The main question is what behavior is being introduced. I haven't researched deeply, but apparently the add-on does nothing until the user opts-in on studies.
Nobody is concerned about that, in my opinion. I'm concerned someone will push malware through Mozilla into Firefox installations. Pushing addon installs should not be possible at all.
Some of the comments are mentioning IT managers banning firefox, those will be the same IT managers doing all the other pennywise/pound foolish things that make you try not to work on their team in the first place.
Maybe it’s actually good to put something scary sounding in there to raise awareness. It could help people understand that scary phrases are not the most common sign of foul play. When the real hackers come for you, they usually dont look scary at all.
Yeah, add-ons from Mozilla merits the same trust as the browser. But this cuts both ways, this stuff undermines my and probably more people's trust in the browser.
“Firefox worked with the Mr. Robot team to create a custom experience that would surprise and delight fans of the show and our users. It’s especially important to call out that this collaboration does not compromise our principles or values regarding privacy. The experience does not collect or share any data,” Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, chief marketing officer of Mozilla, said in a statement to Gizmodo. “The experience was kept under wraps to be introduced at the conclusion of the season of Mr. Robot. We gave Mr. Robot fans a unique mystery to solve to deepen their connection and engagement with the show and is only available in Firefox.”
This is horrible. They pushed out this crap under false pretenses as a study and obfuscated it. Don't talk the ethics talk if you're not prepared to do the ethics walk.
I would not care about silly stuff, like say a christmas easter egg. But this wasn't meant as a silly joke.
https://twitter.com/dherman76/status/433320156496789504
> Excited to share the launch of @mozilla @firefox Tiles program, the first of our user-enhancing programs
The problem there wasn't just the idea of putting ads in the browser, it was also the way in which they tried to present it as a useful addition just like every other ad company tries to defend ads
I don't know how far we got with it, but one of the ideas was to serve a generic bundle of ads, and then select which ones to display locally, based on an entirely private, client-side analysis of the browser's history. Now, that probably shouldn't have been on the new tab page, and probably not in Firefox at all, but if ads are going to be the way we fund the Internet, then that sounded like the best possible outcome: better targeting without remote tracking. Heck, even Brave ran with the idea for a while: https://brave.com/about-ad-replacement/
Mozilla's job is to find ways to push the web forward in ways that respect humans, and ads are, well, how the web mostly gets funded. So it's entirely within bounds for them to try to figure out ways to make ads work without invading people's privacy.
Sorry, but I'm uninstalling firefox. They have broken the basic trust I have in them as a user to not push arbitrary code to my machine against my interests.
Well maybe Safari, not because Apple wouldn't, but because they just don't care enough about ad revenue.
Chrome: They leech everything they can get away with, granted it goes only to Google, but you know it's just to feed their never-ending ad-revenue goal.
MS: They bypassed IE only ads, and went on to build ads into the entire OS.
Do you have any evidence of this?
Assuming their normal processes for SHIELD studies were followed, a _lot_ of different people have to review the plugin before it gets approved: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Shield/Shield_Studies#Who_A...
Edit: Also, the contributors list on the plugin's GitHub repo lists exclusively Mozilla employees: https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/graphs/contributors
Mozilla have presented "add-ons" as a line where users are supposed to be responsible for what to "trust", over and above the choice to install the browser in the first place. They can expect those users to be watching that line carefully.
(Incidentally, I would still dislike this functionality - moreso even - if it was in the browser core.)
"Well, I'm your bank. You already gave me authority to reinvest all your savings. Why are you mad now that I invested everything into bitcoin futures?"
What exactly does "trust" mean? We might have given mozilla such a widespread access exactly because we trust them not to abuse it. Stuff like this undermine that trust.
I'm using Firefox 57 heavily (typing this in it), and actually really like it for a change. This after years and years and years and years of wanting to like Firefox but finding it completely and absolutely unusable due to performance issues.
(Chrome has been ... faster, but insanely aggravating in all sorts of ways, including utter and complete contempt from Google and the Chrome devs for users. The frustrations are rapidly mounting.)
Mozilla have just cost themselves some portion of their advanced user test base through abuse of trust. I really wish they'd not do that.
An appropriate response here would be to decide that you no longer trust their browser at all.
It's hard to quantify trust exactly. I'm fine with trusting the partly-closed-source Google Chrome build, including the proprietary Chromecast, Hangouts, etc., plugins, because I believe that the people writing them are generally reasonable. I don't have a good formal proof that they're generally reasonable people, and I never will - that's why it's trust. If they start installing marketing gimmicks, certainly they have the technical ability to do that, but I will lose my trust that they're reasonable people.
