Submit or Manage Extensions

Add-on Policies

Add-ons extend the core capabilities of Firefox, enabling users to modify and personalize their web experience. A healthy ecosystem, built on trust, is vital for developers to be successful and users to feel safe making Firefox their own. For these reasons, Mozilla requires all add-ons to comply with the following policies on acceptable practices. These policies are not intended to serve as legal advice, nor as a comprehensive list of terms to include in your add-on’s privacy policy.

All add-ons are subject to these policies, regardless of how they are distributed.

When an add-on is given human review or otherwise assessed by Mozilla, these policies act as guiding principles for those reviews. Add-ons that do not comply with these policies may be rejected or disabled by Mozilla. Therefore, follow these policies when making add-on design and development decisions.

No Surprises

Users should be able to easily discern what the functionality of your add-on is and should not be presented with unexpected user experiences after installing it. The add-on should have an easy-to-read description about everything it does, and any information it collects. Please consult our best practices guide for creating an appealing listing.

Unexpected features

“Unexpected” features are those that are unrelated to the add-on’s primary function, and are not intuitive from the add-on name or description. This includes features that impact user privacy or security, make unexpected changes to web content, change default settings like the new tab page, homepage, or search engine, or are not related to the add-on’s core function(s).

Any “unexpected” feature(s) must adhere to all of the following requirements:

  • The add-on description must clearly state any changes made by these features.
  • The features must be “opt-in”, meaning the user has to take non-default action to enact the change. Changes prompted by Firefox after the add-on is installed do not require an additional opt-in. The permissions prompt shown when installing an add-on does not alleviate the need for an opt-in.
  • The opt-in interface must clearly state the name of the add-on requesting the change.

Content

Add-ons that make use of Mozilla trademarks must comply with the Mozilla Trademark Policy. If the add-on uses “Firefox” in its name, the naming standard the add-on is expected to follow is “<Add-on name> for Firefox”.

In addition, add-ons listed on addons.mozilla.org must adhere to the following policies:

  • All add-ons submitted for listing on addons.mozilla.org are subject to Mozilla’s Conditions of Use.
  • Add-ons must disclose when payment is required to enable any functionality.
  • Any add-ons, or add-on content, hosted on Mozilla site(s) must conform to the laws of the United States.
  • Add-ons that are intended for internal or private use, are only accessible to a closed user group, or for distribution testing may not be listed on addons.mozilla.org. Such add-ons may be uploaded for self-distribution instead.
  • If the add-on is a fork of another add-on, the name must clearly distinguish it from the original and provide a significant difference in functionality and/or code.
  • Add-ons with the sole purpose of promoting, installing, loading or launching another website, application or add-on are not permitted.

Submission Guidelines

Add-ons must function only as described. During review, the add-on undergoes basic functional testing in addition to code review. To facilitate the functional testing, the add-on author must provide testing information and, if applicable, testing credentials required to use the add-on if an account is needed for any part of the add-on’s functionality.

If corrections have been requested, the new version should not contain unrelated changes, as this complicates the review process and can lead to further rejections.

Source Code Submission

Code must be provided in a way that is reviewable. Add-ons may contain transpiled, minified or otherwise machine-generated code, but Mozilla needs to review a copy of the source code before any of these steps have been applied. The author must provide this information to Mozilla during submission along with instructions on how to reproduce the build. Reviewers may ask you to refactor parts of the code if it is not reviewable.

The provided source code will be reviewed by an administrator and will not be redistributed in any way. The code will only be used for the purpose of reviewing the add-on. Failure to provide this information will result in rejection or blocking.

Add-ons are not allowed to contain obfuscated code, nor code that hides the purpose of the functionality involved. If external resources are used in combination with add-on code, the functionality of the code must not be obscured. Minification of code with the intent to reduce file size is permitted.

Please read our Source Code Submission guidelines to avoid unexpected rejections or blocks.

Development Practices

In general, developers are free to maintain their add-ons in the manner they choose. However, in order to maintain appropriate data security and effectively review code, we do have certain technical requirements that all add-ons must meet. In particular, potentially dangerous APIs may only be used in ways that are demonstrably safe, and code within add-ons that cannot be verified as behaving safely and correctly may need to be refactored.

