Approval ETA 2 months - what can we do until our addon is reviewed?

Add-ons addons.mozilla.org
#1

We’ve submitted an addon and now see the queue advancing horribly slowly.

We first uploaded minimized code with the full code attached, and that got it flagged for lengthy admin review.

So we cancelled this and uploaded it anew, with the plain, commented code and no attachment. But it’s still moving as slowly as before. ETA = 2 months!

We’ve secured 2 pilot cooperations with organizations with 100K consumers/users each and they may cancel if we can’t deliver sooner. What are our options?

  1. After uploading, I got an email saying that the add-on, awaiting review, can be accessed and installed directly from its detail page. But when accessing the page, it says it can’t be installed on FF >= V43
  2. Would it be better to self-host the extension? Also gives an ugly warning but at least it installs. But I don’t like it.
  3. Can we get it online immediately without it being visible in the addons directory? Kind of unlisted, un-reviewed version? People are invited by the organizations, so they don’t have to stumble upon us.
  4. Our last option not to lose our clients and close shop, is pointing them to another browser, but that’s a hurdle and to nobody’s advantage.

Any suggestions to bridge the time to the review date are welcome.

#2

Upload a new version and make it unlisted. The extension will be signed automatically and then you can self-host it.

#3

Which addon is it?
If you include addon’s link, we can see what is happening.

#4

Thanks for the suggestion. That’s what we will have to do if we really don’t have another option. But a self-hosted addon gives a security warning during installation that might scare off users. How many is to be seen, we’ll know that when we compare our Firefox and Chrome stats.

#5

Thanks for your reaction. It’s this one: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/askolinet/

We haven’t bothered uploading a description or screenshots yet, as long as we don’t know if it’s even going to be published.

#6

The addon was uploaded April 10th.

#7

It doesn’t actually. If you make it unlisted on AMO, then it will give you the option of downloading a signed version that will just act like any other signed addon, and you can self host that version. You can even install it on release and beta versions.

#8

Please note that AFAIK self-hosted, unlisted addons don’t auto-update.

#9

OK, we’ll give it a try. If it works like that, that would be very helpful.

When I last signed it and downloaded the signed version, then tried to install that, it did give a warning. But we’ll try to play with the settings.

#10

There is a way to make them auto update, we did get that far already.