Here's an analogy: I trust a small number of my friends with keys to my apartment because I think they'll make reasonable use of that access. If they decide to show up at 3 AM with a keg and three tubas without telling (let alone asking) in advance, I technically have no grounds to complain that they abused their access - but I'll certainly not be calling them friends any more.
I would argue that since they knew you were giving them access on the assumption that they would not do things like that, you would have grounds to complain. Similarly, I installed Firefox on the understanding that it would not phone home with opt-out telemetry, advertise third party products, or syntergise with acquired properties. Mozilla has, in the past few months, done all three.
I like Firefox, though, so I'd rather kick the tubas out of Mozilla than go kick them off my individual installation. Does the public have any power over Mozilla's governance?
Hence, as you said, the only way is to trust Google here, without much ability to verify.
It adds some css to a list of words:
https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/blob/da464ac8f1c3b0894...
I haven't figured out how that setting is exposed yet. Maybe they expect people to go to about:config and change it? Is there video footage suggesting that in the TV show?
https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/blob/104-rename-less-v...
mozilla is rapidly burning through over a decade of hard-earned trust and goodwill. i install firefox on other people's machines. i'm not a good user to piss off.
am i gonna have to wait for servo to mature and make an unmozillad servo? what a sad reality that would be.
this is not the browser we were looking for.
https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/blob/da464ac8f1c3b0894...
(It defaults to "false.")
I am genuinely astonished that somebody up the corporate tree at Mozilla thought this is a good idea. I mean, I get the appeal of getting the money and doing the cool IRL tie-in to the show, but that's not just how you do it. If I am a fan of a particular actor, I don't expect him/her to suddenly be in my bedroom when I come home one day. I would prefer to invite them first (if I am so inclined).
The trust here is specifically trusting them not to do such things. Which now has been violated. And the fact that CMO says anything else than "Man, did we screw up! We're so sorry, would never happen again!" is deeply sad and concerning.
I do not trust mozilla, they've repeatedly proven they cannot be trusted. I do not trust firefox, because a piece of software is open source software does not mean it should be trusted.
You mean like when they set the default search to Bing?
For now, yes. Until someone finds a way to push a "study" through which is not from someone "trusted".
> If someone distrusts their add-ons, why trust their browser at all?
Well, trust is rather simple to break, and this - remote installing things - was not part of my original trust I put in Firefox 1.0. I know things change. This is not one I tolerate, and you are right: I will not trust a browser after a step like this.
Besides the trust, it's unexpected data. Probably don't effect many on big data plans, and is probably a tiny extension this time, but it's still data I have not asked for.
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15921134
This is a link to the GitHub issue:
* https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/issues/36
There are several scary things about this:
- Unknown Mozilla developers can distribute addons to users without their permission
- Mozilla developers can distribute addons to users without their knowledge
- Mozilla developers themselves don't realise the consequences of doing this
- Experiments are not explicitly enabled by users
- Opening the addons window reverts configuration changes which disable experiments
- The only way to properly disable this requires fairly arcane knowledge Firefox preferences (lockpref(), which I'd never heard of until today)
"In related news, unknown website developers can distribute programs and run them in your browser. Additionally, it's been determined that browsers sometimes download changed versions of themselves without your permission. Worst of all, we've determined that sometimes the program you download and run yourself on your computer does stuff it didn't say it would do!"
In all seriousness, I understand this is an important issue, and needs to be addressed, but we've obviously gotten to the point as a society recently where no news can't be played up for hype by pundits and commentators for their own benefit (and probably without realizing they are doing it in a lot of cases).
The whole way this is being presented (by many here, not to pick on the parent) as a new chunk of the sky falling is what I find really troublesome. No, chicken littles, the sky isn't falling, but there is some interesting shit going on up there that deserves a look.
I fail to see how getting half the people frothing at the mouth and the other half downplaying it just to try to keep some sanity in the discussion helps for a good outcome.
No they can't, despite mozilla removing the option to prevent this, I have an extension preventing website to run code in my browser without my permission. it happens to be one of the most popular firefox extension: noscript. (also umatrix and request policy).
No the browsers do not download changed version of themselves, they do not have the administrative permissions required to install programs on my box. I get my update from the official distro repository on my terms.
I do not download and run programs, they come from the distro repository. This is a matter of trusting the package maintainers but up until now this has served many people well.
