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Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

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Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#131

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

Communitivity wrote: post #100

Epic fail. Mozilla should be making the browser subsystems more secure, not saying 'Trust us, we'll ensure your add-ons are secure'. Will the add-ons source code be reviewed by a CISSP skilled in the languages used within the add-on? Will the add-on be tested with the top 1000 add-on combinations out there? If the add-on provides an API, will it be tested using fuzzing? The list of these questions, and the others to…

The law allows people to make mistakes. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#132

Post by atopal »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #101

I use several small add-ons I wrote myself. Why should I have to get Mozilla's approval before I can install my own damn add-ons? One of them executes processes and I'm 99% sure it'll fail the automated review. EDIT: It passed the automated review, but my point stands. If I wrote the code, then you can be damn sure I trust it.

> I use several small add-ons I wrote myself. Why should I have to get Mozilla's approval before I can install my own damn add-ons?

Mozilla has to balance the needs of several hundred million users, who are being attacked by malware every day, with the needs of people who write their own add-ons. Is it really that difficult to see it from that perspective? And it's not like you have no options now. You can either use the developer edition or the special release version where this feature is disabled.

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#133

Post by ikeboy »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #121
phpmal wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla have been doing odd things in recent years, almost like they are transitioning into an authoritarian movement. Want to use unsanctioned extensions? No, go away. Want to use non-secure HTTP? Sure, but we will take away your features. Want to work for them but have unapproved views? Fired. All this is from viewing them as an outsider, so you never know, but something is different.

Mozilla hasn't fired anyone for their views. And caring about users' security is to be commended.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/mozillas...

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#134

Post by chillingeffect »

SkatAndRap wrote: post #110
alfapla wrote: post #47

It's little more than a year ago that Brendan Eich was ousted from Mozilla by an ugly orchestrated cabal. When I read Mitchell Baker's vapid blog post [1] on the decision, filled with polite backstabbing and politically correct buzzwordery I understood that Mozilla has been taken over by politicians and that its decline is just a matter of time. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-steps-...

I have been looking at https://input.mozilla.org/ now and then for a long time, and I am still astounded at how it's typically around 90% unhappy, 10% happy. I know that some Mozilla supporters will justify that huge difference by saying, "but unhappy people will always complain and happy people won't say anything", but I don't think that's necessarily the case. Here we have Mozilla's own stats saying that a lot of t…

I had never seen input.* before so I checked it out. I was pleasantly reminded of the variety of user-cases when I read this comment:

"I accidentally installed a prank addon/script (can't remember the name or which one, though it did come with a clear warning). Now my Facebook comments are garbled (scrambles text (makes it worse when I use punctuation-multiplies it). Please use and add some malware cleaner in some future update to get rid of this nasty prank script/addon. I use Stylish addon and I'm guessing I got it from this! Makes using Facebook defunct and troublesome!"

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#135

Post by rc4algorithm »

jsingleton wrote: post #74
nathanb wrote: post #11

It's the "no override" part that concerns me. I created and maintain an extension that is used by visually-impaired people around the world (it has been translated by volunteers into Dutch and Chinese, for example). Occasionally a Firefox update breaks this extension. OK, fine, that's the cost of doing business. Of course, the automated compatibility report that Firefox creates is utterly useless; it almost never cat…

I don't use many extensions but I'm finding I have to use more as Mozilla remove features from Firefox. For example you can no longer set the User Agent string on a per site basis natively in Firefox preferences [0]. This would be very handy to force HTML5 video on BBC News when you don't want to install flash [1]. I only discovered this setting was deprecated by finding that bug report whilst researching the blog po…

> For example you can no longer set the User Agent string on a per site basis natively in Firefox preferences [0].

This seems like a uselessly fine-grained control. I was surprised to hear that they ever supported it.

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#136

Post by coldpie »

phpmal wrote: post #106
kragen wrote: post #30

This is deeply disappointing. Two details: the extensions need to be signed by Mozilla , and only US English speakers will be allowed to disable this requirement. The point of free software is that users, individually and collectively, are free to modify it as they wish, without requiring approval from third parties. (And of course to use, copy, and redistribute.) This is a sharp turn away from the free-software etho…

Mozilla have been doing odd things in recent years, almost like they are transitioning into an authoritarian movement. Want to use unsanctioned extensions? No, go away. Want to use non-secure HTTP? Sure, but we will take away your features. Want to work for them but have unapproved views? Fired. All this is from viewing them as an outsider, so you never know, but something is different.

"Unapproved views"? Would you oppose firing someone for openly expressing white supremacy?

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#137

Post by wtbob »

GeorgeOrr wrote: post #2

It's important to note that the Developers Editions (and the Nightlys) will have a setting for disabling the requirement. The assumption being that developers need to test as they develop. And are a more informed user.

Every user should be permitted to disable that requirement: it's his browser, not Mozilla's.

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#138

Post by mbrownnyc »

nathanb wrote: post #11

It's the "no override" part that concerns me. I created and maintain an extension that is used by visually-impaired people around the world (it has been translated by volunteers into Dutch and Chinese, for example). Occasionally a Firefox update breaks this extension. OK, fine, that's the cost of doing business. Of course, the automated compatibility report that Firefox creates is utterly useless; it almost never cat…

To note, there is a client-side workaround that allows whitelisting of ALL unsigned extensions (they might consider creating a whitelist of UUIDs or something "humans" can handle like the name of an extension). I was able to change the following and uBlock and Ghostery immediately started working in the "Aurora" build: go to about:config ; set xpinstall.signatures.required = false

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#139

Post by TheLoneWolfling »

shdon wrote: post #130
ck2 wrote: post #83

Between that and e10s being on by default, FF42 is going to go over like a lead balloon. I hope 41 is an ESR update, nope: only 38 and 45 are ESR https://mozorg.cdn.mozilla.net/media/img/firefox/organizatio...

What would be the problem with e10s? Sure, it's a big change, but it seems quite desirable imho.

2-3x the memory use and lower performance due to the additional overhead of talking between processes.

There are advantages, but it is not without its disadvantages.

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