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Pages at the https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox site often feature buttons that say "Add to Firefox".

Clicking on such a button causes a Firefox extension to be downloaded and installed.

I am looking for a convenient way to limit this action to the download step only, so that in the end I am left with the downloaded *.xpi file in my disk.

Thanks!

P.S. The following approach is not only inconvenient: it doesn't work!.

  1. Inspect the HTML for the button, and extract a URL like

    https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/downloads/latest/1234/addon-1234-latest.xpi?src=search

    give or take the stuff after .xpi.

  2. at the command-line prompt, download this URL with wget or curl.

This download attempt just hangs. (Even if it didn't, I'd like to find a less cumbersome approach.)

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5 Answers 5

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In Firefox, right-click on the download button and select "save link as" has always worked for me.

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  • 3
    This method still works 5 years later! It also works if the addon you're looking at is marked as 'incompatible'. The button is disabled, but if you inspect it, you'll be able to copy the URL and effectively force-install it. Aug 12, 2017 at 2:13
  • Just a heads up that you'll need to not have the extension installed when trying this. Right clicking "Remove" doesn't work. So temporarily remove the extension, then add it back. Jul 21, 2021 at 14:38
  • Clicking the Remove button actually works for me (FF 105.0.2). Downloaded an extension right now :-)
    – sharpener
    Oct 7, 2022 at 7:57
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Go to the add-on you want to install and just right click on the +Add to Firefox button and select save link as. After downloading the file just go to File>Open File and just select the extension you have downloaded work like a charm for me.

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Open the addons page in a chrome browser. Then right lick on 'Add to Firefox' link and click 'Copy Link Address'. Open a new tab and Paste the same link there. Hit Enter. It will download the .xpi file.

1

Using another browser to download the plugin solves your problem.

Or you can just change the user-agent string and make your firefox look like another browser so you can download the extension.

But I know it isn't the best solution.

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    Does not work anymore: If the firefox addon site does not recognise a compatible firefox browser (+ version), it shows instead a button to download firefox. How to get the .xpi-file with an arbitrary browser? Jul 29, 2019 at 18:44
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Don't know about older versions, but in new firefox there is a setting in about:config page called browser.altClick which if set to true, will allow you to download the xpi files(or any files) without directly running it.

Worth giving a try, if you don't prefer right-click or your context menu is too long.

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