We recently heard some great news from our support team that we want to share with you. Thanks to the last update in the Babylon translation software installer, support requests related to the way it customizes Firefox have dropped sharply, as much as 60% in some areas.

Like with many other software packages, Babylon’s installer includes an add-on that customizes Firefox, adding a toolbar and changing some settings like the home page. Until recently there wasn’t a Right Way of doing this, so every software vendor did it their own way. This has lead to an inconsistent and unsatisfying user experience, which has brought a great deal of work to our support staff.

To deal with add-on user experience problems, we started Project Squeaky last year. One of our first accomplishments was to establish the Add-on Guidelines, a short checklist that all add-on developers should follow. If you read the guidelines, you’ll notice that install experience and settings changes are specified to greater detail than the others, given that they are the ones we’ve identified as the most common problems users encounter.

We have been in contact with software vendors like Babylon for quite a while now, and these discussions have yielded positive results. We’re especially happy about the progress we’ve made with Babylon because their install base is particularly large, causing the support team to immediately notice the change in user sentiment after their install experience was improved.

This one positive outcome is very exciting for us, and we hope to continue moving forward in this area. There’s much planned  for the rest of the year, and we hope users will greatly benefit from  all that is coming.

Anyone from the add-ons community is welcome to apply: power users, theme designers, developers, and evangelists. Priority will be given to applicants who have not served on the board before, followed by those from previous boards, and finally from the outgoing board. This page provides more information about the duties of a board member.

To be considered, please email us at amo-featured@mozilla.org and tell us your name and how you’re involved with AMO, no later than May 9, 2013 23:59 PDT. The new board will be announced about a week after.

We look forward to hearing from you!

When you click the View All button on an author’s profile page, you will see all the themes the author created, and also sort them by Up & Coming, Recently Added, Most Popular, and Top Rated. Previously, these sorting options were available only in category sections and not for specific authors.

Have fun, and enjoy!

If you had a getpersonas account only, or had both getpersonas and AMO accounts and made sure your email addresses matched prior to the migration, you should be able to log in using the same credentials.

On your profile page, you will see any themes you designed previously under “Themes I’ve Created”. On the detail page of a theme you created, you will see an Edit button that will take you to a page with your editing options. You can also go to the Manage My Add-ons page to see a list of themes (and add-ons) you’ve created, along with helpful links to manage them.

To see your Favorites collection, click on My Favorites from the menu at the top.

If you are using the Personas Plus add-on, we’ve updated it to work with AMO; however, due to resource constraints we kept only the most popular features (e.g. local themes and rotating themes), and dropped some of the browsing features. If you are using Personas Rotator, please note that it will not work until the developer has updated it for AMO.

If you’re new to themes and would like to try your hand at creating some, take a look at the tutorial!

Have fun!

Anyone can nominate add-ons for the board’s consideration, so don’t be shy! Simply send an email to amo-featured@mozilla.org with your suggestion (you’re welcome to submit your own for consideration).

Featured add-ons are promoted in rotation on the homepage of addons.mozilla.org, as well as in the monthly Firefox & You newsletter, among other places.

Pick of the Month: Clear Console

One click to clear your cache, cookies, history, html5/local storage, http logins, or restart your browser with/without notifications.

Wow, this is just awesome. It clears even the html5 storage which very few add-ons do! Thanks a ton. You just made my life a lot easier!”

Get Clear Console »

Runners up:

Quick Translator
The most lightweight and easiest translator. Translate between more than 50 languages with one click or a hot key. Translate from one word to a whole page. Get Quick Translator»

Bloody Vikings!
Simplifies the use of temporary E-mail addresses. Get Bloody Vikings»

—
We are making progress on the migration of getpersonas.com to addons.mozilla.org (AMO), and we wanted to give you an update! As many of you know, getpersonas.com was the original home for background themes, and was created as part of a Mozilla Labs experiment. The site became strained as a result of its success, and a move to the add-ons (and Marketplace) ecosystem is necessary to ensure it continues to thrive.

Background themes on AMO already enjoy features such as ratings and reviews, and support for over 30 languages. When the migration is complete, we’ll also have a brand-new submission page, artist profile page, and a vastly improved reviewer tool. (See below for screen shots).

We are aiming to complete the migration within the next three months. If you are a getpersonas.com user, you will receive an email containing more details in the coming weeks.

What it means for you as a getpersonas.com user

1. If you have an AMO account using the same email address

   After the migration, log in to addons.mozilla.org using your AMO credentials. Your favorites from getpersonas.com will appear in your My Favorites collection, and any themes you have created will appear on your profile page.

2. If you don’t have an AMO account

   After the migration, log in to addons.mozilla.org using your getpersonas.com credentials. Your favorites from getpersonas.com will appear in your My Favorites collection, and themes you have created will appear on your profile page.

3. If you have accounts on both sites, and log in using different email addresses

   We won’t be able to automatically match accounts that have different email addresses. This means you will continue logging in to addons.mozilla.org using your AMO credentials to access your AMO content (e.g. add-ons you’ve created and your add-on collections), and log in using your getpersonas.com credentials to access your getpersonas.com content (e.g. themes you’ve created and your favorite themes).

   • If you’d like your content consolidated automatically (scenario #1), please change your email address on one of these sites ASAP, so they match.
   • If you don’t change your email address to match by the time the migration is complete, no worries—you can still transfer ownership of themes between accounts afterwards.

Last but not least, previews!

Theme submission page:

Profile Page:

Review Tool:

Here’s how you can be involved in deciding which add-ons are featured:

1. Become a member of the featured add-ons board. The board is made up of add-on developers and fans, and is responsible for nominating and selecting featured add-ons. Each term lasts for six months, and a call for applications for the next board will go out in May.
2. Send an email to amo-featured@mozilla.org with your suggestion, and it will be added to the board’s consideration list.

Downloads of our picks-of-the-month consistently double during the month they are featured, so your votes really make a difference!

As its name indicates, all you need to do is click on the dark plugin box in order to enable the plugin and continue using it normally. Additionally, there’s an icon that appears to the left of the location bar that allows you to enable hidden plugins, also depicted in the image above.

If you are using an affected version of the Flash Player plugin, we strongly recommend that you update it to the latest version as soon as possible.  Flash Player updates are available at adobe.com.

To discuss the recent Java plugin blocks, please comment on the Java block post. Thank you.