Mozilla has made Firefox Hello as a system add-on now as part of Go Faster. Firefox browser vendor wants to reduce the time it takes to ship new versions to users by separating less used integrated components like Hello and Pocket as system add-ons. The latest update is Hello, which uses WebRTC to add real-time communications to user’s browsing experience is now a system add-on in Firefox on version 45 (which is at Nightly).
What is Mozilla’s Go Faster project?
“Go Faster is a plan to change the way we ship Firefox for Desktop, and potentially other products. The end goal is to reduce the time it takes to deliver value to the user. This focuses on getting features and fixes to the user on a reduced cycle time, but includes reductions in time to download updates and new versions, and reductions in build and release time.”
You won’t notice the system add-on in Add-ons manager, then how to know Hello or any other, exists as a system add-on in Firefox browser?
- Visit about:support or click on Firefox menu, open Help menu and select ‘Troubleshooting information’
- You’ll notice Firefox Hello under Extensions along with other extensions installed in browser.
- For instance, on Firefox Nightly 45, you can see the extension name as Firefox Hello with version 0.1 has Enabled value set to ‘true’ and its ID as [email protected] (check the below screenshot).
FYI, Firefox 45 also loses tab groups and about:permissions page.
What do you say on this development?
God damn, that didn’t last long!
Apart Hello from being a system add-on, it is still available to access as usual when it was built-into core.