What is the difference between a Firefox extension and a Firefox add-on?

Question

The terms "extension" and "add-on" seem interchangeable, but I have seen instances where people seem to mean different things with "extension" vs "add-on."

Clarity please?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Addons and extensions are the same, it's a whole that includes themes aswell.

The different part here are the plugins, that help your browser perform specific functions like viewing special graphic formats or playing multimedia files such as the adobe reader, flash, silverlight, quicktime etc.

Plugins are slightly different from extensions, which modify or add to existing functionality.

In fact in the browser itself it uses both terms interchangeably "Get Add-ons" but once installed they reside under the "Extensions" tab.

Answer 2

Add-on refers to both extensions and themes, Firefox 3 (IIRC) moved both themes and extensions to a single menu item.

Answer 3

Add-ons are installable enhancements to the Mozilla Foundation's projects (and compatible variants such as Portable Firefox). Add-ons allow the user to add or augment application features, use themes to his or her liking, and handle new types of content.

Extensions can be used to modify the behavior of existing features to the application or add entirely new features. Extensions are especially popular with Firefox, because Mozilla developers intend for the browser to be a fairly minimalistic application in order to reduce software bloat and bugs, while retaining a high degree of extensibility, so that individual users can add the features that they prefer.

Reading Add-on (Mozilla) may help

Answer 4

In this context, extensions are a subset of addons.

So addons are an umbrella term for extensions, themes, dictionaries etc.

Answer 5

Add-on is an inclusive term for a category of augmentation modules that are subdivided into plugins, themes, search engines, extensions, snap-ins, or various other vendor-specific names.

• A plugin (plug-in, addin, add-in, addon or add-on) is a computer program that interacts with a main (or host) application (a web browser or an email program, for example) to provide a certain, usually very specific, function on demand.

• In computing, a patch is a small piece of software designed to update or fix problems with a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing bugs, replacing graphics and improving the usability or performance.

• In computing, skins and themes are custom graphical appearances (GUIs) that can be applied to certain software and websites in order to suit the different tastes of different users.