Fashion Your Firefox: A New Distribution Channel for Add-ons

While savvy Firefox users have reaped the benefits of add-ons for some time, reaching out to new users has been a bit of a challenge. We’ve been looking for ways to improve how users can get introduced to Firefox add-ons and today we saw the culmination of a lot of hard work come to fruition with the launch of “Fashion Your Firefox“.

The “Fashion Your Firefox” web application was developed to help the less tech-savvy user wade through the thousands of Firefox add-ons available. These add-ons, many of which are on the AMO Recommended List, were chosen explicitly for their consumer-centric uniqueness and appeal to a broader audience. FYF allows a user to focus on a small group of really useful add-ons and easily install these add-ons via an intuitive point-and-click interface.

David Rolnitzky, lead for the Fashion Your Firefox project, had this to say:

One of the great things about the Fashion Your Firefox collection is that it allows users to bundle a bunch of different add-ons together all at once. In essence, it’s like having a shopping cart that you can use to select any add-on from the Fashion Your Fox collection, “check-out” with just one click, and after a quick Firefox restart, have a whole new browser that’s made just for you.

The add-ons for this first collection were chosen based on a number of criteria:

• Consumer friendly
• Represent a variety of categories and functionality
• Good user experience
• Good traction with users
• Firefox 3 and Mac/PC compatible

The launch of “Fashion Your Firefox” offers some interesting opportunities to Mozilla, its users and its development partners.

Benefits for Mozilla:

• We now have an easier method to distribute add-ons in a format that is intuitive, especially to mainstream users
• FYF gives users an additional method of discovering add-ons
• It opens up yet another method of giving add-on developers an opportunity to spotlight their work

Benefits to the community/add-on authors:

• FYF is another opportunity for distribution in addition to lists/categorization on AMO
• FYF will offer broad exposure to a different set of users

The really interesting part of the “Fashion Your Firefox” web application is the opportunity it presents to provide “theme-based” collections of add-ons to users. Add-ons can now be grouped into specific topics such as sports, news, photography and music giving Mozilla users a very rich and precise experience when searching for “just the right add-on”. This a HUGE distinction for Firefox in terms of the way that browsers have typically handled add-on management and a clear step forward in helping introduce users to the power of add-ons without completely overwhelming them. By enhancing the delivery model, we’re now providing users with the ability to quickly choose from “best of breed” add-ons that match their specific tastes, all of which falls perfectly in line with Mozilla’s focus of empowering the community.