14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla released the new Firefox on Android a few days ago, and while the company was super-excited about this new browser, not the same thing can be said about the user community out there.
The amount of criticism has been shocking, to say the least, and the main reason for complaining about the new Firefox version for Android appears to be the reduced number of extensions.
Indeed, Mozilla shipped the new Firefox with just a handful of add-ons, something that wasn’t necessarily expected given this is one of the main capabilities of the browser.
But in a blog post released today, Mozilla explains that rolling out the new Firefox build with just a handful of extensions was the only way to make sure that everything is working exactly as expected.
All for a better experience
And Mozilla says that the resources required to deal with two different Firefox versions on the same platform played a key role in this final decision.
“This means continuing to build support for add-ons. In order to get the new browser to users as soon as possible—which was necessary to iterate quickly on user feedback and limit resources needed to maintain two different Firefox for Android applications—we made some tough decisions about our minimum criteria for launch,” the company explains.
“We looked at add-on usage on Android, and made the decision to start by building support for add-ons in the Recommended Extensions program that were commonly installed by our mobile users. Enabling a small number of extensions in the initial rollout also enabled us to ensure a good first experience with add-ons in the new browser that are both mobile-friendly and security-reviewed.”
The good news is that Mozilla promises that more extensions are on their way, but every single add-on needs to pass the same validation as before, again to make sure everything is running correctly.