I just applied. I don't want my add-on "promoted". I just want to get rid of the Mozilla message: "This is not monitored for security through Mozilla's Recommended Extensions program. Make sure you trust it before installing."<p>I wrote back to Mozilla: "This is an old add-on. I just want to get rid of the warning label. How much will that cost me?"<p>I feel like I'm asking the extortionist goon how much it's going to cost me to not be beaten up.
I really like this step, but I think this limitation is quite a shame: "You (or your company) must be based in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, or Singapore, because once the pilot ends, we can only accept payment from these countries"<p>I've got two extensions which I'm really fond of: "I don't care about cookies" (1), and its paid version "No thanks" (2). The creator, Daniel, lives in Croatia and thus they won't be able to join this program. I hope the country limitation is lifted soon.<p>1) <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-about-cookies/" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-a...</a><p>2) <a href="https://www.no-thanks-extension.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.no-thanks-extension.com/</a>
There are currently 21,100 add-ons on the store.<p>Considering the relatively small market share of FF, I feel like the amount of companies that would pay for review could be pretty small (<= 1000).<p>The ad model also creates an awkward conflict of interest: the add-ons most willing to pay good good money for placement are probably ones that you shouldn't install and Firefox should not promote. Think tracking, ads, .... Or commercial ad blockers trying to always appear above Ublock Origin.<p>It will be detrimental to open source/hobby add-ons in general, unless Mozilla includes those in the review program for free.<p>Overall, I can't see how this will bring in any considerable amount of revenue, not even considering the labour cost of manual review. At least while keeping shady actors out.<p>I can imagine this just to be an effort to balance out the costs of curating the store, while still bringing in a bit of additional money.<p>I'm tentatively supportive, assuming they provide free reviews for non-commercial open source extensions and are strict with the promotions they allow.
Seems like a reasonable choice to bring in some revenue and also scale up their extension review team. I personally prefer to trust an app almost solely based on the permissions it asks for, but many of the "Recommend Extensions" have wider permissions, and I suppose the fact that Mozilla has reviewed them comforts me a bit.<p>The fact that Mozilla will only promote/market extensions which have been reviewed by humans for security and privacy issues is a big step up over pretty much everyone else.
Mozilla has been recommending a copy-cat extension for ~3 years, despite reports from users and developers.<p><a href="https://twitter.com/Pythux/status/1154403982342852609" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/Pythux/status/1154403982342852609</a><p><a href="https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/1165747661691064322" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/1165747661691064322</a><p><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/addons/issues/1078" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/mozilla/addons/issues/1078</a><p>This is an unpaid recommendation. Why would I trust Mozilla now that they’re getting paid?
I don't understand what exactly it means to be reviewed. I have an addon and they review every time I update it. [1] I provide them with source code, and they often have issues with this or that, and we make changes to satisfy them.<p>If this isn't reviewing, what is? It makes it seem like this new program is less about actually reviewing (which they already do) and more about pushing for advertising revenue. That's a fair thing to do, but it's weird to frame it as if reviewing isn't already happening.<p>1: <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/beelinereader/" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/beelinereader...</a>
This sounds like a good idea. I was lucky to get my Weather Extension listed as a recommended extension. There is extra work involved and the code reviews are strict. I plan on submitting my Link Shortener extension to see if I can get it promoted.
Maybe a first step of turning the add-ons into a kind of paid app store? Worked well for some others ;-)<p>If eventually some kind of payments would be possible, Forefox could transform into a kind of platform and bring completely new possibilities.
An interesting side effect of an earlier policy means that the sponsored ads for extensions will not be able to be blocked. Firefox extensions are prevented from operating on AMO. This is or was to ensure malicious addons can't interfere with its operation.<p>Now, it also means Mozilla is in the enviable position of offering ads to Firefox users which can not be blocked by Firefox ad blocking extensions.<p>Put another way, if you want to browse AMO ad free, you will need to use a different browser.
More extensions need to be reviewed. This seems like a good way to do it. I only install recommended or community promoted addons, since I am not capable of reviewing the code.
This is the exact same thing they said they wouldn't do, and now they're doing it.<p>This is very unfortunate. I'm not liking how the future is looking here. Fired a bunch of people, then announce a partnership with Google, and now this.
Firefox should just stop tiptoeing and absorbing useful addons regularly. Starting with uBlockOrigin and youtube enhancer.<p>Make adblock be a first class feature that you enabled/whitelist in the main browser option screen.
things like an os, browser etc are now at utility level. and should be funded through taxes and grants. you know like nato contribution grants but at the un level. everyone needs a reliable, privacy based browser and os. & I would reckon it a human right.
What is the difficulty in accepting payment from more countries. Don't most of the payment providers like Stripe support a broad range of countries.
Mozilla makes a gazillion dollars from Google for being the default search engine. They get free labor from volunteers all over the world, being OSS and all that. So what do they need extra money for??