At the end of October, the Firefox add-ons team hosted a day-long meetup with a group of privacy extension developers as part of the Mozilla Festival in London, UK. With 2019 drawing to a close, this meetup provided an excellent opportunity to hear feedback from developers involved in the Recommended Extensions program and to get input about some of our plans for 2020.

Recommended Extensions

Earlier this summer we launched the Recommended Extensions program to provide Firefox users with a list of curated extensions that meet the highest standards of security, utility, and user experience. Participating developers agree to actively maintain their extensions and to have each new version undergo a code review. We invited a handful of Recommended developers to attend the meetup and gather their feedback about the program so far. We also discussed more general issues around publishing content on addons.mozilla.org (AMO), such as ways of addressing user concerns over permission prompts.

Scott DeVaney, Senior Editorial & Campaign Manager for AMO, led a session on ways developers can improve a few key experiential components of their extensions. These tips may be helpful to the developer community at large:

AMO listing page . Use clear, descriptive language to convey exactly what your extension does and how it benefits users. Try to avoid overly technical jargon that average users might not understand. Also, screenshots are critical. Be sure to always include updated, relevant screenshots that really capture your extension’s experience.

. Use clear, descriptive language to convey exactly what your extension does and how it benefits users. Try to avoid overly technical jargon that average users might not understand. Also, screenshots are critical. Be sure to always include updated, relevant screenshots that really capture your extension’s experience. Extension startup/post-install experience . First impressions are really important. Developers are encouraged to take great care in how they introduce new users to their extension experience. Is it clear how users are supposed to engage with the content? Or are they left to figure out a bunch of things on their own with little or no guidance? Conversely, is the guidance too cumbersome (i.e. way too much text for a user to comfortably process?)

. First impressions are really important. Developers are encouraged to take great care in how they introduce new users to their extension experience. Is it clear how users are supposed to engage with the content? Or are they left to figure out a bunch of things on their own with little or no guidance? Conversely, is the guidance too cumbersome (i.e. way too much text for a user to comfortably process?) User interface. If your extension involves customization options or otherwise requires active user engagement, be sure your settings management is intuitive and all UI controls are obvious.

Monetization. It is of course entirely fine for developers to solicit donations for their work or possibly even charge for a paid service. However, monetary solicitation should be tastefully appropriate. For instance, some extensions solicit donations just after installation, which makes little sense given the extension hasn’t proven any value to the user yet. We encourage developers to think through their user experience to find the most compelling moments to ask for donations or attempt to convert users to a paid tier.

WebExtensions API and Manifest v3

One of our goals for this meetup was to learn more about how Firefox extension developers will be affected by Chrome’s proposed changes to their extensions API (commonly referred to as Manifest v3). As mentioned in our FAQ about Manifest v3, Mozilla plans to adopt some of these changes to maintain compatibility for developers and users, but will diverge from Chrome where it makes sense.

Much of the discussion centered around the impact of changes to the `blocking webRequest` API and replacing background scripts with service workers. Attendees outlined scenarios where changes in those areas will cause breakage to their extensions, and the group spent some time exploring possible alternative approaches for Firefox to take. Overall, attendees agreed that Chrome’s proposed changes to host permission requests could give users more say over when extensions can run. We also discussed ideas on how the WebExtensions API could be improved in light of the goals Manifest v3 is pursuing.

More information about changes to the WebExtensions API for Manifest v3 compatibility will be available in early 2020. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to this conversation over the last few months on our forums, mailing list, and blogs!

Firefox for Android

We recently announced that Firefox Preview, Mozilla’s next generation browser for Android built on GeckoView, will support extensions through the WebExtensions API. Members of the Android engineering team will build select APIs needed to initially support a small set of Recommended Extensions.

The group discussed a wishlist of features for extensions on Android, including support for page actions and browser actions, history search, and the ability to manipulate context menus. These suggestions will be considered as work on Firefox Preview moves forward.

Thank you

Many thanks to the developers who joined us for the meetup. It was truly a pleasure to meet you in person and to hear first hand about your experiences.

The add-ons team would also like to thank Mandy Chan for making us feel at home in Mozilla’s London office and all of her wonderful support during the meetup.