Mozilla Locks down Component Directory in Firefox 3.6 for Third Party add-ons

It seems Mozilla also don’t like crashes as we do in case of Firefox. The good news for Firefox users is Mozilla changing the way add-ons hook into Firefox by locking down their components directory for upcoming Firefox 3.6 version. This will give greater control for Firefox users to manage add-ons and also avoids Firefox crashes.

Add-ons are pillars of Firefox

Firefox is here in this stage because of add-ons which gives users chance to change the way browser looks and works. But lot of crashes will happen to Firefox due to third party add-ons. But Mozilla don’t want to loose these add-ons and also wants to minimize the number of crashes Firefox gets due to these add-ons.

About Components directory

Firefox’s code will be stored in Components directory. Components directory will be supposed to be at “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components” .

Problems encountered by Users with this way of installation of add-ons

Some times third party add-ons installed in your computer try to extend Firefox by adding their code to “components “ directory of Firefox.These add-ons will not be visible to users. Users can’t manage or disable add-ons when they encounter problems. They will not carry any version information. Causes more problems while updating to new version of Firefox. They become incompatible with the updated version of Firefox and hence users will not be able to disable them. These are other causes for Firefox to crash.

Firefox 3.6 will be more stable

From Firefox 3.6 the components directory for third party applications will be closed. Users have to do nothing and will have no affect on how add-ons work . But users can encounter few little bugs and crashes .Then they have to report to developer of that add-on that caused Firefox to stop.