Auto-updating Language Packs on AMO

Thanks to the tireless efforts of the localization community, Firefox has been translated to an impressive array of languages. You can find the list of available translations on the Firefox in your Language page. If a user wants to alternate between more than one language, it is possible to install a language pack add-on to accomplish this.

We list language packs on AMO, but they have been very difficult to keep up-to-date by their maintainers because they need to be updated every time a new version of Firefox becomes available. Language pack updates can also take longer to be published because most add-on reviewers don’t know how to test them. Because of this, auto-updating language packs has been a major request for quite some time.

I’m very happy to announce that now we have auto-updating language packs! A few days before a Firefox release, we will automatically fetch the add-ons generated during the Firefox build process and list them immediately on AMO. This means that users won’t have compatibility problems with their language packs, and there will be fewer language packs to handle in the review queue on a regular basis. Also, it means that dozens of language packs are being listed for the first time on AMO, or being revived after many years of inactivity. Thanks to Kris Maglione for the work he put into getting this fixed, and for pushing the first set of language pack updates for Firefox 18.

For a list of our available language packs, visit our Language Tools page.