Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 288 posts

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#111

Post by brobdingnagians »

avian wrote: post #33

> Release and Beta versions of Firefox do not allow unsigned extensions to be installed I'm really disappointed at Mozilla regarding this. I recently wanted to do some Firefox customization for my own private use (not even an extension, I just wanted to have some visual indication of which Firefox windows belong to which profile). I was surprised to find out that even just a header .png in a theme can't be loaded loc…

I'm currently developing a browser extension, and was a bit shocked that I couldn't just load it on Firefox like on Chromium. It seems like such a basic thing, maybe that's because I'm a dev and expect that they will cater to development, but it was one of the first usability things where I preferred Chrome. I ditched iPhone for Android for similar reasons, and it seems that one thing Google does really well is make the developer workflow easy.

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#112

Post by zaarn »

the8472 wrote: post #108
zaarn wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC you can install unsigned extensions in the dev and nightly as well as unbranded versions of firefox (usually the last option means compiling it yourself). Mozilla is, to some extend understandably, concerned with the image of Firefox and patrolling what Addons are available in the store is part of that. Apple does the very same thing.

> Mozilla is, to some extend understandably, concerned with the image of Firefox and patrolling what Addons are available in the store is part of that. This is a non-sequitur. Reviewing things on their addon store has nothing to do with requiring a mozilla signature for sideloading .

Not quite. The signature is to ensure users install from the addon store. You can disable this if you wish to run non-store addons. Otherwise any website or external program (remember your A/V installing their safety toolbar?) could start adding fishy code to your browser.

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#113

Post by 1024core »

zaarn wrote: post #79
funklebunkle wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple does the very same thing. I understand that Apple does everything in its power to make the life of developers miserable (such as requiring a Mac to be used for iOS development), but Mozilla were supposed to be the good guys on the web.

I think you misunderstood there. Apple's primary aim by limiting the access to the store isn't to make devs miserable, it's to have users trust the app store. Mozilla's aim is (likely) the same. If a user finds an addon in Mozilla's addon store, then Mozilla wants the user to fully trust that this addon will not violate their privacy in unexpected ways or install malware on their computer or otherwise interfere with…

> Mozilla's aim is (likely) the same.

Nothing prevents me from compiling my own binaries and running them on my Mac.

But the issue here (AFAICT) is that Mozilla won't even let you sideload your own stuff on your browser. This is horribly broken.

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#114

Post by gpvos »

dmortin wrote: post #17
gpvos wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Publishers should take some basic control of the ads on their site, just like it used to be with newspapers and broadcast. Serve them from their own domain, restrict their format (no moving parts or sound, no Javascript at all), vet them for basic decency before publishing. My uBlock Origin setup wouldn't block that.

The problem is there are many smaller publishers on the net where a handful or only one or two people maintain a site. They don't have the capacity to look for advertisers or vet individual ads. That's why they use an ad provider which does this for them. What you say may work for big news portals and stuff, but if this becomes the norm then it will kill the small publishers resulting in further concentration of net…

It is indeed unfortunate, although in general the internet will still have lowered the barrier to publish.

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#116

Post by SllX »

rovr138 wrote: post #41
SllX wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wonder if people actually believe this, because it sounds more like nobody should read anything on the web that is monetized with a subscriber or ad-based business model. Not even sure how newspapers would be able to figure out that all those readers they are not seeing is because they don’t take micropayments.

> Not even sure how newspapers would be able to figure out that all those readers they are not seeing is because they don’t take micropayments. By interacting with their users. I’ve written to newspapers in the past asking about their subscription. I remember one ocassion I did it with 2 newspapers. One replied they’d look and I never heard back. The other didn’t reply. If I write asking if there’s a way to use micro…

How does that square with not even spending your time or eyeballs or money on a particular site till they support micropayments? That was half of my point.

Do the contents of your letters read “I like your website but I cannot in good conscience support you till you support this specific business model in which I might give you a penny, or perhaps as much as a nickel every time I read an article to support your operations and salaries?”

This particular idea has been kicking around for at least a decade that I know of, and since I don’t tend to hear about most ideas when they’re new, most likely much much longer than that. At this point I’ve been forced to conclude the industry as a whole has probably looked into it and come to the conclusion it just isn’t worthwhile. Understandably, they would need some critical mass of readers and enough papers that matter supporting it and a particularly friendly credit card processing agreement in which the processor would need to be happy with a micropayment of a micropayment. Services like Spotify have somewhat paved the way as well and are demonstrating what the long tail of micropayments actually looks like.

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#117

Post by CzechTech »

matt4077 wrote: post #7

It’s good for Mozilla to take a stance, and drop the pretense that you can have the cake, eat it, and have all your other cookies left over. Circumventing paywalls is not a crime, but it is also not victimless. The crisis for journalism is already eating at the foundations of democracy on the local level. To blithely ignore this is the triump of short-sighted egoism. And the inability of publishers to prevent you fro…

[dead]

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#118

Post by the8472 »

zaarn wrote: post #112
the8472 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mozilla is, to some extend understandably, concerned with the image of Firefox and patrolling what Addons are available in the store is part of that. This is a non-sequitur. Reviewing things on their addon store has nothing to do with requiring a mozilla signature for sideloading .

Not quite. The signature is to ensure users install from the addon store. You can disable this if you wish to run non-store addons. Otherwise any website or external program (remember your A/V installing their safety toolbar?) could start adding fishy code to your browser.

That is a totally different issue. One thing is reviewing what's on your store. The other is restricting people to only installing what's on their store.

One is happening on their property. The other is happening on the user's property. They also want to exert control over the latter, which is causing these problems.

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#119

Post by zaarn »

1024core wrote: post #113
zaarn wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstood there. Apple's primary aim by limiting the access to the store isn't to make devs miserable, it's to have users trust the app store. Mozilla's aim is (likely) the same. If a user finds an addon in Mozilla's addon store, then Mozilla wants the user to fully trust that this addon will not violate their privacy in unexpected ways or install malware on their computer or otherwise interfere with…

> Mozilla's aim is (likely) the same. Nothing prevents me from compiling my own binaries and running them on my Mac. But the issue here (AFAICT) is that Mozilla won't even let you sideload your own stuff on your browser. This is horribly broken.

You can install unsigned or foreign-signed addons, you simply need either the developer editino or you use a unbranded version of Firefox (ie, any Firefox binary that isn't branded for Mozilla). It's a compile option.

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#120

Post by zaarn »

SilasX wrote: post #107
zaarn wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstood there. Apple's primary aim by limiting the access to the store isn't to make devs miserable, it's to have users trust the app store. Mozilla's aim is (likely) the same. If a user finds an addon in Mozilla's addon store, then Mozilla wants the user to fully trust that this addon will not violate their privacy in unexpected ways or install malware on their computer or otherwise interfere with…

But what about the whole "give users control of their machines again"? What if I have an extension originating elsewhere -- say, because I'm a sympathetic person Mozilla claims they encourage learning to code -- and I want to bypass the usual protections. They still won't let me install it.

You can install it if you use the developer edition or unbranded version, this is fairly well documented.
Post reply on HN