Main Content

What is the Mozilla Sandbox?

With the recent upgrade to the Mozilla Addon’s site, there is now a sandbox. What’s a sandbox you ask? Well it’s where all new addons go before they go live to the public.

The great thing about the sandbox is that once you are in, you can view and install any theme or extension that has been uploaded. There is no waiting for approval which is good news to developers. One can upload their item right away and send users to it.

There are a couple of downsides though. First is that you have to create a free account, be logged into your account and click on the ‘sandbox’ link to see any sandboxed items. If you’re not logged in, you can’t see them. The second is that a developer could create an extension (knowingly or not) that did harmful things to your browser or computer. The sandboxed items have not been tested in any way. That doesn’t mean they are bad, just proceed with caution if you don’t know the developer.

All sandboxed items should eventually make it to the light of day. Once they’ve been looked over, tested and approved, then they will be made public. So if you are nervous about a sandboxed item, just wait until it gets approved and goes public before installing.

The sandbox is a great addition to the Mozilla Addon’s site and one that will hopefully help get themes and extensions out a bit faster.


5 Responses

  1. Emiya Shiro says:

    How im supposed to go in to the sandbox?? im loged in but i cant download :/ wher is setting to turn on sandbox ?

  2. Thomas says:

    With the new add-on site design, there is a checkbox that says “show experimental add-ons” Just click that to show items in the sandbox.

    • We’re having trouble with the sandbox, users that aren’t logged on and are trying to access our invisiblehand 0.7 extension using the ‘let me install this experimental…’ option are getting the error:

      “Firefox could not install the file at

      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo … 0.7-fx.xpi

      because: Invalid file hash (possible download corruption)
      -261″

      Typically this is associated with disabling 3rd party cookies but that’s not the case for us. I’ve had similar errors downloading other experimental add-ons though not all.

  1. 7/24/2007

    […] you know that there are Firefox themes and extensions stuck in the sandbox and that you can help save them? It’s true, with just a few clicks of the mouse, and taps on […]

  2. 2/28/2008

    […] in Mozilla’s sandbox. Enjoyed this post? Buy me a beer. digg_bgcolor = ‘#fff’; digg_skin = ‘compact’; digg_window = […]

Leave a Reply