To recognize their time and effort, we have launched a reviewer incentive program. For each add-on review, reviewers accumulate points that fetch them cool gear! If you are currently a reviewer, you’ve probably already noticed a module on the review admin page showing your point totals:

The “All Time” point value maps to six gear levels ranging from stickers to an Android tablet. To start everyone on an equal footing, points began accruing upon the launch of this program.

Currently, the program is only available to add-on reviewers, but will also become available to app reviewers when Firefox Marketplace launches later this year. If you’re interested in volunteering as an app reviewer, you can indicate your interest here and we’ll contact you when the program gets off the ground.

Level 4 tee!

In addition to gear, reviewers also enjoy many other benefits, such as invitations to Mozilla events around the world, participation in reviewer-only contests, and getting on the fast track in the review queue for add-ons they have authored.

Have we convinced you? If you have experience creating add-ons and want to become a volunteer reviewer, apply here!

A huge thanks to everyone who participated—it’s your passion and support that carried us over the 3 billion download mark!

And the winning entries…

Firebug Taught Me (almost) Everything I Know

“I’m a goofball at heart, a nurse by profession, a seamstress by trade, and a programmer by necessity. I run my little cycling cap business online, and I’m constantly editing my website. I’m always trying to make my it look and perform better, and Firebug comes in handy. I think finding Firebug was a huge boon to my learning about CSS and website optimization. It practically holds my hand while I hunt down code issues and whittle pages into shape. It’s like an X-RAY machine and “Operation” game for websites built into one! I’ve never taken any classes or read any books on web programming, so I credit Firebug with teaching me (almost) everything I know about it. I use it to go through HTML and inline edit CSS, I use YSlow to get faster, and I check for errors (Firebug has saved me from ruin on several occasions). It does take time to get used to, but as with anything, with a couple weeks’ use it becomes natural. I have other extensions loaded in my browser, but none are as helpful AND as edifying as Firebug. Thank you very much to the people who created and maintain it!”
- Caroline P.

INDISPENSABLE (DownThemAll)

“If you want to take a bath, you NEED water. If you want to download 11,000 of something, you NEED this add on. This is the add on that takes the work out of what used to be work: “right-click”, “download”, “save as”….a thousand or more times. This add on literally does what it says…it “downloads them all”!. This add on has saved me so many hours, it’s immeasurable. Trying to use the Internet without this add on is like trying to eat without a mouth. Sure, I can get the food in my body, but it HURTS that way!” – Jason K.

A Great Way To Let Someone Else Take Care Of Things

“Last Pass has not only precluded my need to remember passwords at home but it installs seamlessly across all four different OS’s I am forced to use daily. It makes me feel like a child again by absolving me of my need to remember anything and taking care of all the details so that it is always on my good side. Last Pass is the indulgent step parent for whom you always envied that one kid in school. It also lowered my cholesterol.” – Josh R.

Voting has begun in the Favorite Add-ons contest. Your votes will decide the three winners of the Android tablets! When voting, keep in mind the following three criteria:

• Is the story compelling?
• How creative is the use of the favorite add-on?
• Does the review capture the “spirit” of the AMO community?

~ Vote Now ~

** Polls close July 18 at 11:59pm Pacific Time **

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Favorite Add-ons Contest and shared your amazing stories. We received over 2,000 entries during the contest period!

What’s Next?

Our panel of judges will review the entries and select 10 finalists by July 4th. The AMO community will then cast their votes for their favorite three.

Voting will end on or about July 18, 2012, and the winners will be announced on or about August 1, 2012.

Each winner will receive an Android tablet and be featured on the addons.mozilla.org homepage!

Stay Tuned

We will make an announcement when it’s time to cast your vote!

In 200 words or less, tell us how your favorite Firefox Add-on makes your day more productive, saves you money, or just makes you happy. A special panel of judges will pick 10 finalists, and the AMO community will pick 3 winners. Each winner will receive an Android tablet and be featured on the addons.mozilla.org homepage!

Contest period: April 24, 2012 – June 24, 2012

How to Enter

To enter the contest:

1. Write a review of your favorite add-on at https://addons.mozilla.org
2. Send us a link to it using this form

To get the link to your review, click on “permalink” above your review and copy the URL:

Winner Selection

10 finalists will be selected by a panel of judges on or about July 4, 2012. The community will then select the final three winners based on the following criteria:

• Is your story compelling?
• How creative is your use of your favorite add-on?
• Does your review capture the “spirit” of the AMO community?

Voting will end on or about July 18, 2012, and the winners will be announced on or about August 1, 2012.

Judging Panel

• Ken Saunders | Mozilla Contributor

Ken has been volunteering for Mozilla since 2005 and is the creator and project manager of Access Firefox. He’s also an Add-ons developer, Mozilla Accessibility steward, and a self-proclaimed add-ons junkie, with 56 add-ons enabled (68 installed).

• Courtney Charet | Mozilla Contributor

Courtney has been a Persona designer and reviewer for over a year. Her Personas adorn the browsers of hundreds of thousands of Firefox users, who love her sparkly, flowing designs.

