5 ms·

Introducing Extension Signing: A Safer Add-On Experience

26 points by bpierre 12y ago

detaro 12y ago
A good step forward from "Addons are distributed via HTTPS and therefore secure". Some probably would prefer if developers could sign them themselves without submitting them online, but you'd still need the certs signed by a Mozilla CA for the browser to be able to check them...
getdavidhiggins 12y ago
This is welcome news. I audit each addon/extension/plugin I download. I spotted some dodgy plugins in the past that logged traffic and sent it back to a remote server. Not cool. Others would simply not have time to manually audit, so this news is fantastic. I learned the hard way that Firefox addons are pretty lax in terms of sandbox features. Why are plugins allowed talk to the public Internet? Such a massive security hole.
- stevenh 12y ago
  I know that of all the major browsers, Firefox's extension ecosystem is the most secure due to the strict rules and ruthless approval process. It's nice that they are now going even farther with it. It blows my mind that Chrome puts so much work into preventing XSS, complete with built-in reflected XSS prevention and special restrictive HTTP headers, but then turns around and gives anyone with an extension carte blanche to circumvent all of it.
reirob 12y ago
The essence fort developers: > For developers hosting their add-ons on AMO, this means that they will have to either test on Developer Edition, Nightly, or one of the unbranded builds. The rest of the submission and review process will remain unchanged, except that extensions will be automatically signed once they pass review. > For other developers, this is a larger change. For testing development versions, they’ll have the same options available as AMO add-on developers. For release versions, however, we’re introducing the required step of uploading the extension file to AMO for signing. For most cases, this step will be automatic, but in cases where the extension doesn’t pass these tests, there will be the option to request a manual code review. > In the case of developers who want their extensions to be side loaded (installed via an application installer rather than using the usual Web install method) the review bar will be higher, equal to fully reviewed add-ons on AMO (with the exception of AMO content restrictions). This is a convenient installation avenue for software that comes bundled with an extension, for example an antivirus application that includes a Firefox extension that interacts with it.

26 points by bpierre 12y ago

A good step forward from "Addons are distributed via HTTPS and therefore secure". Some probably would prefer if developers could sign them themselves without submitting them online, but you'd still need the certs signed by a Mozilla CA for the browser to be able to check them...

getdavidhiggins 12y ago

This is welcome news. I audit each addon/extension/plugin I download. I spotted some dodgy plugins in the past that logged traffic and sent it back to a remote server. Not cool. Others would simply not have time to manually audit, so this news is fantastic. I learned the hard way that Firefox addons are pretty lax in terms of sandbox features. Why are plugins allowed talk to the public Internet? Such a massive security hole.

stevenh 12y ago
I know that of all the major browsers, Firefox's extension ecosystem is the most secure due to the strict rules and ruthless approval process. It's nice that they are now going even farther with it. It blows my mind that Chrome puts so much work into preventing XSS, complete with built-in reflected XSS prevention and special restrictive HTTP headers, but then turns around and gives anyone with an extension carte blanche to circumvent all of it.

reirob 12y ago

The essence fort developers: > For developers hosting their add-ons on AMO, this means that they will have to either test on Developer Edition, Nightly, or one of the unbranded builds. The rest of the submission and review process will remain unchanged, except that extensions will be automatically signed once they pass review. > For other developers, this is a larger change. For testing development versions, they’ll have the same options available as AMO add-on developers. For release versions, however, we’re introducing the required step of uploading the extension file to AMO for signing. For most cases, this step will be automatic, but in cases where the extension doesn’t pass these tests, there will be the option to request a manual code review. > In the case of developers who want their extensions to be side loaded (installed via an application installer rather than using the usual Web install method) the review bar will be higher, equal to fully reviewed add-ons on AMO (with the exception of AMO content restrictions). This is a convenient installation avenue for software that comes bundled with an extension, for example an antivirus application that includes a Firefox extension that interacts with it.