take a look at their extensions with a debug extension additionally supplied by Mozilla earlier than submitting them to AMO.