• Jorge Villalobos | Add-ons Developer Relations Lead

Jorge is the Add-ons Developer Relations Lead at Mozilla. He manages the add-ons review team, add-on compatibility, and documentation. You’ll usually find him in his native Costa Rica, glued to his laptop and avoiding sunlight.

• Matej Novak | Mozilla Scribe

Matej is Mozilla’s resident copywriter and all-around word guy. When he’s not working on a website or campaign, you’ll likely find him in a spirited debate about some obscure point of grammar or style—either with someone else or himself.

Prizes

Three winners will each receive:

• One Android tablet
• AMO homepage feature that includes your name, photo, and story

Fine Print

• Up to 3 entries per person per account
• Open worldwide
• Entry must be written in English
• Add-on must be compatible with latest desktop version of Firefox at the time of judging
• AMO-hosted add-ons only
• Ok to use a previously written review, or edit an existing review. Does not have to be new.

See full contest rules »

First Place

Our top prize goes to Nils Maier!

Nils is the author of the very popular DownThemAll! extension, as well as other add-ons such as Scriptish and MinimizeToTray revived. He is very valuable community member who has helped us raise the bar in add-on security, and is currently very active helping the MemShrink team with add-on memory leak reports and documentation.

Runners-Up

We decided to give away one extra prize because the runner-up race was pretty intense and everyone on this group deserved special recognition.

• Leszek Życzkowski, author of QuickNote, Copy Plain Text 2, and many others.
• Andreas Wagner, author of Slim Add-ons Manager and WebReview.
• Archaeopteryx.
• Diego Casorran, author of FB Phishing Protector, Personas Shuffler, and many others.
• Ken Barbalace, author of the Classic Compact theme and its companion extension, Classic Compact Options.

T-shirt Winners

All editors who completed at least 20 reviews during the contest period gets an awesome Firefox t-shirt. And they are:

• Erik Vold.
• Cyril Pascal.
• Axel Grude.
• Jesper Hansen.
• Kent James.

Thanks!

Thanks to the excellent efforts of the review team, this contest was another resounding success. The volunteer reviewers completed a total of 3500 reviews during these 2 months, and for the first time ever we completely cleared the review queues. You guys are awesome!

If you’re an add-on developer and want to join our team, please visit our wiki page for more information. There are very exciting changes coming for the review team, and winning the occasional prize is only part of the fun

This means that if you submit your add-on now or in the following days, chances are it will be reviewed within a few minutes. This is amazing feat, specially considering that add-on submissions are constantly increasing, and we add new policies all the time that make add-on reviews higher quality, but also longer to perform.

We’d like to thank and congratulate the AMO Editors team for their exceptional work along the years. You guys are amazing! We’ll call out our most active contributors soon, when we wrap up the very successful New Year’s Challenge.

PS: If you’re an add-on developer and your add-on hasn’t been reviewed, please get in touch with us by commenting here. It’s possible that your add-on is in an Incomplete state and you forgot to add it to one of the queues, or it could be a bug on our site.

The new year is upon us, and it’s time to make a big push on the review queues! Between December 22, 2011 and February 22, 2012, AMO Editors are eligible to win some great prizes.

Editors who review 100 or more add-ons during the contest period will advance to the final round, where a panel of judges will decide on the winners based on the following criteria:

• Efficiency in reviews
• Adherence to AMO review policies
• Attention to security

Here’s what the winners will get:

First Place: 13” Macbook Air
Second – Fifth Places: Android tablet

All editors who complete 20 reviews or more during the contest period will receive Firefox t-shirts!

Not an editor? If you are an add-on developer who’s interested in making an impact and enjoying some great perks, join us!

The Fine Print:

• No Mozilla employees or contractors are eligible. This is a volunteer-only contest.
• Finalists will be determined based on reviews performed between December 22, 2011 (12:01am PST) to February 22, 2012 (11:59pm PST). (GMT: Feb 22, 2011 8:01am – Feb 23, 2011 7:59am)
• Qualifying reviews include only approvals and rejections for any of the three queues (nominations, updates and preliminary), and does not include the standard temporary rejection for add-ons with binary components.
• Reviews that need to be backed out due to editor mistakes do not count.

See complete contest rules »

Good luck!

This season it’s all about Restartless add-ons. So, to be considered, your add-on must be Restartless and compatible with the current Beta version of Firefox. Find out how to make restartless add-ons using Add-on Builder and the Add-on SDK, or check out the following documentation on MDN and Dave Townsend’s blog.

The collection will be promoted through the Add-on Manager, our Add-ons Gallery, Facebook, the Rock Your Firefox blog, and through Twitter, among other Firefox channels.

All entries will be reviewed by the Featured add-ons team, and their decisions will be based on the following criteria:

1. Quality of features
2. Functionality
3. User experience
4. Originality
5. Usefulness
6. Performance
7. Security

To win a place in the collection, simply submit your add-on to amo-featured@mozilla.org.

Get your entries in by 11:59pm PST on Tuesday November 8th. If you win, we’ll reach out to you to let you know shortly afterwards. You can download the contest rules here.

Good luck!