The Mozilla Foundation is testing a new feature in Firefox Nightly that suggests extensions to users when they visit certain pages on the Internet.
The feature with the necessary extension suggestions is disabled by default, and if you are interested in it, you should enable it.
Firefox Nightly: Why extension suggestions?
The extensions that Firefox will suggest may improve the user experience on pages that are necessary. They could, for example, block ads, enhance search functionality or improve privacy.
Firefox users using the Nightly version may remember that four years ago Mozilla was testing extension recommendations again, but we never saw the final version.
Firefox displays a “suggestion” and a puzzle icon in the browser’s address bar when you visit a page that needs the relevant extension. The “suggestion” automatically goes away after a while, but the puzzle icon remains in Firefox’s address bar.
It is unclear how the Mozilla Foundation selects recommended extensions and whether they are thoroughly reviewed before being recommended by the browser. Suggesting an extension with privacy issues by Mozilla's browser could raise a lot of trust issues for the application's fans.
So obviously the recommendations should not be based only on ratings from the public, but also on developer ratings.
You can install the extension that Firefox recommends very easily by clicking on the puzzle icon. A small overlay of the page that looks like the add-on installation dialog box will appear. There you will see the name of the extension and the developer of the extension, a short description, a link to more information, the rating and the number of users who have rated the extension.
You will be able to choose to "add now" or "not now" to install it.
Firefox displays another prompt that lists the permissions of the extension requests and the options to add them to the browser or cancel the process.
To enable the feature (requires Firefox Nightly) follow the instructions below:
Open the internal address:
about:config?filter=browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.asrouterExperimentEnabled
If it doesn't open, you probably haven't opened the about:config address again.
Open it and accept the box that opens.
Then search in the search box for the term “browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.asrouterExperimentEnabled”
Double-click on the name to change the value from False to True. You can restart Firefox immediately afterwards.
The functionality of the new feature is currently being tested, but that doesn't mean we'll definitely see it in a future version of Firefox. The feature may or may not sound useful to you. Personally, I see the feature as another addition to the browser that aims to make money. Extension suggestions can bring profits to the Mozilla Foundation.
Probably the biggest obstacle is that the Mozilla Foundation is required to only recommend extensions that don't violate user privacy, don't affect performance, and don't present security issues.
The extension recommendations tested in Firefox Nightly are mostly useful for those who don't use add-ons at all. According to the foundation's statistics, this number reaches 60%.
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