It is not possible to install your own addon in Firefox without Moz's approval

3 julkali 3 7/1/2025, 4:46:49 PM

I created a small extension for my mom, to extract data from a third-party online web-app that she uses for work.

No-one but her is ever going to use this, but it helps her a lot in her workflow, nevertheless. It's tiny with around 50 lines of code.

Now, as the title says, I found out that in order to install an extension in Release version, you _have_ to sign the extension, i.e. have it reviewed by Mozilla (which in my case is impossible, due to the third-party integration) [1]. In my opinion, it is absolutely crazy that there is no way for her to install the extension on her computer (without switching to Nightly or Developer, which she shouldn't have to), to use this and, frankly, it is very Google-esque for Mozilla to gate-keep their software like this.

I would totally understand if this is required for the extension to be distributed through the Mozilla store, but this is too infringing.

A two year-old post on the matter is being ignored [2].

What are your thoughts on this?

[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/Extension_Signing [2] https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/allow-manually-permanently-installed-unsigned-extensions/idi-p/26583

Comments (3)

ritzaco · 12h ago

There's a pretty difficult line between making it easy to install "random software from friendly relative" and "random software from a not-so-friendly person who wants to steal your bank info", so I think I'm OK with the balance they've found. You can help her bypass the warnings, but it needs to be pretty difficult for someone over the phone to tell her to bypass the warnings.

pavel_lishin · 11h ago

Yeah. Switching to Nightly or Dev seems like a reasonable step for someone who's already writing their own extension (or using someone else's.)

dankwizard · 2h ago

wait you're telling me to develop i need the developer version?!