[Firefox Tip] Restore Old Classic UI of Add-ons Manager (About:Addons) Page

New versions of Mozilla Firefox web browser come with a redesigned Add-ons Manager page. The new Add-ons Manager page is HTML-based and provides faster and cleaner UI. Add-ons Manager page can be accessed using about:addons URL or by clicking on “Firefox Menu -> Add-ons” option or using Ctrl+Shift+A hotkey.

New HTML-based UI of Add-ons Manager in Mozilla Firefox:

In older versions of Firefox such as version 67, the new UI of Add-ons Manager was already implemented but was not activated and enabled by default. It was hidden and interested users needed to manually enable it by using a hidden preference or flag. We told you about this new Add-ons Manager UI in following article:

[Tip] Enable New Secret UI of Add-ons Manager (About:Addons) in Mozilla Firefox

Now the new UI is available to all and comes activated and enabled in newer versions of Firefox browser.

Some Firefox users may not like the new UI as it requires a few extra mouse clicks in enabling/disabling an extension. You need to click on 3-dots menu first to be able to enable or disable any add-on.

If you are not comfortable with the new UI of Add-ons Manager, here is a good news for you. You can restore the previous classic UI of Add-ons Manager in Mozilla Firefox by using the same preference which was used to enable the new UI in older Firefox versions.

Old Classic UI of Add-ons Manager in Mozilla Firefox:

If you also want to re-enable old UI of Add-ons Manager in Firefox, following steps will help you:

1. Open Mozilla Firefox and type about:config in the addressbar and press Enter. It’ll show you a warning message, click on “I accept the risk!” button. It’ll open Firefox’s hidden secret advanced configuration page i.e. about:config page.

2. Now type aboutaddons in Search filter box and look for following preference in the window:

The preference value is set to true by default, which means the new HTML based UI is currently enabled in Firefox browser.

3. To deactivate and disable new HTML based UI in Add-ons Manager in Firefox, double-click on extensions.htmlaboutaddons.enabled preference and set it to false. Alternatively, you can right-click on the preference and select Toggle option.

That’s it. Now open Add-ons Manager (about:addons) in Firefox and enjoy the old classic UI.

PS: To restore the new UI of about:addons page again, set the value of above mentioned preference to true.

BONUS TIP:

Once you restore the old UI of Add-ons Manager, it’ll also remove “Recommended Extensions” and “Recommended Themes” sections from Add-ons Manager page which show promoted extensions and themes to install.

If you don’t want to restore old UI in Add-ons Manager but want to disable “Recommended Extensions” and “Recommended Themes” sections, following tutorial will help you:

[Firefox Tip] Remove Recommended Extensions and Themes Sections from Add-ons Manager

[Tip] Remove “Report Extension” Option from Add-ons Manager in Mozilla Firefox