Linux Format

Add-on converter

Version: Git Web: http://bit.ly/AddonConve­rter

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For years Firefox has been the most popular web browser in the world and one of the side effects of this domination is the thrilling amount of third-party add-ons that extend the browser’s functional­ity. In Mozilla’s terminolog­y an add-on is the general name for extensions, themes and bundled collection­s of both. The official Mozilla Add-On catalogue for Firefox features more than 14,000 add-ons, with the most popular ones serving the urgent needs of an average user, eg for downloadin­g YouTube videos, blocking ads and adding some visual tweaks etc.

However, Firefox isn’t the only browser officially developed and supported by Mozilla Foundation; there’s also Seamonkey, a wild card for many, a very good browser in all terms. Seamonkey is a direct continuati­on of the classic Netscape Navigator, which was resurrecte­d as MozillaSui­te and later on renamed to Seamonkey. The browser borrows the look, feel and UI layout of the classic browser of the Navigator, but with the latest Gecko engine and the rest modern Firefox workings under the hood. The only problem has been that Seamonkey’s add-on catalogue left much to be desired, with a modest 800 entries.

Luckily, we have this special add-on converter, which fixes and repacks Firefox add-ons so that they can work with Seamonkey. The converter is a web applicatio­n that’s available online and as a local installati­on (grab it from https://github.com/lemon-juice/ addonconve­rter). You don’t have to obtain the Firefox extension as a file, you only enough need to supply the URL of its online page. Generally, you can leave the default settings intact and press the big ‘Convert’ button.

The converter will produce a re-packed XPI add-on, which you can feed to Seamonkey (by pressing Ctrl+o and selecting the XPI file). All converted add-ons install OK, but if there’s Firefoxspe­cific code inside, it may not always work properly. We’ve found the converter very useful and made a turbo-charged Seamonkey version with just few mouse clicks.

“It fixes and repacks Firefox add-ons so they work with Seamonkey.”

 ??  ?? Add-on converter performs certain routines that you can enable or disable to your liking in Seamonkey.
Add-on converter performs certain routines that you can enable or disable to your liking in Seamonkey.

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