Add-ons are a popular option for Firefox users. Now LinuxPlanet has the story on how one such add-on, and possibly a few others, will soon become a standard part of the browser.
Customizing and theming, or
“
skinning
”
, your open source browser is about to get easier, thanks to the integration of Personas in the upcoming Mozilla Firefox 3.6 release.
The Personas engine, which enables users to easily change the way the browser looks, had previously been available as a Firefox add-on, but will soon become part of the default browser itself. Other popular Firefox add-ons, including Weave and Prism might one day follow suit, as well as a new technology for add-ons called Jetpacks, Mozilla said.
“Our add-ons site has over 6,000 add-ons, but it’s a fairly heavy experience,” Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox at Mozilla, told InternetNews.com. “You go there, you search, you find one, install it, then restart your browser. For cases where you’re changing functionality, that makes a lot of sense, but what we’ve seen is that for a lot of people, for changing the way the browser looks, they’re looking for something more lightweight.”