Mozilla announced on Friday that will now support Chrome plugins with WebExtensions API instead of Firefox add-ons. That way it will be easier for developers to deploy Chrome extensions to its browser and to maintain the safety and stability of the browser.
“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,” Mozilla said in a blog post.
The company explained that by implementing a new extension API, called WebExtensions, which are compatible with the model used by Chrome and Opera, it will be easier to develop extensions across multiple browsers. These changes will bring benefits to the users as this modern and JavaScript-center API will be now able to support multi-process browsers by default and mitigate the risk of misbehaving add-ons malware.
“We currently use a blocklisting mechanism to defend against malicious add-ons, but additional measures are needed to better protect our users as some add-on developers have adapted to work around blocklisting” said Mozilla.
However, the company is conscious about possible trade-offs. While developers who already support Chrome will have it easier since they will have one codebase to support instead of two, developers of Firefox-only add-ons will have to make some considerable changes.
Source: Mozilla