{"id":39878,"date":"2019-11-01T12:10:42","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T12:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/?guid=d81a2dfe488af50ece1a40a8bcb7cc76"},"modified":"2019-11-01T12:10:42","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T12:10:42","slug":"firefox-scraps-extension-sideloading-over-malware-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/firefox-scraps-extension-sideloading-over-malware-fears\/","title":{"rendered":"Firefox scraps extension sideloading over malware fears"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n Keumars Afifi-Sabet<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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1 Nov, 2019<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n<\/a><\/p>\n

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Support for sideloaded extensions in the Firefox browser will be discontinued from next year following concerns that the function could be exploited to install malware<\/a> onto devices.<\/p>\n

Sideloading is a method of installing a browser extension that adds the file to a specific location on a user’s machine through an executable application installer. These are different from conventional add-ons, which are assigned to profiles, and are also available to download outside official Firefox channels.<\/p>\n

From 11 February 2020, the Firefox browser will continue to read sideloaded files, but will copy these over to a user’s individual profile and install them as regular add-ons. Then from 10 March, sideloaded extensions will be phased out entirely.<\/p>\n

Mozilla argues that for some users it’s difficult to remove sideloaded extensions completely, as these cannot be fully removed from Firefox’s Add-ons Manager. This has also proved a popular method of installing malware, the firm said.<\/p>\n

“Sideloaded extensions frequently cause issues for users since they did not explicitly choose to install them and are unable to remove them from the Add-ons Manager,” said Firefox’s add-ons community manager Caitlin Neiman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“This mechanism has also been employed in the past to install malware into Firefox. To give users more control over their extensions, support for sideloaded extensions will be discontinued.”<\/p>\n

The transition period between February and March has been put in place to ensure that no pre-installed sideloaded extensions will be lost from users’ profiles, given they will have been copied over as conventional add-ons.<\/p>\n

Developers have also been urged to update install flows, and direct users to download extensions through either their own web pages or the Firefox Add-Ons hub.<\/p>\n

One prominent example of malware installed via side-loading, albeit not on Firefox itself, was a Pokemon Go clone released in 2016<\/a> that allowed cyber criminals to gain full control to victims’ smartphones.<\/p>\n

Before Pokemon Go was available in Europe, the cyber criminals publicised a non-official version of the app that could be downloaded from sources beyond the Google Play Store. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keumars Afifi-Sabet<\/p>\n

1 Nov, 2019 <\/p>\n

Support for sideloaded extensions in the Firefox browser will be discontinued from next year following concerns that the function could be exploited to install malware onto devices.
\nSidelo…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":433,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/433"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39879,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39878\/revisions\/39879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}