What is the future of side-loading?

[afo...@gmail.com]

I created an Internet Filtering addon back in 2010 and it has been bundled with an installer and side-loaded using the registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Mozilla\Firefox\Extensions.

I recently converted it to webextension format. It still uses the same installation method, but I'm getting indications from mozilla IRC channels that the future of side-loading is unclear. This is reinforced by the fact that references to details on how to accomplish side-loading point to obsolete content in:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/Extension_Packaging
and
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/Installing_extensions

Yet, I see that unlisted addons are still supported. The only reason I can think of for having an unlisted addon is to side-load it as part of a package.

What is the future of side-loading?

[Jorge Villalobos]

There are different cases where developers want to distribute add-ons on
their own, and some (most, probably) go with the web-install method
rather than side-loading.

At the moment there aren't any plans to drop this installation method,
but it might happen in the future. When/if there's the intention of
doing this, we will announce it.

Jorge