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Firefox addon inline installation from website

I am trying to work out how to best implement direct firefox-addon installation from my website. Besides simply prompting the user to install the addon, I would also want to get the result of the user action (accepts installation or cancels it).

Research on google generally points to the use of InstallTrigger.install(), which works fine except that there is no functional callback that I can use to know the result of the user's action.

Though InstallTrigger.install() does accept a callback, the callback is not fired unless the current viewing page is a whitelisted domain (e.g. AMO):

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Mozilla/XPInstall/Reference/InstallTrigger_Object/Methods/install

So I am wondering:

  1. Is there any alternative way to get the result of the addon installation, and
  2. Does mozilla have anyway to accept a domain into their default addon installation whitelist.

Thanks a lot!

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Bear of the Year Avatar asked Apr 23 '15 17:04

Bear of the Year


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1 Answers

Just to get this question off the Unanswered list.

The XPInstall whitelist only contains Mozilla's sites, so Mozilla doesn't seem to have a way to accept a domain into their default addon installation whitelist.

The browser itself will not notify the untrusted web page about the results of the add-on installation. If your extension is restartless, it can notify the page it has been installed via postMessage.

like image 71
Nickolay Avatar answered Sep 22 '22 07:09

Nickolay