Firefox Hello to be removed as system add-on

Jul 30, 2016 21:05 GMT  ·  By

An entry on Mozilla's issue tracker opened on July 17 reveals ongoing efforts from Mozilla engineers to remove the Hello system add-on from default Firefox installations starting with version 49, set for public release on September 13, 2016.

Mozilla added Hello to Firefox in version 34, released on December 1, 2014, and from the beginning, it was part of the browser's core code.

The feature, which allowed WebRTC-based voice and video calling between browsers, was buggy right from the start and caused many issues to engineers, who had to update the entire browser to fix any problems that arose with Hello.

Hello was Firefox's first "system add-on"

A year later, Mozilla moved Hello code into an add-on, but one that came pre-installed with Firefox, making Hello its first-ever system add-on.

Since then, Firefox engineers added other system add-ons to the browser, most notable being Pocket, which, like Hello, faced much criticism from the open-source community who decried the complicated procedures for deactivating unwanted system add-ons.

According to the recent entry on the Firefox issue tracker, the Foundation plans to remove Hello from the codebases of Firefox Beta 49, Firefox Developer Edition 50, and Firefox Nightly 51.

Based on the currently available information, the deadline for the Hello code removal operations is this Monday, August 1, after which, the first Firefox builds with no Hello integration will be available for testing and will ship out in the fall with the stable release. Hello will shut down for good, and will not be available as a regular add-on after September 13, 2016.

No explanations as to why Firefox removed Hello

There is no clue from any of the Firefox engineers as to why has this happened all of a sudden, especially since Hello was planned to receive a massive update in the coming months, called Akita.

Hello was never a popular plugin, and you can easily find Firefox users who have never even bothered opening its GUI for more than two-three times since it was added way back in 2014.

Since Mozilla is focused on rebuilding Firefox's code from scratch to keep up with speedier competitors like Chrome, Opera, and Vivaldi, the add-on's small following helped the Foundation make the decision to put Hello on the chopping block.

UPDATE [August 2, 2016]: Updated article to emphasize that Hello will shut down for good, and won't be available anymore.