Firefox is getting a toolbar button that will host all your installed extensions behind a menu. The similar idea has already implemented in Chrome and Edge, so Mozilla follows the suit.
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Unlike in Chromium based browsers, extensions you install in Firefox appear directly in the toolbar. However, the available space there in pretty limited. Extensions that don't fit the toolbar appear in the overflow area. To arrange the add-on icons, the user can move some of them to the menu, so toolbar will host only frequently needed extensions.
Now the team behind the Firefox browser is working on a new Extensions button. Clicking it will open the list of installed add-ons, similar to what Chrome has.
At the moment of this writing, the new button is a work-in-progress. It is only available in the Nightly version of Firefox, and is hidden behind an about:config option. If you want to give it a try, install the latest Nightly, and follow the steps below.
- Open a new tab, and type
about:config. - Click the button to accept the risk and continue.
- In the search box, enter the extensions.unifiedExtensions.enabled text.
- Set the eponymous value to true.
- Now restart Firefox.
You are done. If you have at least one extension installed, you will see a new toolbar button. The functionality it provides is pretty similar to Chrome and Edge. You can pin an extension back to the toolbar to access it with one click.
For each of the add-ons you can access settings via a dedicated button that appears next to the extension name. It opens a small menu with three common commands, Manage extension, Remove extension, and Report extension. All extra commands added by the extension itself will also appear in this menu.
It is not known when exactly Mozilla will roll out this change to the stable version of the browser. Currently, it still has rough edges that needs to be polished.
The new menu and button are useful for those who often interact with installed extensions. On the other hand, there is the Ctrl + Shift + A keyboard shortcut that directly opens the add-on manager in Firefox with the full list of installed extensions and their options.
Finally, the existing overflow menu keeps the user in control which extensions display there and in the toolbar. By replacing it with the new button, Mozilla may get negative feedback from its core users. Some of them may find the change a bit controversial.
Tip: If Firefox Nightly is not your daily driver, you may be interested in reading how to run different versions of Firefox simultaneously.
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