Timeline for disabling legacy add-ons on addons.mozilla.org

[caitlin (Caitlin Neiman)]

Cross-posted from the Add-ons Blog

Mozilla will stop supporting Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) 52, the final release that is compatible with legacy add-ons, on September 5, 2018.

As no supported versions of Firefox will be compatible with legacy add-ons after this date, we will start the process of disabling legacy add-on versions on addons.mozilla.org (AMO) in September. On September 6, 2018, submissions for new legacy add-on versions will be disabled. All legacy add-on versions will be disabled in early October, 2018. Once this happens, users will no longer be able to find your extension on AMO. For more information about how

After legacy add-ons are disabled, developers will still be able to port their extensions to the WebExtensions APIs. Once a new version is submitted to AMO, users who have installed the legacy version will automatically receive the update and the add-on’s listing will appear in the gallery.

For more information about porting legacy extensions to the WebExtensions API is available on MDN. We encourage legacy add-on developers to visit our wiki for more information about upcoming development work and ways to get in touch with our team for help.

[juraj.masiar]

Hello,

Are the statistics about users count still valid for the legacy add-ons?
For example:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/speed-dial/
Is it really still used by more than 100k users?

And what happens to users of ESR 52 - are they auto-updated to ESR 60?

Thanks!

EDIT:

Does Mozilla provide an upgrade path between two ESR versions?
Yes, an ESR will be automatically upgraded to the subsequent ESR.

(based on the info here: Get Firefox for your enterprise with ESR and Rapid Release)
So users of 52 will be auto-updated to Firefox 60.2 on 2018-09-05 (based on the Release calendar: Firefox Release Calendar)

[jorgev]

The usage numbers should still be accurate, though looking into the numbers for Speed Dial, there’s definitely something wrong. Most users appear to be on Firefox 61 (release), and have the latest version of the extension enabled. I’m not sure how all of those can be true at the same time.

[juraj.masiar]

Thank you for the info!

Is it gonna be investigated further? I know it won’t matter anymore after this October but who knows if this bug isn’t affecting normal statistics.

I’ve noticed some impossible numbers in my add-ons as well - like 20 users in Firefox 43 even when my add-on has strict-min-version set to 52:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/groupspeeddial/statistics/usage/applications/?last=30

Also I would like to know how the malicious add-ons can get 200k+ users in few weeks:

Fake, Copy, Maleware addons

Hi As I sent several emails to managers about fake review, It’s seems some people going to copy addons and just make afew UI changes and release with their names, then using huge fake reviews to go to top of pages. I reporting them several times but it’s seems Mozilla is very slow or doesn’t remove them. Lookat this addon fir example: Huge 5 stars reviews without text, afew texts are 1 star and tell it is fake, copy and also maleware! https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adremover…

[jorgev]

@juraj.masiar

Is it gonna be investigated further? I know it won’t matter anymore after this October but who knows if this bug isn’t affecting normal statistics.

It’s not a priority right now.

@juraj.masiar

Also I would like to know how the malicious add-ons can get 200k+ users in few weeks:

If we thought they were malicious, they wouldn’t be on the site. And while the usage is suspicious, there is no evidence that it’s faked. It could just be the result of good SEO and marketing.

[juraj.masiar]

You are right. I tend to jump to conclusions when I see so many red flags…

But something must be wrong, there is just no way out of 250k users no one would leave a positive review (no matter the SEO and marketing). Those numbers just won’t add up.

[anon88036461]

Those addons removed from store,
But why AMO allow them to collect many users and write fake reviews?
AMO should detect them and remove them fastly.
I’m ready to help AMO.
Sincerely