Mozilla launched a redesigned add-ons manager in Firefox 64 Nightly the other day. Nightly is the cutting edge development version of Firefox that receives features first before they are moved to Beta and then Release versions of the web browser.

The add-ons manager is Firefox's internal tool to manage installed browser extensions. Firefox users may use it to disable and uninstall add-ons, and to configure options if provided.

The add-ons manager lists add-ons, themes, plugins, and languages separately for easier management.

The following screenshot shows the new add-ons manager that Mozilla plans to introduce in a future version of the web browser.

When you compare the new design of the extension manager with the old design, you will notice that the new design is not that different from the old.

The biggest change is that Mozilla's designers added items as cards with space between them whereas the old manager displayed just a dotted line between entries.

It looks as if fewer add-ons are listed at the same time because of the design change but since this is the first implementation of the feature in Nightly, it is possible that adjustments will be made.

What you may notice, however, is that the add-ons listing requires more horizontal space to display all content on the screen. I can display the old add-ons manager on one half of the display on my Surface Pro 4 device without losing any functionality or having to scroll; this is not true anymore with the new add-ons manager as it adds a scroll bar to the page and does not display the "remove" buttons or the settings button anymore because of the new design.

I would like to see an option to display a compressed version of the add-ons manager instead of the default to display more extensions at the same time on the screen.

The only other change, as far as I can tell, is that the settings button has been moved from the left side of the search bar to a new location on the right side below it.

It holds the same options as before, e.g. to install add-ons from file or to check for updates.

Closing Words

The redesigned updates manager is not a major change and it is good that Mozilla does not plan to remove any functionality from it. Some Firefox users may dislike the new manager because individual elements take up more space on the screen which reduces the number of elements visible at the same time and may even lead to some horizontal scrolling.

Now You: Do you use the Firefox add-ons manager?

Summary Article Name Firefox 64: add-ons manager redesign Description Mozilla launched a redesigned add-ons manager in Firefox 64 Nightly the other day which it plans to launch in Firefox Beta or Release in the future. Author Martin Brinkmann Publisher Ghacks Technology News Logo

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