What you need to know
- Mozilla promises to bring extension support for Firefox for Android by the end of this year.
- The precise date of launch is likely to be announced early next month.
- Meanwhile, developers can start testing their extensions through Firefox's Nightly builds.
Having extensions for your browser makes the experience much better. While it is currently sorted for desktop browsers, most mobile browsers on Android like Chrome still lack extensions for the most part, and Mozilla is trying to fix it soon by enabling a full range of extensions for its Firefox for Android.
As noted in a recent blog post, Mozilla has assured that in the coming months, it will be launching support for an "open ecosystem of extensions on Firefox for Android on addons.mozilla.org (AMO)." While the launch date is still not precise, Mozilla indicates we might see it by the end of this year. We can expect more details regarding the same early next month.
Firefox will become the only major Android browser to support an open extension ecosystem.
Mozilla says it's been trying to strengthen Firefox for Android for the past few years and has only provided a small subset of extensions. It believes the necessary infrastructure is now ready for Firefox on Android phones to support an open extension ecosystem. And to jump-start the process, Mozilla is asking its Firefox browser's desktop extension developers to quickly optimize their desktop browser extensions for mobile use.
Mozilla assures to provide additional guides, resources, and host community events for developers to help them have a smoother transition.
"There is so much creative potential to unlock within the mobile browser space. Mozilla wants to provide developers with the best support we can so they're equipped and empowered to build modern mobile WebExtensions," said Giorgio Natili, Firefox director of engineering.
Firefox for Android currently has nightly builds where developers can test their extensions whenever they are ready for the mobile version. The company has provided the necessary guidelines for a start in the aforementioned blog post, and developers can also test their extensions with a debug extension also provided by Mozilla before submitting them to AMO.
