Why does Firefox Use Chrome extension technology?

Why does Firefox Use Chrome extension technology?

Mozilla announced last week that it would remove Firefox's old Add-on extension technology and switch to WebExtensions (Chrome extension technology). This decision has aroused controversy between users and developers. Today, Mozilla explained this question on the official website and answered several questions that users are concerned about.

Mozilla:

• XUL and XPCOM technologies (that is, the technologies on which existing Firefox extensions depend) have existed for 15 years. No other browsers except Firefox have used these technologies, sticking to these technologies makes no sense. However, we cannot give up yet. We need to determine the new expansion technical solution first. The decision was announced so early because I wanted to hear more feedback from the community.

• Using Chrome extension technology, we were inspired by its outstanding API performance in the process separation mode. However, Firefox will not copy the Chrome extension API, and there will be a difference between the two, and Chrome extension will not be allowed to run in Firefox without modification. However, some common methods and interfaces are provided to facilitate developers. Developers only need to modify a small amount of code to develop extensions for different browser platforms. Even if some platform-specific APIs are used, they can implement compatibility through function detection.

In addition, for the old extension, you must re-compile it to run it. If the old extension is not maintained, it cannot be used. Extensions Based on WebExtensions will continue to use the. xpi format. Because Firefox and Chrome use different signature technologies, it is too difficult to be compatible with both technologies at the same time.