Over the last few days I've read at least a dozen blog posts and tweets from people who are confused by one of the changes at AMO.
No, Mozilla has not switched from anonymous add-on installation to requiring a login.
What's new is that we now expose sandboxed (not ready for prime-time) add-ons in search results along with fully released add-ons.
The experimental, sandboxed add-ons have always required a login. There's no change here regarding when a login is required. We're just making the sandboxed extensions more visible.
Regular users do not need an AMO login to install release version, Firefox compatible extensions.
Posted by: Ben Basson | April 1, 2008 3:07 PM
I think there should be some notation that this is a "less then beta" quality extension. I like that sandboxed extensions are now easier to get to, but I myself was a little taken-aback by the login screen when I first saw it because I wasn't aware I was looking a sandboxed extension.
But I also miss the Firefox required version number on the extension page too, so I may be in the minority.
Posted by: orrin | April 1, 2008 6:08 PM
Sandboxed add-ons shouldn't be exposed to users by default.
I personally like to have these experimental add-ons visible but a checkbox and a cookie would be more than enough for me. Same for incompatible add-ons.
More here: http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2008/03/new-mozilla-add-ons-an-inch-short-of-the-perfect-central/
Posted by: Percy Cabello | April 1, 2008 7:14 PM
I miss the version number required too, orrin
Posted by: Leandro | April 1, 2008 7:29 PM
If they're sandboxed, should they really be showing up in search results? Doesn't that sort of defeat the point of the sandboxing?
Posted by: David Baron | April 1, 2008 8:28 PM
If it's confusing so many people, then it's a design problem and ought to be changed. We're trying to make the web easier, no?
Posted by: Mr Lizard | April 2, 2008 12:07 AM
Agreed, with more novice users than ever and a very simple IE addon site, the last thing the Fx Addons site needs to do is list more addons, it has too many for many novice users to want to sift through as it is. I think a check box to show these kinds of addons is a far better idea all round.
Posted by: Kris | April 3, 2008 8:02 AM
I personally find it aggravating that I have to turn on NoScript if I want to install an extension marked for an earlier version of Firefox! If it's marked for a previous version, but I know it works, it should let me click the install link anyway, instead of de-linking it.
Posted by: Jeff | April 4, 2008 2:54 AM
Although the new site is graphically more pleasing, from a user point of view there are some serious deficiencies. Version numbers are missing. Date of update is missing. And perhaps most significantly as the transition from Firefox 2 to Firefox 3 heats up, no indication of compatibility with Firefox version. I would gladly forgo the fancier interface for the more useful one.
Posted by: Mark Unhjem | April 6, 2008 6:06 AM
This really confused someone I was talking to the other day ("why do I need an account? I don't want an account..."), I think the UI needs to better reflect the reason for needing to log in.
What was the rationale for the change?