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Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

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Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#291

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

nextgens wrote: post #114

I am the author of that add-on ... what would you do in my shoes ? - provide an XPI (that will only benefit the few since the side-loading process is made awkwarder at every point release) ? - fight it ? If so, on what grounds and how ? - something else ?

I think users should direct their attention towards Mozilla. They're the ones who decided that it is appropriate to take the extension down, and they're in the best position to fight it (compared to individual extension developers). There's a chance that this decision was done by a low-level reviewer and does not represent the official stance of Mozilla.

Also, anything that gets (or forces) the actors behind this to issue a takedown request against GitHub is good, because then there's a chance GitHub will tell them to pound sand (sending a strong signal to others that unconditional compliance with such demands may not be the only, or best, course of action) or actively fight it.

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#292

Post by kgwxd »

cabalamat wrote: post #238
nextgens wrote: post #114

I am the author of that add-on ... what would you do in my shoes ? - provide an XPI (that will only benefit the few since the side-loading process is made awkwarder at every point release) ? - fight it ? If so, on what grounds and how ? - something else ?

> provide an XPI (that will only benefit the few since the side-loading process is made awkwarder at every point release) ? This add-on is the first XPI I have ever loaded. I didn't find it awkward to do; it is simply: Tools -> Add-Ons -> Cog Icon -> Install add-on from file... The only thing I found unintuitive was the cog icon.

Have you restarted Firefox since you did that? Can't test right now, but I'm pretty sure it will be uninstalled, by design.

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#293

Post by cipherzero »

__d wrote: post #290
dreamdu5t wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paywalls aren’t enshrined by any law. You’re misinformed. the web is public, despite SV’s best attempts to subvert and exploit that. If you don’t want someone accessing information don’t publish it as a website that anyone can access.

Does that apply to online banking as well? If it's legitimate for a bank to hide your data behind a username and password, how is a journalism-provider any different?

Does your bank allow your account to be indexed by google?

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#294

Post by baroffoos »

sandov wrote: post #288
burtonator wrote: post #112

This is why app stores are fundamentally a horrible idea for the web and I'm surprised we aren't more enraged by them. They put ALL the control of which apps can be used in the hands of 3-4 companies. Sure, you can go out and write your own app and side load it but you're only going to have 1-3k users. Additionally, what if you live in a country that doesn't have these "laws" ? why can't people run my app if they wan…

I've used this same argument against package managers on Linux many times, but apparently people want to keep doing things the centralized way, because all I get when I do is people telling me that I don't know what I'm talking about, and that package managers and centralized repos are easier to use.

Package managers allow you to very trivially add new repo sources which you often have to do if you want packages newer than the packaged version for your distro.

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#295

Post by Scarbutt »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #197
dao- wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How significant? Firefox' market share was falling rapidly. (It still is declining, but not as dramatically.)

Their market share is lower because at its peak, Chrome didn't exist. The rise of Chrome is responsible for all of Mozilla's lost share. But major factors causing Chrome to gain share are being the default on the most popular mobile platform (Android) and being heavily promoted on google.com for many years. Making it harder to install addons (and breaking all the old ones) is one of the things contributing to Mozilla…

The rise of Chrome is responsible for all of Mozilla's lost share. But major factors causing Chrome to gain share are being the default on the most popular mobile platform (Android) and being heavily promoted on google.com for many years.

Not giving any technical and ux credit to chrome for also being a major factor for firefox's loss of market share is disingenuous IMO.

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#296

Post by Mirioron »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #197
dao- wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How significant? Firefox' market share was falling rapidly. (It still is declining, but not as dramatically.)

Their market share is lower because at its peak, Chrome didn't exist. The rise of Chrome is responsible for all of Mozilla's lost share. But major factors causing Chrome to gain share are being the default on the most popular mobile platform (Android) and being heavily promoted on google.com for many years. Making it harder to install addons (and breaking all the old ones) is one of the things contributing to Mozilla…

The reason I switched to Chrome way back when from Firefox is that they changed the UI and that broke some of the add-ons I used. At that point I thought "well, the browser looks like Chrome now, it has as much customizability as Chrome, but its JS engine is slower, so I might as well be using Chrome." At the time I was playing a browser-based game, where the speed of JS mattered a lot to me.

If all the add-ons had kept working on FF, then I probably wouldn't have switched browsers.

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#297

Post by ubernostrum »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #271
mindslight wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Package managers are exactly the centralized "app store" model, and there have been plenty of periods where users have had to add third party repositories to get basic functionality (DeCSS, video codecs, ZFS, etc). The difference is that Linux repositories are less noteworthy to attack, have a more distributed culture not ruled by capitulating lawyers, and can actually jurisdiction shop. The ultimate problem is a lac…

> Package managers are exactly the centralized "app store" model, and there have been plenty of periods where users have had to add third party repositories to get basic functionality (DeCSS, video codecs, ZFS, etc). And they still work precisely because the user can do that. > For decades we've been continually looking for better ways of isolating local apps, while also rejecting centralized control. The main issue…

And they still work precisely because the user can do that.

And you can install an anti-paywall extension in Firefox.

The moment you concede the Linux "well you can work around it" argument is the moment you have to stop arguing on pure absolute principle and start arguing about practicality and the relative difficulty of workarounds.

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#298

Post by Wowfunhappy »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #197
dao- wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How significant? Firefox' market share was falling rapidly. (It still is declining, but not as dramatically.)

Their market share is lower because at its peak, Chrome didn't exist. The rise of Chrome is responsible for all of Mozilla's lost share. But major factors causing Chrome to gain share are being the default on the most popular mobile platform (Android) and being heavily promoted on google.com for many years. Making it harder to install addons (and breaking all the old ones) is one of the things contributing to Mozilla…

I haven't used Chrome in a while, but I was under the impression sideloading was completely blocked in Chrome nowadays. So the fact that Mozilla allows sideloading at all puts them ahead in that regard.

Re: Mozilla hit with takedown request for anti-paywall addons

#300

Post by ubernostrum »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #178
dao- wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have telemetry data on performance, user retention, installed addons and how these things correlate.

Dredging telemetry data has a nasty effect of letting you find precisely what you are looking for. There is no way to prove from passive monitoring of telemetry that rouge addons were causing people to abandon Firefox, nor that this measure stops people from abandoning Firefox (Or even stops rouge addons, after all its trivial to recompile firefox and replace a binary, if this becomes a problem is firefox going close…

Its a very hostile way to run a supposedly "Open Source" project.

It's under a GPL-compatible license. Fork it and do what you like.

This is a pretty FUD-y way to FUD your FUD.

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