Browser add-ons or plug-ins have come a long way and are growing in importance day by day. Add-ons can make life easier for users because they provide functionality that does not come natively with a browser.

Add-ons can show you your mail in a single glance, synchronize your bookmarks across several machines, accelerate downloads and surfing, share information across several networks, display RSS feeds, etc. In short, add-ons add a variety of functionality to many browsers. You may be wondering why these things have to be added on and why they couldn’t have come with the browser originally.

Well, this is because of a simple reason. Development costs. A feature that is important to one user may not be as useful for another. For example, synchronizing bookmarks across multiple machines is useful for a user who has a work computer, home computer, laptop, iPad, Smartphone, etc. But for a user who has just single machine, it does not really have that much of appeal. Therefore it does not make sense for a browser developer to devote its main resources during the development of the browser to accommodate this feature. Therefore all browser developers tend to focus on general features, with the occasional radical development (e.g. tabbed browsing, incognito windows, etc) coming in from time to time.

It is up to third party developers to identify needs of particular groups of customers and develop add-ons that address this need. Browser developers are fully aware of this aspect and therefore have left the option open for add-ons to be added to improve the functionality of the browser.