It seems you guessed wrong and it does not work the same for everybody, some of us have chosen to take the extra step required for this kind of misadventure to be unlikely.
1. Can you explain what you mean by "unknown Mozilla developers?" Unknown to whom?
2. Can you provide more detail on what specific configuration changes are reverted when opening the add-ons window? That sounds like a fairly serious bug.
3. What is the specific "this" you're trying to "properly disable?" You shouldn't have to dive into things like lockpref.
Mozilla (and other browser vendors) have the ability to push updates to their browsers outside of the normal release cadence. In many cases, these updates are distributed as add-ons, as they're cleanly separated from the rest of the browser internals, but that's just an implementation detail. If you visit about:support in Firefox, you should see a table of "Firefox Features," which are exactly that. Their source lives at: https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-unified/file/tip/browser/exte...
For example, we used a system add-on to control the gradual roll-out of multiprocess Firefox, and the New Tab page is also implemented as an add-on called "activity-stream."
> Can you explain what you mean by "unknown Mozilla developers?" Unknown to whom?
Unknown in the sense that this extension wasn't documented at all, there was no Bugzilla issue for it and it's not clear whether it was properly vetted by QA. Whether you argue that this kind of silent push updates is good or bad, I think they aren't tested as well as in-browser functionality. This is a necessary consequence of "let's try it and revert if something breaks or people complain".
More so, a rolled back Shield study will be invisible to the users, so any problems will be impossible to debug. This is made worse by the fact that most, if not all Shield studies are opt-out, so the user won't be notified.
> Can you provide more detail on what specific configuration changes are reverted when opening the add-ons window? That sounds like a fairly serious bug. > What is the specific "this" you're trying to "properly disable?" You shouldn't have to dive into things like lockpref.
People have reported that extensions.ui.experiment.hidden reverts after viewing the add-ons list. I haven't tried it myself, but you can find details in that Reddit thread.
Others have noticed that the Shield studies checkbox sometimes (possibly on version bumps) reverts to enabled. I can't overstate how bad this is; it's basically cheating the users' trust. Lately, Mozilla has been doing some pretty nasty things for an organization that takes pride in caring about the privacy of its users.
Are you aware of the complaints regarding Windows telemetry? Edge, for example, sends full browsing history to Microsoft by default. Should Mozilla follow suit? Because that's exactly what Pioneer does and, while it's not opt-out yet, Firefox advertises enabling it.
As for the rest of the system add-ons, they're either poorly documented (if they are at all), poorly named ("Presentation"), or seem concerning from a privacy point of view (e.g. Activity Stream, Follow-on Search Telemetry, Photon onboarding, Presentation, Web Compat Reporter).
For anyone curious, Presentation seems to be an implementation of a proposed Web API that allows browsers to find and talk to devices in their neighbourhood. Does that include location/proximity beacons like this old proposal https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/06/the-proximity-api/ ? Do users really want Firefox to tell advertisers where they're shopping? That's the same kind of "experience improvement" that the spyware of yore used to bring.
Why should Pocket be an add-on with superpowers? There was quite a bit of backlash over it a while ago, but Mozilla didn't budge, and some employees actually spread misinformation (not to say "lied"). And actually none of my system add-ons seems to be providing any important functionality (if you disregard the new tab page, for which I haven't seen yet a privacy policy). Looking at Shield studies ( https://www.jeffersonscher.com/sumo/shield.php ), it's even worse: most are surveys, advertisements, asking the user to enable Pioneer (i.e. send full browsing history to Mozilla).
I think for most people this is the stickiest point. Other commenters have said things along the lines of, "well if you trust their browser you should be able to trust their add-ons" and I do, mostly, trust their add-on here... but I really don't like how it slipped into my Add-Ons without telling me. For every other Add-On I have to click an explicit blue button, so I know what's in and what's out.
In today's landscape, Add-Ons have massive potential as security threats. For instance, would a savvy user who is security-aware (most users on HN, I assume) install an Add-On like Gmail Checker Plus[0]? Without digging in, it's hard to be 100% certain what this Add-On is and isn't doing with my Gmail content (I have no reason to assume anything nefarious, it's just an example). My browser Add-Ons should be off-limits to any sort of tampering without my permission, as well should be my bookmarks and auto-fill info. If I broke into your house and changed your bedsheets, you'd rightly be creeped out... nothing was stolen, new bedsheets don't affect you in any significant way, but it's still wrong and weird and hurts trust.
0. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/checker-plus-...
