Hello,

You can check addons updates at the addons menu:

Go to Tools >> Addons >> Extensions In the top of the browser you can see a gear, click on it , then check updates!

You can see what versions of Firefox that the addon support at the addon page, the updates depends of only the author of the addon

hello, the addon developer would need to submit the update to addons.mozilla.org for existing installations to be able to auto-update. the update would then be reviewed (which could take a handful of days) until it is publicly available...

Hi, toddy_victor:

That is exactly what I did and the result was "no updates found". Yet elsewhere on the web I found the author offering his "update". I tried to download the fix but FF is blocking it. I trust FF's security measures so I abandoned the update.

So my question is: "What is the interaction between Mozilla and 3rd party software developers regarding dissemination/distribution of ongoing addon updates?

Thanks!

Richard L

in this case the developer made the conscious decision not to auto-update the addon, since he considers the new version unstable & slow: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=2784533

Thanks, Phillipp; you have fully answered my question with the thread you sent regarding the author's conscious decision.

The thread, much participated by the user base, begs a philosophical question, though:

A browser's popularity is in great part tied to utility brought forth by addons. When the author of an obviously popular addon admits he "can't fix" compatibility problems with a newer browser release (other than using a self-admit improper "hack"), wouldn't it make sense for Mozilla to offer some assistance his way?

Just saying...

yes i think mozilla's developers are fully aware that a big part of firefox' success story is due to its large addon ecosystem.

in general i've always perceived devs to be very helpful when it comes to such issues and there are numerous resources for addon authors (forum, documentation, blogs, etc.) - however in this case it seems to have come to a rather confrontational stage unfortunately (bug 834457).

Thanks for sharing this history, Phillipp. I really appreciate all your help and sharing!

I implemented the developer's "hack" and am keeping my fingers crossed the browser doesn't blow up on me some day (half jesting).

Good luck to you and Mozilla (FF rocks, I am a faithful through the years...). Keep up the great work!

Note that synchronous database access runs on the main thread and thus block the Firefox user interface.
There has been a lot of work done to prevent this by making the calls asynchronous and make sure that Firefox stays responsive all the time.
Asynchronous calls are a lot harder to program for extension developers as they require a call back function or start a specific task in a functions that holds the return until the result arrives.

It used to be easy to run a bookmarks via its keyword with this code, but the getShortcutOrURI() function is synchronous and no longer exists and it is a lot harder to make this work.

loadURI(getShortcutOrURI("<keyword>"),{}));

This is a possible synchronous option if you only need to do this occasionally:

loadURI(PlacesUtils.getURLAndPostDataForKeyword('<keyword>')[0]);

But it should be done by starting a new task to make it work asynchronous and for extensions that monitor events this is essential.

• https://developer.mozilla.org/Mozilla/JavaScript_code_modules/Task.jsm