Mozilla has removed FVD Speed Dial extension from AMO for violating add-ons policies. If you’re using the extension, it may have already been disabled for you and is no longer available to download for Firefox for now.
Firefox browser comes with a New Tab page that is customizable to a certain extent where it shows visited sites from your browsing history with Pocket content and some of your recent activity in Firefox browser.
FVD Speed Dial
You can customize the Firefox New Tab Page to your liking and make it more productive by showing site links as Speed Dials on it for quick access. “FVD Speed Dial” is one such popular extension. It has been installed and used by more than 68K users.
Here are its features before coming to the main story.
- Get quick access to your favorite and most visited websites
- beautiful 3D layout
- Synchronization and local file backup
- organize sites by group
The extension when installed replaces Firefox’s new tab page with its own page.
Mozilla blocks FVD Speed Dial extension for intercepting search queries
Here is what happened:
Users who installed the FVD SD extension noticed the extension has been disabled and can’t be re-enabled. They were informed that “Speed Dial [FVD] New Tab Page, 3D Start Page, Sync has been blocked for your (their) Protection”.
The help page informs the extension “violates Mozilla’s policies as search functionality provided or loaded by add-on must not collect search terms or intercept searches that are going to a third-party search provider. The add-on has repeatedly violated these terms despite Mozilla explicitly pointing them out”.
All versions of FVD were blocked on November 23, 2021, and are no longer usable on devices running the Firefox browser.
Mozilla posted an official response on Discourse:
The company goes on to say FVD Speed Dial developer violated the AMO rules in 2020 for the aforementioned reason. When Mozilla warned such data collection was not allowed, the developer disabled the feature, and AMO continue to host the extension.
Recently, Mozilla learned the developer re-enabled the shady behavior, this time with repeated offenses, the company completely blocked the Speed Dial add-on.
It is unfortunate that the extension is no longer usable so that users can backup speed dials, don’t worry! Here is how you can do that now by temporarily enabling the extension.
Do note, you should block the extension again for your protection and should not use it again because of its shady nature.
Enable disabled FVD Speed Dial in Firefox
- Launch Firefox browser
- Visit about:config
- Search for blocklist and change “extensions.blocklist.enabled” pref value to false.
Go and backup speed dials to a file on your hard drive and either remove the extension or set the above pref value to true again.
FVD Speed Dial Alternative for Firefox
You can try the “Group Speed Dial” Add-on here.
The add-on supports importing from FYD and from its backup file as well.
Ensure to unzip the FYD backup file first and then open it in a text file for the import to happen.
Do note FVD is avialable for Chrome, Opera, and Microsoft Edge also on respective extension stores. If you’re installed and using it, you better uninstall it immediately.
Do you use the FVD Speed Dial extension in Firefox? Let us know in the comments below
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Firefox should be shot for this. Some sort of warning would be nice before disabling something which has years worth of my information on it