> What's happening? Are you a fan of Mr Robot? Are you trying to solve one of the many puzzles that the Mr Robot team has built? You’re on the right track. Firefox and Mr Robot have collaborated on a shared experience to further your immersion into the Mr Robot universe, also known as an Alternate Reality Game (ARG). The effects you’re seeing are a part of this shared experience.[0]
EDIT: looking at this[1] comment, perhaps it's not a promo?
[0]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/lookingglass [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/7jh9rv/what_is_loo...
Of course not.
Mozilla can install extensions if you have "shield studies" enabled. They use extensions it to run UI studies and things like that. I think you have to opt-in to each study individually if you want to be part of it. Enabling the studies in your settings only means "notify me when there's a new study I can participate in".
See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield and https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Shield/Shield_Studies
Now they have partnered with Mr Robot to use the same feature to offer some sort of "Alternate Reality Game".
> No changes will be made to Firefox unless you have opted in to this Alternate Reality Game.
Also, from the same page for those that appreciate irony:
> One of the 10 guiding principles of Mozilla's mission is that individuals' security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional. The more people know about what information they are sharing online, the more they can protect their privacy.
That can't possibly be true. I had it installed, and I'm on my work machine using Firefox Developer Edition. I didn't opt in to any ARG.
How does it not occur to them that this is a clear lie?
Actually they do not. their revenue is at an all time high despite the market share reaching an all time low.
https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-revenue-jump-fuels-its-fir... https://www.computerworld.com/article/3240008/web-browsers/m... https://www.ghacks.net/2017/12/02/mozillas-revenue-increased...
They're a nonprofit; they're not allowed to just "make money". And, they already take donations.
The extension is for shield study, when you install Firefox for the first time it asks if you want to take part in it (it is enabled by default though)
It has been praised for its technical accuracy, basically the show warns us about exactly what mozilla did as this could be exploited to hack into computers.
From what I've heard (I work for Mozilla), this is promo for Firefox. As I just wrote elsewhere in this thread: I believe the idea is that Mr. Robot fans use Firefox to participate in the ARG, not that Firefox users suddenly start watching Mr. Robot. So if anything I'd expect that Mozilla pays Mr. Robot for this.
The irony is that Mr. Robot is owned by Universal, a subsidiary of Comcast. So much for that commitment to net neutrality.
The Extension actually does nothing, but invert (make them upside down) a few words on specific sites.
It's an experiment called "PUG ARG" to check whether page contents sniffing works. Its page doesn't reference any Bugzilla issue or Wiki page, while https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Shield/Shield_Studies/Queue doesn't list it.
The source code references https://support.mozilla.org/kb/lookingglass, which (as of now) only says "test - 12817".
The add-on tests whether specific words can be detected on sites; the current list has nice picks like "revolution" and "privacy". Of course, this is only a test, but in the future Firefox might look for specific terms in the pages you load and do specific things based on them.
The other thing it's doing is to send an extra header to three specific sites: https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/blob/da464ac8f1c3b0894.... I suppose the words and the domain are a reference to the Mr. Robot series.
The add-on describes itself as an "Augmented Reality Game Experience" and was made by a certain "PUG Experience Group": https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/blob/da464ac8f1c3b0894....
Of course, Shield Studies are supposed to be a way of making "more informed product decisions based on actual user needs".
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/7jh9rv/what_is_loo...
This is clearly an abuse of a development/testing/telemetry tool to deliver an advertisement.
Trust is hard to win and easily lost.
Could not think of anything worse a web browser could do.
Do they change political arguments on pages in the future to see how I react in a user study?
Signed Mr. Guinea Pig
You can't "sniff" what is already yours to begin with.
It's possible: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/08/08/mozilla-information...
Luckily this is intended and seems to be a paid for marketing/advertising scheme
2) Users are justifiably concerned.
3) Mozilla explains that the add-on is actually anodyne; the developers responsible were having fun with an opt-in research service.
4) Some users try to justify their initial overreaction by painting Firefox as mysterious, dangerous entity, fabulating conspiracy theories about one of the most forthright and open OSS companies in the world.
Really, guys. If Mozilla was hellbent on invading your privacy, do you really think they would proudly entitle their tracker "Looking Glass". Or would they call it debugservice_1223?
Even though the add-on itself was innocuous, the context around its scope, delivery, and presentation were not what they should have been.
We have people comparing the installation of a near-stub browser add-on by the browser vendor, to full-on home invasions.
The language was a mistake and should have not been pushed out, or maybe even written to begin with. Mozilla ought to remember how skittish their userbase can be.
