Firefox discontinues addon sideloading
David Hobach
apparently Mozilla decided to discontinue that feature [1] without
providing a lot of alternatives [2].
It was quite useful in the past to update addons inside Qubes OS
template VMs by downloading them to another VM and pass them to the
template VM without having to start firefox and perform a lot of clicking.
That'll be gone.
So does anyone have an alternative available apart from a dedicated
template VM just for firefox?
Update the addons on every disposable VM start? ^^
BR
David
[1]
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/10/31/firefox-to-discontinue-sideloaded-extensions/
[2]
https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/questions-on-sideloading-alternatives/49245
Claudia
> Dear all,
>
> apparently Mozilla decided to discontinue that feature [1] without providing a lot of alternatives
> [2].
>
> It was quite useful in the past to update addons inside Qubes OS template VMs by downloading them
> to another VM and pass them to the template VM without having to start firefox and perform a lot of
> clicking.
>
> That'll be gone.
>
> So does anyone have an alternative available apart from a dedicated template VM just for firefox?
>
> Update the addons on every disposable VM start? ^^
>
> BR
> David
>
> [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/10/31/firefox-to-discontinue-sideloaded-extensions
> [2] https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/questions-on-sideloading-alternatives/49245
Not sure, but it looks like this change only affects loading from a *global* directory (/usr/share/mozilla/extensions), and loading from inside the individual profile directories (~/.mozilla/extensions) will still be enabled. If that's the case, I imagine you could just symlink the XPI directory to somewhere on root.img. However it's not clear if they are still loaded silently, or if the user has to confirm it. I haven't been able to track down any specific commits or anything related to this. Might be worth looking at the Tor Browser mailing list / bug tracker for clues, as that's how they ship NoScript and HTTPS Everywhere, I think. They're currently on FF68 ESR, but I'm sure there's some buzz about what they're eventually going to do after FF72. Come to think of it, switching to FF ESR might be a temporary workaround for you.
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/10/31/firefox-to-discontinue-sideloaded-extensions/#comment-226503
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/10/31/firefox-to-discontinue-sideloaded-extensions/#comment-226508
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/10/31/firefox-to-discontinue-sideloaded-extensions/#comment-226614
https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/issues/1517#issuecomment-513537686-permalink
David Hobach
I hadn't seen the comments... Guess they were loaded via JS and thus
blocked by one of my addons. ^^
Anyway you're probably right: It's either the profile loading, ESR or a
dedicated template with internet access to mozilla.org.
One could also follow their suggested path by setting up one's own addon
server; it sounds a lot like overkill to me though.
Claudia
> One could also follow their suggested path by setting up one's own addon
> server; it sounds a lot like overkill to me though.
I'm not sure if that would achieve the desired result though. I think that's no different from using the official update server, in that you'd still have to "download" and install/update addons through the UI. I don't think that approach offers silent loading/updating. BTW, if you find a solution, please let us know what you came up with. I don't currently have a use for this kind of setup, but it sound like it could be useful in the future.
David Hobach
It seems that even with Firefox 74 addon updating via sideloading still
works.
Initial installation probably doesn't.
I don't get that latter point as the initial installation did generate a
popup ("Do you want to activate the newly installed addon XYZ?") even
before 74, but oh well...