Mozilla announces that add-ons slow down Firefox

If you’re a Mozilla Firefox user, chances are, you’re unhappy with the program’s start up speed. If you fall under that category, it’s probably because of the add-ons you have. On the official Mozilla blog, it is mentioned that “installing 10 add-ons will double Firefox’s start up time.” This start up time can even be longer if the add-ons are badly coded. Mozilla realizes that this slowdown is attributed to their browser even though it’s not their fault, so they’ve decided to step in to make things better. First they’ve released a list of popular add-ons that slowdown the browser (i.e. Firebug, AdBlock Plus), and they will be updating the Add-ons site to display warnings if a particular add-on slows up start-up time by at least 25%. Upcoming versions of Firefox will also have this on the Add-on Manager, and will have the ability to block third-party software from installing add-ons without your explicit permission.