Review Articles on AMO and New Blog Name

I’m very happy to announce a new feature that we’ve released on AMO (addons.mozilla.org). It’s a series of posts that review some of the best add-ons we have available on AMO. So far we have published three articles:

Our goal with this new channel is to provide user-friendly guides into the add-ons world, focused on topics that are at the top of Firefox users’ minds. And, because we’re publishing directly on AMO, you can install the add-ons directly from the article pages.

Screenshot of article

A taste of the new look and feel

All add-ons that are featured in these articles have been reviewed and should be safe to use. If you have any feedback on these articles or the add-ons we’ve included in them, please let us know in the Discourse forum. I’ll be creating new threads for each article we publish.

New blog name

These posts are being published in a new section on AMO called “Firefox Add-on Reviews”. So, while we’re not calling it a “blog”, it could still cause some confusion with this blog.

In order to reduce confusion, we’ve decided to rename this blog from “Add-ons Blog” to “Add-ons Community Blog”, which we think better represents its charter and content. Nothing else will change: the URL will remain the same and this will continue to be the destination for add-on developer and add-on community news.

I hope you like the new content we’re making available for you. Please share it around and let us know what you think!

5 responses

  1. Mojtaba Daneshi wrote on :

    Hello,
    Is there any chance to review other Add-ons that are not featured?
    Sincerely

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on :

      We have limited capacity to review add-ons, so we have to carefully prioritize the ones we review.

  2. FeRD (Frank Dana) wrote on :

    I don’t mean for this to come across as a challenge to anyone’s integrity or honesty, but simply in terms of “categorization”, I wonder if calling the articles “reviews” is the best way of presenting it?

    From what I can see, they’re _not_ reviews. The adblockers article sums it up pretty well at the end: “These are some of our favorite ad blockers.” Nothing’s being reviewed (critically or technically), and from the posts so far it doesn’t appear that we should expect the authors to share any negative impressions or concerns about any of the extensions featured ­— even if they have them.

    (Again, not because they’re being dishonest or less than forthcoming, but simply because it’s not the right platform for that kind of feedback. Really I would imagine any extension the authors are less than impressed with simply *wouldn’t* be featured, in favor of alternatives they prefer.)

    The article series is a chance to raise the visibility of some excellent Firefox extensions and to present them in their best light to potential users. That’s valuable! I’m just not sure it feels totally accurate to describe them as “reviews”.

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on :

      The short answer is: words are hard :).
      It’s true that we’re trying to cover add-ons that we think are really good quality, but we’re also making an effort to explain how they are different from one another and what a user should expect if they try them out. We don’t get very technical, but our goal is to be helpful and not just say “these are great, give them a shot”. As an example, the ad blocker article mentions how some ad blockers have allow lists for certain types of ads, which may be seen as a negative for some users.
      Finding the right tone (and right name too) for this new content is part of what we’re testing out and finessing as we see how people respond to them. Thanks for your feedback.

  3. CaballoBronco_com wrote on :

    Hello Jorge, I think that you have done a great job with the new releases and featured add-ons. We look forward to explore Mozilla’s new extensions and have a better and safer overall experience while browsing online. Thank you very much!