Can a Firefox add-on listen on a UNIX socket?

Question

I know how to listen on a dedicated port using nsISocketTransportService in Add-on sdk. But, is it possible to use UNIX socket in Add-on SDK to communicate with oher applications.

Answer 1

It seems you can't: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/permission-request-messages-firefox-extensions )

This would make sense, since:

1. UNIX sockets are a special file on *nix
2. they are not available across platforms
3. this would be a huge security issue.

If you need to communicate with other software on the computer you can probably safely use regular network sockets, websockets, etc...