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Mozilla's new Addon Collector lets you bundle, subscribe to addon packs
You may already have noticed a slight facelift over at the Firefox Add-ons site. Well, that's not the only change going on. Downloading and discovering new add-ons for Firefox has taken another evolutionary step with the release of Mozilla's new Add-on Collector - which is available as an add-on for Firefox (how's that for circular?).
Install Collector and sign in to your Mozilla account. You'll find the login form on your add-ons menu under a new Subscriptions tab. Once you've signed in, creating a pack is as simple as selecting your favorite addons and pressing the publish button. The button also lets you fire off a recommendation via email, though it's totally DIY right now. There's no external address book support but the form will ask if you want to remember the addresses you enter.
Install Collector and sign in to your Mozilla account. You'll find the login form on your add-ons menu under a new Subscriptions tab. Once you've signed in, creating a pack is as simple as selecting your favorite addons and pressing the publish button. The button also lets you fire off a recommendation via email, though it's totally DIY right now. There's no external address book support but the form will ask if you want to remember the addresses you enter.
Packs can also be created on the Collections website, shopping-cart style. Setting up a new collection only requires you to provide a title and description, selecting one add-on as a starting point, and choosing whether you collection is public or private. Once it's created you can also add a 32x32 icon and slap a vanity URL on it (https://addons.mozilla.org/collection/yourname/).
Private collections provide a good way to keep your personal (or team) Firefox installs running in step. Set up a subscription, and new additions are automatically checked for at the interval you specify.
Private collections provide a good way to keep your personal (or team) Firefox installs running in step. Set up a subscription, and new additions are automatically checked for at the interval you specify.
Want to make your pack a collaborative effort? You can invite additional publishers (who can add and remove add-ons) and managers (who can additionally manage users and collection settings).
Options have also been added to Mozilla profiles to display your collections on your personal page.
The Downloadsquad 2009 Summer Collection will be hitting the runway soon, so stay tuned!
Comments
10
Subscribe to comments216Jun 10th 2009 9:29AM
Got mine set up
Jash SayaniJun 10th 2009 9:57AM
So you mean I can select all add-ons I need and make a Pack. Then install the pack on all computers ??
Lee MathewsJun 10th 2009 9:59AM
Yep, it's pretty slick. You can subscribe to your own packs and others as well. Alerts appear like other FF notifications in the bottomr-right corner when new additions are made.
MalteserrJun 10th 2009 10:09AM
Strange, I just started my own private collection and favourited a couple but the Add-On itself won't let me Log In from Firefox. It just keeps on "loading".. :(
Christina WarrenJun 10th 2009 1:26PM
I had the same problem. When I updated to the latest Firefox 3.5 beta, it was fine. But I did have to update to the version that was pushed out last night.
Bryan PriceJun 10th 2009 11:12AM
So now I can standardize all my installs with one download. Cool. I could have used this last week when I reinstalled my other desktop. I'll have to play with this to see if a collection will let me install an extension that it doesn't want (i.e. because I'm running the 3.5 nightly, and I'll be running the 3.6 nightly when 3.5 goes gold)
QuikboyJun 10th 2009 3:36PM
If only add-on support for IE8 were better :(
I don't know why there's a lack of good ones on the IE8 site.
Money MikeJun 10th 2009 4:31PM
I like the idea, but I'm not sure why I would choose this instead of using FEBE? With FEBE, I can save my entire profile in one shot - not just my installed add-ons - so I also can get my bookmarks, saved passwords, history, settings, etc. I don't have to save all those things (I can pick and choose what I want to save), but it makes my life so much easier when it's time to do a reinstall.
I do think this Add-on Collector is a good idea, but the only advantage over FEBE I can see is that you can easily share your collection or look at others.
Louis Brusco Jr.Jun 10th 2009 4:36PM
Would be a LOT more useful if it could let you access a menu of the add-ons currently installed on that machine to add it to the list - rather than having to enter each one manually.
Lee MathewsJun 10th 2009 4:37PM
Agreed...But the Ajax web interface is pretty dang fast. Only took a few minutes to add a dozen of my favorites to a pack.
Hopefully the add-on itself will catch up to the web site!