Why Mozilla Is Adding Chrome Extensions To Firefox?
Mozilla is making some security changes in the Firefox, which hopefully will enhance user experience. Now, Mozilla is adding chrome extensions to Firefox, in simple words it will make the functionality of the web browser somewhat like Google’s Chrome.
The latest WebExtensions API is Blink-compatible, which means that developers can easily dock their extensions between Microsoft Edge, Opera, Firefox and Chrome.
What is the main reason that Mozilla is adding chrome extensions to Firefox?
Developing extensions for Firefox have been very complicated if we compare it to developing extensions for Chrome because Mozilla uses technologies such as XPCOM and XUL. These technologies allowed the web browser to be written primarily in JavaScript and also grants access to various underlying features of the browser. This may be the main reason that Mozilla is adding chrome extensions to Firefox.
SEE ALSO: Mozilla launched Firefox 40 for Windows 10 and other OS
Mozilla hopes that the WebExtensions API will allow quicker reviews of add-ons for Firefox and wrote in a blog post:
“They will work with the community to improve and finalize the WebExtensions application programming interface (API), and will help developers of unsupported add-ons make the transition to newer APIs and multi-process support.”
Mozilla is also introducing a multi-process architecture in its browser called Electrolysis, which will allow the browser to create individual processes for each tab. Mozilla’s security changes would definitely boost the overall security of the browser by lowering the expose of users to malware and the extension developers will not be able to alter the browser much. However, these changes might make the browser significantly slower, as we have noticed in the case of Google’s Chrome browser.
Mozilla is adding chrome extensions to Firefox to ensure third-party extensions provide customization without compromising on security or exposing users to malware. The company will validate and sign all the extensions starting in Firefox 41, which will be launched on September 22nd 2015.
What are your views regarding the security changes made by Mozilla? Do share it in the comments section below.