News

Firefox 3.6 locks out rogue add-ons

New feature bars add-ons from dropping code into Firefox's own directory

By Gregg Keizer

November 17, 2009 08:59 PM ET

Computerworld - Mozilla will add a new lockdown feature to Firefox 3.6 that will prevent developers from sneaking add-ons into the program, the company said.

The new feature, which Mozilla dubbed "component directory lockdown," will bar access to Firefox's "components" directory, where most of the browser's own code is stored. The company has billed the move as a way to boost the stability of its browser.

"We're doing this for stability and user control [reasons]," said Johnathan Nightingale, manager of the Firefox front-end development team, in an e-mail today. "Dropping raw components in this way was never an officially supported way of doing things, which means it lacks things like a way to specify compatibility. When a new version of Firefox comes out that these components aren't compatible with, the result can be a real pain for our shared users.

"Now that those components will be packaged like regular add-ons, they will specify the versions they are compatible with, and Firefox can disable any that it knows are likely to cause problems," Nightingale added.

His mention of "regular add-ons" referred to the new policy that will be enforced by Firefox 3.6, a minor upgrade to last summer's 3.5 that is to ship before the end of the year. Because third-party developers will no longer be able to drop their code into the components directory, they must instead recreate their add-ons as XPI-based files, the standard Firefox extension format. Mozilla has posted information on its developer site to aid programmers who need to migrate add-ons to the XPI format.

Most, but not all, Firefox add-ons are available through Mozilla's Add-On site, which boasts that more than 1.6 billion add-ons have been downloaded by users.

Nightingale said that rogue add-ons created performance and stability problems for Firefox users. "[They] can lead to all kinds of unfortunate behavior: lost functionality, performance woes and outright crashing, often immediately on startup," he wrote in a post to the Mozilla developer's blog Monday.

Browser wars

Comments ()

Additional Resources

WHITE PAPER

Forrester Consulting - Optimizing Users and Applications in a Mobile World

Solving application issues over the WAN requires careful consideration. Based on their independent research, Forrester Consulting offers recommendations on how to tackle application performance issues, insufficient bandwidth and the inability to quickly restore users in a disaster.

Read now.

WHITE PAPER

Enter the Security KnowledgeVault

Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

WHITE PAPER

Cut Communications Costs Once and for All

New IP-based communications systems are being deployed by small and midsized businesses at a rapid rate. Learn how these organizations are enabling faster responsiveness, creating better customer experiences, speeding office or mobile interactions, and dramatically reducing existing communications costs.

Read now.

Top Stories

Free Insider Guide

Excel 2010 Cheat Sheet: Register for this Computerworld Insider Cheat Sheet and gain access to hundreds of premium content articles, guides, product reviews and more.

Security White Papers

Google: Security for Google Apps Messaging & Collaboration: Content provided by Google

Find out about how Google creates a security-based platform for Google Apps, covering topics like information security, physical security, and...
An Interactive Guide: Bring Your Own Device: BYOD presents significant security and management challenges to IT departments who want to take advantage of the trend, but still protect corporate assets....
Fundamental Principles of Network Security: This paper covers the fundamentals of secure networking systems, including firewalls, network topology and secure protocols. Best practices are also given that introduce...
Protection Against Modern Cybersecurity Threats: Download this case study to learn how this accounting and consulting giant uses Bit9's adaptive application whitelisting to offer employees flexibility without jeopardizing...
A Proactive Approach to Server Security: Learn why security-conscious organizations are taking a more proactive approach to server security. Download this Spire Research whitepaper to understand how you can...

Security Webcasts

Live Webcast Playing Defense: Staying on Top of Your Disaster Recovery Game: When it comes to disaster recovery, rapidly growing data volumes, distributed computing models, and new technologies all combine to present an ever-changing playing...
Introduction to VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5: Traditional disaster recovery solutions are often too expensive, complex and unreliable to meet business requirements. As a result, IT departments are hesitant to...
The Top Ten Secrets to Avoiding SAN Performance Problems: Maintaining peak performance while simultaneously addressing the root cause of SAN errors is challenging. Learn the most common SAN problems and explore new...
Deduplication Without Compromise: Go inside Quantum's scalable, high-performance, multi-protocol new DXi deduplication appliances, designed to make backup much more effective. Discover how the new future-proof DXi6700...
Director of Disk Products Discusses DXi6700: Discover how the new DXi 6700 series of deduplication appliances provide investment protection and a future-proof feature set, all while delivering fast, scalable,...
Playing Defense: Staying on Top of Your Disaster Recovery Game: When it comes to disaster recovery, rapidly growing data volumes, distributed computing models, and new technologies all combine to present an ever-changing playing...