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How to sign the extension for Personal Use on Firefox

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Reese edited this page Jan 19, 2021 · 6 revisions

Firefox Building & Signing

To make the startpage extension permanent and not have to re-add the extension every time you restart Firefox, you must build the extension/your config and get it signed by Mozilla.

Download the latest zip file for the Releases tab and skip step 1 if you don't want to make changes to the source.

1) Building the extension if you make changes to the code

Install node.js/npm from nodejs.org so we can install the web-ext tools.

To install the web-ext tools so we can build the extension, run this command in a terminal after installing npm:

npm install -g web-ext

Then change directory into the same directory as the startpage extension files. Example: cd startpage Then use web-ext to build the extension:

web-ext build

This will create a directory called web-ext-artifacts and in which there will be a zip file. This file is your built extension.

2) Signing the built extension

To get the extension signed by Mozilla you have to go to the Mozilla Developer Hub and sign in with a Firefox Account.

  1. Click "Submit Your First Addon"
  2. Select "Distribute on my own"
  3. Then click "Upload File" and select the startpage directory, then web-ext-artifacts, then the zip file that was just created.
  4. Then select compatibility with Firefox and Firefox for Android
  5. Then hit "Sign add-on", Click "No" for source-code distribution and then wait 5-10 minutes.

3) Downloading the signed extension

Once you've waited 5-10 minutes your extension should have been signed.

To download the extension go to the Developer Hub and click the button that says "View All Submissions"

Then click "minimal-startpage"

Then on the left sidebar click "Manage Status & Versions"

Tip: To update the extension change the extension's version number in manifest.json, build the extension, and then click "Upload a new version" on this page, then follow the steps below.

Then in the top version number's section check the "Status" if it says "Approved" then you are good to go!

Then click the top version number

Then under files, click the .xpi file and install it!

You're done!

Written by Reese

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