Shocking! Firefox Silently installs ADB Helper and Valence add-ons

What are ADB Helper and Valence Add-ons? Why they’re installed in Firefox without my consent?. Irrespective of you’re using a Release or beta or developer or Nightly, when you open and close WebIDE in Developer tools for the first time, Firefox automatically downloads and installs ADB Helper and Valence add-ons silently, if you’ve forgotten you’ve opened WebIDE, then this can surprise you.

You can also notice ‘adb.exe’ background process running in the Task Manager.

READ: This Add-on enables the Official Developer Theme in Firefox Release and Beta Channels

Removing ADB Helper and Valence Firefox Add-ons

1. Visit Add-ons Manager >Extensions

2. Uninstall ‘ADB Helper’ and ‘Valence’ add-ons, one by one.

Don’t worry! They won’t be installed next time, even when you access WebIDE again.

No one expects users on release version to access web developer tools, Mozilla has created a developer edition specially for this reason for the the developer and advanced user needs.

SEE: Mozilla removes Dev Edition Theme Support in Firefox Stable

Reason

Firefox for Android and Firefox OS devices connected over USB device won’t be detected without the install of ADB Helper add-on, that’s why that add-on and ‘Tools Adapters add-on’ or the Valence will be automatically installed.

“WebIDE’s main use case today is to connect to devices, and for this to function, the ADB Helper addon is downloaded when it is first opened.  The fact that it is an add-on is really just an implementation detail.”  Mozilla’s Ryan Stinnett, who works on developer tools said in a bug filed by a user.

“The add-on is auto-installed on WebIDE open to simplify the process of connecting to a device for the first time. Only one attempt is made to auto-install the add-on. You can remove it from the add-on manager just like any other, if you wish.” he added.

You can see that happening when you select ‘Manage Extra components’ from Project menu within Firefox WebIDE (check the screenshots).

Summary:

From what Stinnett said it seems this is completely normal (but we shouldn’t expect these things to happen on release channel) then how it could be a bug? We’re confused.

If you’re using stable or beta version, expect Mozilla to fix this or just don’t access developer tools specially WebIDE, if you don’t want those extensions to be automatically installed in Firefox browser.