While any code, method or practice in a submitted add-on is subject to review and rejection, the following requirements are of particular importance:

  • Add-ons must only request those permissions that are necessary for function.
  • Add-ons must be self-contained and not load remote code for execution.
  • Add-ons must not load or redirect to a remote new tab page. The new tab page must be contained within the add-on.
  • Add-ons must not relax web page security headers, such as the Content Security Policy.
  • Add-ons must use encryption when transporting data remotely.
  • Add-ons should avoid including redundant code or files.
  • Add-ons must not negatively impact the performance or stability of Firefox.
  • Only release versions of third-party libraries and/or frameworks may be included with an add-on. Modifications to these libraries/frameworks are not permitted. Please read our third party library guidelines to avoid unexpected rejections.

Data Disclosure, Collection and Management

Add-ons must limit data collection to what is necessary for functionality and use the data only for the purpose for which it was originally collected. Data includes all information the add-on collects, regardless of the manner.

Privacy Policy

You must maintain a privacy policy in the privacy policy field on addons.mozilla.org. The privacy policy must:

  • be specific and exclusive to the add-on,
  • set forth the data to be collected,
    • If the collection of visited URLs or user search terms is required for the add-on to work, that collection must be disclosed in the privacy policy,
    • If your add-on installs cookies, the placing and purpose of those cookies must be disclosed,
  • clearly describe the purpose of the data collection,
  • be the full policy text; it cannot be a link to an externally hosted privacy policy.

A summary of this information must be included in the add-on’s description. Finally, you and your add-on must also comply with all applicable data privacy laws as well as any other laws that may apply to your specific add-on.

Prohibited Data Collection

  • Search functionality provided or loaded by the add-on must not collect search terms or intercept searches that are going to a third-party search provider.
  • Collecting, or facilitating the collection of ancillary information (e.g. any data not required for the add-on’s functionality as stated in the description) is prohibited.
  • The collection of browsing activity is only permitted as part of the add-on’s primary function.

User Consent

The user must be provided with a clear way to control the add-on’s data collection at the first run of the add-on. The data collection consent and control must be contained within the add-on. The consent experience must:

  • Clearly state what type of data is being collected
  • Link to the add-on’s privacy policy
  • Inform about the impact of accepting or declining the data collection

If both personal and technical data is being collected, the user must be provided separate choices. If the user declines consent, the impact must be related to the data not being available.

Please refer to our best practices for advice and examples on how to design and implement a data collection consent prompt.

Personal Data (opt-in)

Personal information, or potentially personally identifying information, can be actively provided by the user, or obtained through extension APIs. It includes, but is not limited to names, email addresses, search terms, browsing activity data, as well as access and placement of cookies.

When collecting personal information, the user must provide affirmative consent (i.e., explicit opt-in from the user) with a clear description what type of personal data is being collected.

If the main functionality of the add-on does not work without collecting personal data, the add-on must instead provide a choice for the user to accept the collection or uninstall the add-on.

Technical & User Interaction Data (opt-out)

Technical data describes information about the environment the user is running, such as browser settings, platform information and hardware properties. User interaction data includes how the user interacts with Firefox and the installed add-ons, metrics for product improvement, and error information.

When collecting this type of information, the user must be able to disable the data collection during the initial consent experience (opt-out).

Additional Privacy Protocols

  • Leaking local or user-sensitive information to websites or other applications (e.g. using native messaging) is prohibited.
  • If the add-on uses native messaging, the privacy policy must clearly disclose which information is being exchanged with the application. Data exchanged must also be in accordance with our No Surprises policy.
  • Browsing data from private browsing sessions must not be stored. Information that identifies a user across browsing sessions or containers must not be made available to web content.

Monetization

  • An add-on injecting advertising into web page content must clearly identify the injected content as originating from the add-on.
  • The inclusion of any cryptocurrency miners or similar functionality in an add-on is prohibited.
  • Modifying web content or facilitating redirects to include affiliate promotion tags is not permitted. Conversely, the use of affiliate promotion in user interface elements clearly identified as belonging to the add-on are acceptable.

Security, Compliance and Blocking

We expect all add-ons, whether hosted on addons.mozilla.org or not, to be secure and well-maintained in handling both their own data and their user’s data. They must also securely manage all of their interactions with the web, the browser and the operating system.

Mozilla may reject or block affected versions or entire add-ons that don’t meet these policies, depending on the extent of their non-compliance.

Mozilla may attempt to contact the add-on’s developer(s) and provide a reasonable time frame for the problems to be corrected before a block is deployed. If an add-on appears to intentionally violate the policies or its developers have proven unreachable, unresponsive, or uncooperative, or in case of repeat violations, blocking may be immediate.

Mozilla reserves the right to block or delete any developer’s account on addons.mozilla.org, thereby preventing further use of the service.

For information about how rejection and blocking affects users, see What does review rejection mean to users?