14 DAY TRIAL // According to an internal analysis, Mozilla staff estimates, based on anonymous telemetry data, that around 40% of its userbase does not have add-ons installed on their browser.
When you install any version of Firefox, the browser asks you if it can anonymously submit usage data to Mozilla server, for the purpose of optimizing future releases.
Because of upcoming changes to the Firefox ecosystem that includes lots of breaking modifications, most of which impact its add-ons, the Mozilla staff wanted to know the number of users affected by their planned Firefox overhaul.
Counting the number of Firefox installations from which the foundation receives this anonymously submitted data, Mozilla staff estimates that around two in five users don't have add-ons installed on their Firefox browser.
This data is not skewed by telemetry info coming from Firefox's Nightly and Developer editions, and Mozilla's Rebecca Weiss says that the main release channel's stats are not "that different from the full population."
Three in five Firefox users might have issues with their add-ons in the future
Interpreting this data, we see that 60% of Firefox users will be impacted by the company's upcoming changes to the add-ons platform.
This is not a small number, as many initially thought, and we now see why there were so many add-on developers against these changes.
With the introduction of a new add-ons API called WebExtensions, which is more compatible with Chrome's extensions API, with the addition of multi-process support via the Electrolysis (e10s) project, and with mandatory add-on signing, Firefox's upcoming updates are going to alienate many, many users. 60%, to be more exact.
Seeing that many of the Firefox loyal supporters stuck around the aging browser because of its versatile customization options provided by vast add-ons repository, Mozilla might be making a mistake they're about to regret.
We're not software developers here at Softpedia, but 60% is not an acceptable number when it comes to users that may "potentially" have issues with add-ons in the future.