This isn't about what the addon itself does or does not do, it's the principle of force-pushing unwanted content without prior affirmative consent.
This would apply even if the addon was just a stub that didn't have any executable code in it. In this case, it's worse: an ad.
In my view, that sandbox is a trusted area between the browser and the user.
Mozilla has the privilege accorded to it as the developer of the browser, to modify the addon sandbox so long as they don't infringe on my interests, e.g., security, stability, privacy, speed.
For example, Chrome automatically disable extensions that ask for too many new permissions upon update. Chrome will also make it difficult to add extensions that are not listed on the chrome store.
If we remove the right for browser developers to install, uninstall and alter add-ons, then we're essentially forcing them to modify the browser instead, which is overkill for the add-on in question.
At the end of the day, if you can't trust the developers of your browser, then you should install another one and disable add-ons entirely.
3.5 falls into 4.
Having fun at whose expense, though? Widely deployed platforms used for extremely sensitive, personal materials shouldn't be subjected to "for fun experiments". That's the height of unprofessionalism.
What if the add-on had a bug, or an unintended side effect? Come on.
2) you freak out. Who is this guy? I didn't invite anyone last night!
3) The guy turns around and it's just your mate Chad. He didn't mean any harm, just wanted to watch TV and hang out.
4) This is not on, Chad is a psycho.
Intentions don't really matter: they've just demonstrated a scary and invasive capability without any warning. Minimizing it doesn't help.
They actually called it telemetry, but IIRC in the early firefox version it was a proprietary extension (I don't remember the name) which spurred the gnu iceweasel into existence to provide the browser without the proprietary spying extension.
I know that you only need to need to turn off "install and run studies", but this has now cost Mozilla all telemetry data from me, and I encourage everyone to do the same.
Why are these turned on automatically? Plus, I turned mine off, and now they're back on again, with this looking junk installed.
What the heck Mozilla? What happened to caring about the users? We definitely can't trust Mozilla anymore.
I think Mozilla should look into getting him back before they all end up losing their jobs.
That's a very important point to grasp, as I hear a lot of voices nowadays claiming that the modern security model (read walled gardens of all kinds) is the universal panacea.
Just the opposite, it brings a false sense of security making you more vulnerable. It also tends to inhibit a healthy and free market competition when a lot of potentially good software suppliers are gated off from the walled gardens from the start.
In contrast, if you do trust the data source, why is a walled garden model of security worse than alternatives?
Sure `alert("FFFUUU WHY U NO WORK");` keeps you entertained for 5 minutes while you debug a problem but when that accidentally gets to prod...
The support thread links to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/lookingglass.
That page says, in a clearly delineated box,
> No changes will be made to Firefox unless you have opted in to this Alternate Reality Game.
PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS INCONSISTENCY.
That doesn't make it OK, but it would make me look at them with suspicion instead of hostility.
I've been very loyal to mozilla over all these years but this really is not ok. If they keep doing shit like this I'll switch to a fork.
1. I notice it yesterday, only because Avast was showing I have a low trust level Add-On installed in Firefox.
2. I googled it, and the first results was from Mozilla, showing it was part of their studies and experiment.
3. That was Ok, because I trust Mozilla, although somewhere in the back of my mind I thought every studies were supposed to be opt-in, since I have a few Add On installed in the week and I dont restart my browser, I thought i might have clicked it by mistake.
4. Now I am reading this through, I am more then worried. If I am reading the online comment correctly, Mozilla installed an Add On without user permission, enabled, collected data, and not for their own UX studies but a third party.
And to make the matter worst, that Add-On is now gone. It disappeared in my Add on Screen now I just check. Call me old fashion but that is not how i view privacy.
Like I said before, Mozilla's management and culture has a tendency of self destruction and messing things up right after they start being good. Still this is turning around much quicker then I thought.
> pug-experience
> Complete • My reality is different than yours
I can tolerate bugs, much more than I can tolerate sneaky app behavior. But I hope the statement about explicit opt-in will be repeated, and this will be explained.
At first I thought it must have been users that explicitly had opted in, but with so many users claiming they haven’t, it seems unlikely.
The next possibility is that preview versions have things opt-out instead of opt in (because in preview versions you need more data from users - typical for closed alphas etc) - but then this should be very clearly explained on download/install.
