Writing Firefox Add-On from GreaseMonkey script!

In my earlier posts, I have talked about GreaseMonkey and how it can be used to achieve some simple and common tasks. Check out this and this. All those things are fine. But, the real pain is with distributing the scripts. Need to ask the users to install the GreaseMonkey plugin (in case, it was not already available on the user's machine) and then the actual script. To overcome this problem, a firefox add-on can be created out of the GreaseMonkey script which will do the same task for us. The firefox add-on can then be distributed and the users can install it just like any other firefox add-on.

GreaseMonkey Compiler is a simple converter (Userscript -> xpi) that will do the job for us. The tool accepts basic parameters like version of the add-on, compatible firefox versions, etc, etc. Check out the converter here. For distributing the add-on, one just need to provide a link to the .xpi file. To know more about installation of add-ons using .xpi, check this. The problem, here, is that it will work only on Firefox. If we are using the GreaseMonkey script as it is, we can use GreaseMonkey like add-ons available on different browsers with the same script.

Install my plugin for Orkut Ad Remover from here. GreaseMonkey script for doing the same. As always, there's more than one way of doing it. Try out more!!

-- Varun