Not many people know, that addons with "many" users are actually manually reviewed - same as those "Recommended".
I know this only because my speed dial is one of those addons:
Please be aware of a recent change to AMO’s review process: All extension submissions with a significantly large number of users are now subject to human review by the add-ons review team before approval. This may, occasionally, result in minor delays publishing new versions of your extension on AMO. We’ve made this change to provide Firefox users with even greater security assurances for some of AMO’s most popular extensions. As always, we greatly appreciate your contributions to the Firefox extension ecosystem. Cheers!
This is great for users security!
But why is it not communicated to users?
My addon listing page still shows the warning:
"This add-on is not actively monitored for security by Mozilla. Make sure you trust it before installing."
Also other addons with much more users shows the warning:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pinterest/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/videospeed/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/malwarebytes/
Addons security is complex, and users can't tell whether addon is safe or not.
(even I wouldn't dare to install addon with "Access your data for all websites" permission, unless it has "Recommended" badge, or unless I've build it myself!)
Giving users extra info about addons security would be a great help!