Home Forums Networks & Cross-Platform Networking When is an update not an update?

When checking for updates for Firefox recently, I've been getting many questionable "update" recommendations for virtually all of my Add-ons (Extensions) of the following form (for example): Cookies Manager+ 1.5.2.1-signed Update
The current version of that extension is 1.5.2.

What is the significance of the appended "-signed" designation (which appears in all of the so-called updates)?

They do not appear to be true updates and they reference much earlier versions of Firefox (eg, 22) than my current version (38.0.5) and an update date of 2 years ago.

I find this very suspicious even though the updates are ostensibly vetted by Mozilla.

Maybe the "signed" designations have something to do with current OS X rules, similar to signed apps?

Edit: Or a similar Mozilla rule?

I have no idea what a "signed" app might be or what current OS X rules in that regard might be. Keep in mind that I'm running Lion (10.7.5).

Not all of Mozilla Add-on updates carry such a designation, particularly those which are clearly legitimate updates with a current date (unlike all the "x.1-signed Update" which are all literally out-of-date, as previously noted) and which update to a higher version (not just tack on .1). As I said, very suspicious.

Signed apps are a consequence of Gatekeeper, the Mac OS X feature that guards against installing malware. Gatekeeper was introduced in Mac OS X 10.7.5, so it’s on your Mac. What’s somewhat strange is that you haven’t seen this type of update before, but then again, I haven't seen 'm either. Not with the update to 38.0.5, or any previous one.

I know that Gatekeeper per se is there, but not only is it "invisible" (can't be conjured up as an entity by that name), it is also not mentioned by Pogue in his Missing Manual on Lion (but that dealt with Mac OS X versions earlier than 10.7.5). I had forgotten that Gatekeeper was a 'cryptic' name for a security choice.
Under System Preferences > Privacy & Security > General I've set my preference to allow applications downloaded from anywhere; I've never gone to the Mac App Store.

The difference between downloading and installing apps from the Internet and via Add-on updates for Firefox is that the former always asks for permission to do so and the latter is carried automatically when one requests the update to be installed by Firefox.

So, there's something funny (and not funny-ha-ha) going on.

Well, that explains that. Many thanks.

Surprising that Mozilla didn't make this information known more generally and in a more transparent fashion (especially for those users who don't normally bother with blogs).

I guess I'll "update" and see what happens to the functionality of the Add-ons.