Is a Firefox extension easily portable to IE?

Question

There are no extension program en IE, but sometimes, you are asked if you want to install a toolbar. The two browsers don't rely on the same technology, and they must have different internal methods and conventions, but I was wondering if you can still convert a Firefox extension through some toolbar installation.

Answer 1

No. Apart from API differencies, Firefox toolbars are based on XUL and Javascript which is fully interpreted (by Gecko, Firefox' rendering engine) and portable code, and IE toolbars are pieces of native code executed by OS and CPU. There cannot be more incompatibilites between two than they are.

Answer 2

The Mozilla ActiveX Control can be used to run Firefox extensions. Here are the installation steps:

• Get XULRunner
• Register the Mozilla ActiveX control
• Mark the ActiveX control as Safe or allow ActiveX full rights in the IE security config

Preinstalled Chrome extensions combined with GCF may allow the same portability for crx files as well.

References

• ActiveX control to support XUL and SVG in Internet Explorer
• Embedded XUL Source
• Google Chrome Frame Source
• ActiveX Control for Hosting Netscape Plug-ins in IE
• Development discussion about embedding Mozilla code

Answer 3

No, it would require a rewrite of the interface since Firefox and IE are written in different ways.