Firefox 41 and Norton Toolbar compatibility

Hi everyone,

I wanted to make you aware of a development that may impact your ability to use the Norton Toolbar extension for Firefox. Tomorrow’s planned update of Firefox by Mozilla (version 41) will include significant changes that will impact how certain extensions are able to work with Firefox. Unfortunately, the Norton Toolbar extension will temporarily be incompatible with Firefox 41.

We have a project underway to redesign the Norton Toolbar extension for Firefox. It's a big project that requires significant time and resources, and we had to make some tough short-term decisions.

• Temporarily, the current Norton Toolbar extension will not be compatible with Firefox 41 until we release a fix. 
• The fix will be available for the latest Norton v22.5 product version and not for older product versions.  
• We estimate to have a new toolbar available around the end of October 2015 focusing on web protection features like Norton Safe Web. We expect to restore the remaining toolbar functionality at a later release. 

In the meantime, here are a few options to stay protected when you surf the web:

• Consider using another browser. Norton extensions are available for Google Chrome or Microsoft Internet Explorer.
• Consider delaying the use of Firefox 41.  If you have already updated to Firefox 41, consider downgrading to Firefox 40.  If you are using Firefox 40 or earlier - delay updating Firefox to version 41. You can find more information here
• Consider using Norton Connect Safe (see specific configuration instructions here). Norton ConnectSafe can only block unsafe sites and will not provide other functionality available on the Norton Toolbar, like Identity Safe and Safe Search. 

For Identity Safe users on Firefox, you can:

• Use the Identity Safe screen from within your Norton product.  From this screen you can view your logins and copy/paste your usernames and passwords.  You can also access your address and wallet items.
• If you use an online Identity Safe vault, access it in Firefox from https://identitysafe.norton.com

We apologize for the inconvenience in the short term. In the long term, we are certain this is the right approach to offer a most robust solution with the top level security Norton products always provide.

Some of you may wonder why Norton cannot provide zero-day support as it used to. Up to this point, Norton has used a Mozilla technology called ‘binary XPCOM’, to establish secure communication between the Norton product and Norton’s extension for Firefox. We chose this originally because it was the best way to provide the most secure communication and at the same time offer the best user experience for customers. Since this Mozilla technology will not be available anymore, we have to make significant changes to our design and implementation to provide the current functionality with equal level of security. It is a big effort since there are many components of our extension that need to be re-written. More updates to come closer to the fix.

9/28/2015 Update: You can also find more information about this topic here