Create FireFox extension in jQuery

Few days ago Mozilla launched special site where you can find special FireFox addons. Special because they were written in JetPack. It’s a new technology that allows to write FireFox extensions not only in XUL, but in HTML, CSS and AJAX.

What is more important is that JetPack allows to use third party JavaScript libraries in your project, so developers can get full advantage of jQuery, Dojo, Google Maps and many other great JavaScript libraries.

Next grat future that developers will find very useful is that new JetPack addons can be debugged using FireBug, without restartin web browser, that is not the case for XUL based extension.

Anyway, if you haven’t already heared about Mozilla JetPack then it’s probably because the technology is still new and in early development stage. Current version (released on November 6th) is 0.6, right after that not to loose momentum developers released official JetPack gallery

Basically any web developer experienced in mentioned technologies can write his own extension and knowing how popular they are, we can expect tons of new FF addons in the near future.

Sure because entry barrier is low we are going to see there a lot of useless extensions (not to say junk), but saying there won’t be any good extensions in JetPack is simply not true and i am confident we are going to find few gems  there.

If you want to get started with JetPack development watch introductionary video below.