Firefox for Android is adding support for 400+ add-ons

Desktop web browsers have long supported add-ons and extensions that change the user interface, add features, or otherwise change the behavior of the browser. But it’s more rare to find a mobile browser with support for third-party add-ons.

Firefox is one of the exceptions. Firefox for Android first added support for add-ons in 2011, but when Mozilla redesigned its mobile browser in 2020, it lost support for many of those older add-ons. Now Mozilla says add-ons are coming back, in a big way.

Starting December 14, Mozilla says that more than 400 more add-ons will be available to install on Firefox’s web browser for Android phones, tablets, and other devices.

Not all Firefox add-ons available from addons.mozilla.org will work with the mobile browser. But any extension marked as Android compatible should work, and if you want to browse a subset of compatible extensions, there’s a new page for that.

Some popular extensions that are already available, include ad blockers like uBlock Origin, Ghostery, and AdGuard, password managers like Bitwarden, and other tools that do things like read text aloud to you, enable multi-site reverse image searches, or force YouTube videos to play in high definition.

But at the moment there are only a few dozen add-ons available, and that list is going to grow a lot longer in the next few weeks.