963315 - (click-to-play) Users should have the ability to activate extensions on demand, like plugins

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Scott Michaud]

Users should be able to choose to activate extensions similar to plugins. Some are quite heavy on system resources but are only useful on occasion. Manually managing add-ons is, at least in my opinion, a less pleasant UX.

I like the choice between "Always Activate", "Ask to Activate", and "Never Activate". I might want a form recovery extension always on but I might not be interested in saving Youtube video from every page I visit.

Perhaps this could be disabled for extensions which cannot be activated on demand (requires a Firefox restart or some other technical issue).

Comment 1

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

This doesn't really make any sense, since many addons have no obvious place where a "click to activate" would even go. And for non-Jetpack addons, that would require a Firefox restart. The Addon Manager already provides the ability to enable and disable addons, that's the preferred solution here.