A first effect of Mozilla's new "focus on AI"...
Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store
131–140 of 442 posts
Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store
#132If I understand the timeline correctly here, it seems that gorhill overreacted, and I say that as someone who is usually harshly critical of everything Mozilla has done in the past 5+ years. It's hardly practical for Mozilla to manually review every add-on revision for safety in a timely manner, so they had the choice between automation and delays that would make add-on development a slog; automation though inevitabl…
Exactly. And this is why we need paid browsers. If the ad-supported/donation-supported browsers like Firefox need to apply low-quality automated solutions to approving/rejecting even their most popular addons, then clearly the business model isn't working.
...except there is no evidence that paid, manual review works. Closest thing we have is Apple's App Store, which infamously has manual review cycles worse than an automated malware checker: https://www.pcmag.com/news/beware-theres-a-fake-lastpass-app...
This is why you should be happy that you don't pay for a browser.
Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
On desktop Firefox, you can download an extension from anywhere and install it. All they're gatekeeping is their own repository, which I think most of us would like them to do. I think mobile requires using a nightly build to install extensions from outside Mozilla's repository, and that suggests their thinking is becoming contaminated by the rest of the mobile ecosystem.
No, the normal version blocks (at least permanent) installs. You need the developer version to install unsigned extensions.
I see. The extension I installed to test that actually is signed, though it's not in AMO.
I don't like this. I know there have been issues with malicious extensions, so it makes sense to me that installing unsigned extensions is turned off by default, but requiring developer builds is a step too far.
Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store
#134>The last message from the developer in a now-closed GitHub issue shows an email from Mozilla admitting its fault and apologizing for the mistake. However, Raymond still pulled the extension from the Mozilla Add-ons Store, which means you can no longer find it on addons.mozilla.org. This seems pretty harsh. Mozilla made a mistake, Mozilla apologized, Mozilla fixed the mistake (maybe even improved their processes), an…
I can’t fault gorhill for not wanting to play the “give large rich organization infinite second chances” game. Sometimes enough is enough even if you think you’d act differently in his shoes. > Mozilla apologized No they didn’t. Now I’m not here to play apology police or anything. But that’s just a perfunctory customer service voice statement which happened to include the word “apologize”. And that’s fine. Nobody exp…
What could the email have said that would have made you believe they had apologised? If the literal string “we apologize” isn’t it, what is?
Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store
#135It's very annoying you have to submit your extension to gatekeepers to even distribute them to normal users. As gorhill said on GitHub it took days for a self-hosted version to be approved - that's unacceptable. Imagine you would need approval from Microsoft to distribute software. Not even Android is this closed. Enforcing signatures and removing XUL were the worst things Mozilla has ever done. And yes, Google does…
On desktop Firefox, you can download an extension from anywhere and install it. All they're gatekeeping is their own repository, which I think most of us would like them to do. I think mobile requires using a nightly build to install extensions from outside Mozilla's repository, and that suggests their thinking is becoming contaminated by the rest of the mobile ecosystem.
You can no longer package extensions yourself and if you try using "Load add on from file" you get that extension loaded but it's gone after a restart. All extensions have to be signed first to be permanent and Mozilla denied to fix that on their bug tracker.
Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store
#136It's a blog post about something that happened a month ago and boils down to "some (obvious) mistake happened during review". Not much to see here.
That obvious mistakes can happen is itself a problem.
Obvious mistakes are an issue with most software stores. Less a matter of attention being paid, and more a consequence of scale: https://www.pcmag.com/news/beware-theres-a-fake-lastpass-app...
Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store
#137First came NetScape and all was good.
Then came Internet Explorer, but apparently bundling a web browser with an operating system was bad, ok.
Then came Google's Chrome trying to profit from a web browser with ads, and that was deemed 'bad' again.
Then it was not sufficient for the browser manufacturers to push no ads, but the consumer demands that the browser block ads from websites.
Now the browser developer and the third party ad blocker have some fight over who gets to serve clients that not only don't pay, but don't want advertisers to foot the bill either.
I have no sympathy for users that don't want to pay for software, or for developers that cater to that demographic. Enjoy fighting for crumbs.
Sent from Microsoft Edge.
Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store
#138Tangentially has anyone else noticed chrome extensions management page now saying unlock origin will soon be disables and to please find a replacement?
Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store
#139>The last message from the developer in a now-closed GitHub issue shows an email from Mozilla admitting its fault and apologizing for the mistake. However, Raymond still pulled the extension from the Mozilla Add-ons Store, which means you can no longer find it on addons.mozilla.org. This seems pretty harsh. Mozilla made a mistake, Mozilla apologized, Mozilla fixed the mistake (maybe even improved their processes), an…
Remember why uBlock Origin exists in the first place: Raymond Hill was fed up with the chore of all the administrative crap around uBlock¹. They wanted it to be a hobby and it started feeling like a job. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/38#issuecomment-918... So it’s predictable they’d get fed up with that Mozilla review process and call it quits too. ¹ Which led them to hand the project to an unscrupulous ra…
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Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store
#140It's very annoying you have to submit your extension to gatekeepers to even distribute them to normal users. As gorhill said on GitHub it took days for a self-hosted version to be approved - that's unacceptable. Imagine you would need approval from Microsoft to distribute software. Not even Android is this closed. Enforcing signatures and removing XUL were the worst things Mozilla has ever done. And yes, Google does…
> removing XUL
Nah, XUL had to go. The other stuff wasn't really related. It was a more "if we are going to break most extensions we may as well use this time to push everything else we want". If anything XUL is a scapegoat.
I know because I maintained VimFx for a while after the XUL removal. It was difficult to keep up with internal APIs that are changing, but I can't blame them, they need to develop their product. The thing that really made me give up on maintaining VimFx was the signing enforcement. They just keep tightening the screws so that I couldn't even run "my own" code with any reasonable UX.
What I would have like to have seen:
1. Provide WebExtensions as the recommended way to do things with some compatibility and deprecation guarantees.
2. Stop caring about compatibility of other APIs.
3. Still allow outside "full access" extensions that use those internal APIs. You can give warnings in the store "this extensions uses unsupported APIs and may break at any time and steal all of your personal data" and make the install button bright red but still allow it.
4. Keep supporting self-distributed extensions with developer managed signing keys and update URLs.
Since there are no compatibility guarantees on these APIs it wouldn't have been much extra work. Just a bit of UX work to add scary warnings and maintenance of the non-store update code.