How To Install XPI And JAR Firefox Add-ons And Themes

We all love Firefox add-ons and extensions. They are so easy to use, so useful that many of us can’t stay without them, and also easy to install…or not??

If you find a useful add-on at the Firefox Add-ons home page, you will find a green button that you simply click to install the extension. But sometimes, when an add-on is made by someone with his own web site they tend to store them on their servers, and offer the setup as regular XPI (extensions) or JAR (themes) files.

So what do you do when you find one of those two files and you want to install them?

There are two ways you can use:

The first way, is to drag and drop the file/URL of the extension in the Add-ons manager (Tools>Add-ons). The normal installation window will show and you’ll be ready to install.

The second way, is to modify a voice in the configuration page, to unhide a “secret” install button inside the Add-ons Manager:

Type about:config in the address bar to access the advanced preferences.

Look for the preference “extensions.hideInstallButton”.

Double click it to change it to false.

Now you will have an Install button in the Add-ons Manager, that will enable you to browse your computer, and look for XPI and JAR files to easily install them.

Posted by Nicolo' Canali De Rossi on January 11, 2008 at 9:17 pm and filed under How-To.

11 Comments

Freeman

Posted February 26, 2008 at 12:23 pm | Permalink

You make my day!
Anurag Bansal

Posted July 9, 2008 at 12:40 am | Permalink

This is awesome. So simple but nowhere mentioned. You are a magician.

Thanks for the tip.
tano

Posted September 21, 2008 at 4:36 pm | Permalink

THANKS A LOT
mordraneth

Posted December 7, 2008 at 7:58 pm | Permalink

very very very very very thanksssss
TomD

Posted January 1, 2009 at 7:54 pm | Permalink

Thanks for all the great tips – Here’s another way to install xpi’s: Instead of clicking the install button, right-click and save the xpi file to a folder on your hard drive. Then you can simply drag and drop the xpi file into a FF window and the install process begins as usual. . . I work in an environment where my laptop must be re-imaged frequently with a base image that I don’t control. By saving all my favorite extensions to a USB flash drive I can very quickly set up my FF environment with this method. Anyone who re-installs their OS frequently will also find this a great timesaver.
piano

Posted January 29, 2009 at 10:53 pm | Permalink

Thanks.
joopan

Posted March 24, 2009 at 6:32 am | Permalink

We found it as a very good link to our project….thanx……
Allan

Posted July 23, 2009 at 3:05 am | Permalink

this is great. Thanks especially on the second tip.
MIke

Posted October 16, 2009 at 6:08 pm | Permalink

Still says incompatible extension. This don’t work for me.
Sunkid

Posted November 16, 2009 at 9:49 pm | Permalink

Great explanation that helped in a jiff!
just me

Posted January 20, 2010 at 10:17 am | Permalink

Thank you Really !

9 Trackbacks

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