These are the Firefox Quantum Extensions Challenge Finalists

Mozilla changed the add-ons system of the Firefox web browser with the release of Firefox 57. The organization dropped the classic add-on system and switched the system over to WebExtensions.

Mozilla was certainly aware of the impact the switch had on Firefox's extension ecosystem. It was clear right from the get-go that some add-ons could not be ported over because Mozilla did not want to implement APIs that extensions required. Other extensions could not be ported because of missing WebExtensions APIs because the APIs were still in development. And then there were extensions that would not be ported because developers did not want to or because development had been abandoned.

New extensions would come out of this as well. Chrome developers could port their extensions to Firefox relatively easily, and developers would produce new extensions that offered new or unique functionality.

Note: Mozilla recommends that users install the extensions in Firefox Beta or other development versions of the browser as Firefox Stable may not support all APIs required to run the extensions properly.

Firefox Quantum Extensions Challenge Finalists

Mozilla's Extensions Challenge for Firefox Quantum is an attempt to highlight WebExtensions and promote the new standard.

The organization announced the finalists in the groups Best Tab Manager / Tab Organizer, Best Dynamic Theme, and Best Extension for Games & Entertainment on Friday on the Mozilla Add-ons blog.

Best Tab Manager / Tab Organizer

The following four extensions are finalists:

• Session Boss (read our review) -- Session Boss is a standalone session manager for Firefox. The extension saves sessions automatically or on-demand, and supports all kinds of cool features such as grouping sessions, restoring individual tabs or entire windows, or updating sessions.
• Session Sync -- The extension allows you to save all open tabs as bookmarks either automatically or manually. It supports sync services such as Firefox Sync or EverSync, restore functionality and advanced management options.
• Tabby - Window & Tab Manager -- Tabby adds an icon to Firefox's toolbar which you use to interact with the extension. It displays an overview of open tabs in all windows, and supports operations such as open, close, pin or rearrange.
• Tip Tab -- The add-on adds visual tab navigation options to Firefox. It displays tab previews and lets you navigate tabs visually. You may use it to display all tabs by window or container, use the built-in search functionality, and rearrange tabs using drag and drop operations.

My favorite: Session Boss. Excellent extensions.

Best Dynamic Theme

• Envify -- Extension for developers to change the theme based on the Development Environment that you use.
• Midnight Lizard -- The extension adds dark night mode support to all websites and changes page colors, brightness and contrast. Comes with lots of settings: whitelist and blacklist support, color scheme presets, options to modify colors, brightness, saturation and other parameters for text, images, background and other page elements, and a lot more.
• Native Dark -- A dynamic theme for the Firefox browser that colorizes tabs, title bar, and the URL Bar based on the accent color of Windows.
• Weatherlicious -- Pulls weather data from OpenWeatherMap to change the theme of the web browser based on the weather condition. (similar to dynamic weather theme which we reviewed)
• Window on Earth -- The extension displays photos of earth taken from space and switches photos at sunset and sunrise. It changes the theme of the browser from dark to lighter and vice versa as well.

My favorite: Midnight Lizard. Impressive functionality and works really well.

Best Extension for Games & Entertainment

• Find the Fox -- A game that integrates with your browsing history.  Find on which page of the browsing history Gerty the Fox is hidden.
• Mouse Pet -- A simple extension that adds a creature to the screen that follows your mouse cursor.
• YouTabMan -- Control all running YouTube videos in a single place to play, pause, replay, mute or switch to the next video.
• Web Invaders -- A simple game that turns any web page into an arcade game. Use the mouse to move your spaceship and the left mouse button to fire at aliens that spawn on the screen.
• Worldwide Radio -- Worldwide Radio gives you access to Internet Radio stations from around the world. Select a country or region and browse the available radio stations once you have made your selection. Click on a station to start playing, favorite stations to find them more easily, or use the built-in search to find specific stations.

My favorite: Worldwide Radio. Great selection of radio stations from around the world. Only thing missing is recording support.

Now You: What are your favorite Firefox WebExtensions?