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Mozilla has announced that it will no longer accept Firefox extensions that contain hidden code. The measure is part of the renewed add-on policy, which will take effect on 10 June. That’s what The Next Web says.

Caitlin Neiman, Add-ons Community Manager at Mozilla, informs you that Mozilla will continue to allow reduced, concatenated or machine-generated code as long as the source code has been added. “If your extension uses disguised code, it is essential to submit a new version before June 10th, in which that code has been removed, to prevent it from being rejected or blocked.

Concealed code in the language of software development refers to the deliberate practice of writing programs that are more difficult for people to understand. This is also done to try to hide the real purpose of the software, making it easier for cyber criminals to hide malicious code.

Abbreviated code refers to scripts that are compressed by removing unnecessary white spaces, new lines, comments or abbreviated variables. In this way, the code becomes more efficient, without changing the functionality.

Two blockages

The Mozilla policy update aims to address security concerns and to “make add-ons safer for Firefox users”. Also, extensions that violate the policy must be proactively blocked. In addition, extensions that are unsafe, jeopardize users’ privacy or circumvent users’ consent and control are still blocked.

Blocking an add-on can be done in two ways. First of all, there is a hard block, which completely disables the add-on and there is no option for a user to turn it back on by hand. In the case of a soft block, a user can overwrite the block by Mozilla and continue to use the add-on.

The blockade depends on which part of the policy has been violated.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.