If it is downloaded and listed without opt-in, but only actually invoked after opt-in, then I’ll call it acceptable (not great, but not terrible either)
Its startup is controlled by the addon/bootstrap.js file. Per line 22, it's completely inert unless the user manually toggles `extensions.pug.lookingglass` in about:config: https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/blob/59659431fd2a75c33...
But oh boy, do they have a talent for always doing benign and harmless things that look bad at first glance. It's almost like they want to turn away typical messaging board users.
I deliberately kept that enabled initially but if they're going to use it for Adware..
Both are first-party. The difference seems to be that the dinosaur game keeps you entertained, where as this hopes to promote awareness of privacy/security.
You don't see the difference between a built-in game (included in the installation of Chrome) vs. Mozilla pushing an add-on to a Firefox installation using a channel meant for helping to improve the browser?
I've never quite understood how exactly does this financial arrangement work and I would be grateful to anyone who could explain this to me.
I agree that it seems like a crappy extension, and people should be upset about things being preloaded to their browser.
But there's a point here to be made, that if you're concerned about privacy at all today, you need to look at the settings of any software after you install it. It doesn't matter how much previous trust you have for the developers. This should just be default behavior so that any surprise is met immediately, and not after any damage it could perform has been done.
Everytime I turn this off, and restart FF it's on again.
58.0b11
Downloading these builds is considered opt-in into telemetry, and toolkit.telemetry.enabled is hardcoded to enabled, the opt-out checkbox literally does nothing, I was told. And about:config confirmed this.
Would be good UI to a.) disable the control b.) add a comment.
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/7jvm2t/this_lookin...
Will they stop doing it? Of course not. I can't recall any time that this company has changed course in response to outcry.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/15/mozillas-mr-robot-promo-ba...
https://gizmodo.com/mozilla-slipped-a-mr-robot-promo-plugin-...
Also AFAIK the second link has the first official response of any kind? "A representative told Gizmodo the company is looking into the issue."
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DDsLeqvV0AE1k-2.jpg
The hypocrisy is amazing.
If you're able to consistently reproduce the issue, please let me know.
[0] - https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/exten...
Edit: I have FF Studies disabled under about:preferences#privacy. I guess that is the reason why it is not installed on my machine.
I really don't understand what they were thinking.
You mean the single button that does literally nothing until and unless you click on it?
If you must know why, I don't want promos for particular web properties in my browser. I find Pocket to be annoying conceptually (a service to help you carry around all the things you didn't and won't read—eww, no, no thank you), and I don't want to look at it every day. I don't want to have to Google to figure out how to disable it. I don't want my browser to come with nonsense I need to disable.
> You mean the single button that does literally nothing until and unless you click on it?
This must be the kind of mentality that leads people at FF to do silly things like mentioned on this thread, or having "just one button" for their acquired web property. That's the opposite of how great product minds think. Great product people think "how can I REMOVE this button?" Not "how can I get away with having it?"
Why can't they just make a web browser that's... just a web browser? Chrome has never had buttons to email pages with gmail, record videos onto YouTube, share pages on G+ etc.
> Shield Studies are available on all channels. Individual studies can be opt-out or opt-in and any and all data being collected will be declared openly. After confirming willingness to participation, a self expiring add-on will be installed on the user's machine.
Mozilla is only installing an experimental feature ass an add-on if they opt in.
Vindication!
Maybe the government need to start sponsoring Mozilla so that they stop doing things like this.
I've never quite understood what each Mozilla does, but AIUI, the Firefox development is all done by Mozilla Corp and the nonprofit does stuff like make those cute videos about how Firefox is going to save the world and make us all smiley and multiethnic.
I've talked to a number of Mozilla employees, and they also seem confused about the relationship between the corp and the foundation.
How hard is it to fork Firefox with all this stuff hardcoded off?
The Mr. Robot series centers around the theme of online privacy and security. One of the 10 guiding principles of Mozilla's mission is that individuals' security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional. The more people know about what information they are sharing online, the more they can protect their privacy.
...which you've done by installing a fishy-looking addon without our permission and making us less likely to trust you?
Well-done, Mozilla.
I guess that sounds slightly better than "Firefox and Universal Cable Productions".. oh wait..
At least it's an authentic immersion into the world of dubious computer ethics.
It scared the hell out of me! Are these guys losing their minds?
It was reported as a bug and the response thus far is indeed underwhelming for such a severe issue: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1424977
I've uninstalled Firefox and will be removing it from all of my computers. I had just started slowly migrating back to it with the performance enhancements in the latest update, but honestly I don't think I can get past a breach of trust at this level.
I ended up going back to Vivaldi.
