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[Chris Rossini]

I just found out that the Firefox extension list will be much shorter come Monday. From ComputerWorld:

Mozilla Corp. will relaunch its popular Firefox add-on site Monday by culling the several thousand extensions listed for its open-source browser to just a couple of hundred.

The move is part of a general overhaul of the add-on site, which will also feature more support for international users and new tools for user-to-user discussions.

But it's the thinning of the add-on herd that may raise eyebrows. "We're trying to tighten up the extensions, especially for new first-time users," said Mike Shaver, Mozilla's technology strategist.

Rather than list all the available Firefox and Thunderbird extensions -- Shaver estimated that there are approximately 2,000 available now -- the site will drop marginal add-ons, as well as those no longer maintained by their creator or not updated for the browsers and e-mail clients now in use. A couple of hundred extensions will remain on the site after Monday.

[MetaMan]

This is a good thing. It will get rid of all of the crap extensions that clog up the site, and possibly open new doors for truly worthy extensions hidden by the mess. This will work so long as they will still accept new extensions (albeit with a review process) and don't get rid of too many themes.

[Nogg3r5]

I just found out that the Firefox extension list will be much shorter come Monday. From ComputerWorld:

Mozilla Corp. will relaunch its popular Firefox add-on site Monday by culling the several thousand extensions listed for its open-source browser to just a couple of hundred.

The move is part of a general overhaul of the add-on site, which will also feature more support for international users and new tools for user-to-user discussions.

But it's the thinning of the add-on herd that may raise eyebrows. "We're trying to tighten up the extensions, especially for new first-time users," said Mike Shaver, Mozilla's technology strategist.

Rather than list all the available Firefox and Thunderbird extensions -- Shaver estimated that there are approximately 2,000 available now -- the site will drop marginal add-ons, as well as those no longer maintained by their creator or not updated for the browsers and e-mail clients now in use. A couple of hundred extensions will remain on the site after Monday.

I dont think that they shoul;d just drop them. Maybe, move them to another part of the site or clearly lable the ones that are rubbish

[Ryan Wagner]

I'm sure a lot of the ones that will be dropped will be the ones that are out dated like the article said. I'm sure a huge reason for this is actually security, because if you're using an extension that isn't supported for a particular version of the browser then who knows what could happen. I'm not exactly sure what kind of vulnerabilities an extension could open up, but I'm sure if it is out dated it definitely won't help things.

Thanks for the info Chris!

[xpgeek]

Bad extensions are the number one cause of memory leaks too, that people just love to complain about and put Firefox down for.

[MetaMan]

Hmm... It's Monday, and there are still about 3,000 extensions on the site.  I'll check back later.

Also, it's true, bad extensions are a HUGE source of memory leaks (I know from experience ).

[Ryan Wagner]

Looks like the site just got the update...and to be honest there are some things I don't really like. I'm in the process of writing an article right now.

Edit: Looks like I lied, it isn't officially posted because I just realized the link my friend sent me points to a preview site where you can view it: http://preview.addons.mozilla.org/en-US/

[MetaMan]

Ugh, it's terrible !  They don't even have my beloved Blue Ice theme anymore !  A couple of extensions were easier to find (such as Ook? [new site] [old site]), but favorites such as Restarter and SearchLoad Options were nowhere to be found .

[El Guru (Al)]

Looks like the site just got the update...and to be honest there are some things I don't really like. I'm in the process of writing an article right now.

Edit: Looks like I lied, it isn't officially posted because I just realized the link my friend sent me points to a preview site where you can view it: http://preview.addons.mozilla.org/en-US/

Hmm, I have mixed feelings thus far.  The search is even worse than before as there appears to be no more advanced search.  Still displays the results in I am guessing by order of most recently updated.  You have to click on the developers name to get their bio then you can get to their web page.  I can say one good thing and that is the older versions (such as Greasemonkey) are easier to get to the installs.  I'll look more into this tonight and do a blog entry as well.

[El Guru (Al)]

One thing I've noticed is the URL for extensions have changed because of the NEW multi-language support. 

Old url format: addons.mozilla.org/firefox/<addon#>

New url format: addons.mozilla.org/en-US/addons/display/<addon#>

Speak of multi-language support, you can now add a other dictionaries to your Fx 2 spellchecker. However your choices are currently French and actually that is your only choice.

I really, really, really hope the old URLs will auto-redirect to the new English addresses.   

[MetaMan]

You could already add new dictionaries through MySpell extensions. I've been using French for a while now. I suppose they separated them to further simplify the extensions list.

[MetaMan]

The preview site is now down, but the normal site still hasn't been updated.

[El Guru (Al)]

Looks like they have taken the preview site off line now. 

[El Guru (Al)]

The preview site is now down, but the normal site still hasn't been updated.

I noticed as well.  I doubt the new site will be updated tonight, although it is only a little after 4:00 PM on the west coast so they may still yet. 

[El Guru (Al)]

Ugh, it's terrible !  They don't even have my beloved Blue Ice theme anymore !  A couple of extensions were easier to find (such as Ook? [new site] [old site]), but favorites such as Restarter and SearchLoad Options were nowhere to be found .

Looks like they axed Stylish (the CSS equivalent of Greasemonkey) as well...