{"id":8871,"date":"2020-07-24T08:00:09","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T15:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/addons\/?p=8871"},"modified":"2020-07-24T15:01:12","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T22:01:12","slug":"extensions-in-firefox-79","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/addons\/2020\/07\/24\/extensions-in-firefox-79\/","title":{"rendered":"Extensions in Firefox 79"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have a little more news this release: a new API method, a reminder about a recently announced change, a preview of some things to come, and a few interesting improvements. Let\u2019s get started!<\/p>\n

Warming up tabs<\/h2>\n

To optimize resource usage, render information on inactive tabs is discarded. When Firefox anticipates that a tab will be activated, the tab is \u201cwarmed up\u201d. Switching to it then feels much more instantaneous. With the new tabs.warmup<\/a> function, tab manager extensions will be able to benefit from the same perceived performance improvements. Note this API does not work on discarded tabs and does not need to be called immediately prior to switching tabs. It is merely a performance improvement when the tab switch can be anticipated, such as when hovering over a button that when clicked would switch to the tab.<\/p>\n

Changes to storage.sync<\/h2>\n

We\u2019ve blogged about this recently, but given this is part of Firefox 79 I wanted to make sure to remind you about the storage.sync changes<\/a> we\u2019ve been working on. Storage quotas for the storage.sync API<\/a> are now being enforced as part of backend changes we\u2019ve introduced for better scalability and performance.<\/p>\n

There is no immediate action required if you don\u2019t use the storage.sync<\/a> API or are only storing small amounts of data. We encourage you to make your code resilient while your storage needs grow by checking for quota errors. Also, if you are getting support requests from users related to stored preferences you may want to keep this change in mind and support them in filing a bug as necessary.<\/p>\n

For more information and how to file a bug in case you come across issues with this change, please see the blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Firefox site isolation coming later this year<\/h2>\n

The Firefox platform team has been working on a new security architecture<\/a> that isolates sites from each other, down to separating cross-origin iframes from the tab\u2019s process. This new model, nicknamed Fission, is currently available for opt-in testing in Nightly<\/a>. The platform team is planning to begin roll-out to Nightly and Beta users later this year.<\/p>\n

So far, we have identified two changes with Fission enabled that will impact extensions:<\/p>\n