Chrome Extensions Coming to Firefox? Major Changes & Other Details Here!

Both a Firefox and Chrome enthusiast? Mozilla has some very good news for you.

The company announced last Friday that it will be making significant revamps on how it will be using add-ons in the future. Worth zooming in on is how the new API extensions will be compatible with Blink-based browsers such as Google Chrome  and Opera.

Tech and gadget news blog The Next Digit says that this WebExtensions API ensures that web developers will just have to tweak their codes for their add-on to run on Firefox. Conversely, it will also allow for Chrome and Opera add-ons to work on Firefox. "This modern and JavaScript centric API has a number of advantages, including supporting multi-process browsers by default and mitigating the risk of misbehaving add-ons and malware" Mozilla notes on its blog post.

Mozilla's Kev Needham, as told by The Next Digit, explains, "We would like add-on development to be more like Web development: the same code should run in multiple browsers according to behavior set by standards, with comprehensive documentation available from multiple vendors."

In the past, developers have admitted to having a hard time writing extensions for Firefox as it makes use of XPCOM and XUL technologies for building user interfaces and therefore only allowing the browser to only be written on Java Script. However, many developers are not happy about this shift as add-ons that rely on the more permissive XPCOM and XUL format will now be phased out in the next 12-18 months.

With the upcoming Firefox 42, developers must now gain approval from Mozilla before their extensions are released. "Reviewing is a mostly manual, human process today, and moving an extension from the initial submission to passing a full review that meets our guidelines can be a time-consuming process that can take weeks or months," Needham explains.

Like most new ventures, the company hopes that this sluggish start will somehow spin into a speedy turnaround for Mozilla. They are looking to make the review a fast one by moving on to WebExtensions API, which would allow quicker reviews of add-ons.

Mozilla's Needham writes, "Our goal is to increase automation of the review process so that the wait time for reviews of new WebExtensions listed on addons.mozilla.org can be reduced to five days, and that the wait time for updates to existing WebExtensions can be reduced to one to two days. Current wait times for unlisted add-ons submitted for signing are less than three days. We are also expanding the team of paid and volunteer add-on reviewers and continue to make improvements to the automatic validator, both of which will reduce existing review queue wait times for all extensions in the immediate future."