14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla has made one more step towards a hassle-free update process for Firefox. In the latest Aurora builds which will go on to be Firefox 10, all add-ons default to 'compatible' regardless if they came from the Mozilla Add-ons site, from a different website or even if they were installed locally by the user or third-party software.
With the latest Aurora, all add-ons that have been labeled as being compatible with Firefox 4 can be installed just like any other add-ons.
"The latest phase of our add-on compatibility plan has arrived in Aurora, and we need your help to test it! Since Firefox 4, we have been automatically making add-ons hosted on AMO compatible with new Firefox releases," Mozilla explained.
"Now, we have extended automatic compatibility to non-hosted add-ons, which account for 75% of all add-ons in use (currently in the hundreds of millions). This means you should see less of the incompatible add-ons dialog, and more of your add-ons should just work," it announced.
Add-on compatibility is and has been historically one of the major, if not the major reason why people refuse to upgrade to a newer version of Firefox. When a new Firefox came out every year or so, this wasn't a huge problem.
But with the new rapid release cycle pumping a new Firefox once every six weeks, Mozilla can't afford to leave users behind with every update.
Developers are working on several ways of making sure people upgrade, for one, they're making the process more transparent, by removing UAC dialogs, removing prompts to install new versions and shortening the install time of an update.
But add-on compatibility remains the biggest issue. It's an artificial one as well since the vast majority of add-ons that work in Firefox 8 will work in Firefox 9. But Firefox won't let you install add-ons that are not marked explicitly as being compatible with its exact version.
Mozilla is now only marking as incompatible the add-ons that it specifically knows won't work in the newer version, without an update. This started on its own add-on repository, over which it has more control, but has now expanded to all add-ons, everywhere. If everything goes smoothly, you'll be able to install any add-on by the time Firefox 10 goes stable.