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Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

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

#151

Post by soapdog »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #94
soapdog wrote: post #70

Lots of heat in this thread... So, Addons are mostly reviewed by volunteers. Sometimes people make mistakes. The best course of action is to try to reach out for the AMO team on IRC or their mailing list. - Addons forum is at https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/add-ons - All contact info for AMO dev stuff is at: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons#Con... - Developer Hub for addons is at: https://addo…

Surely there should be a clear appeal process, and escalation if there is to be an app store like review for addons that can remove something. Particularly if they are assessed by volunteers who may vary significantly. There seems something off when spyware infested stylish remains an acceptable addon and this gets arbitrarily blocked. A vague "try and reach out" doesn't, to me, seem to come close to an appeal proces…

There is a escalation process. I think the authors already did it and are now waiting. What I mentioned is not the escalation problem, it is a way to reach out for people when things fail.

Usually from your add-on admin dashboard you can reach out to the team and send messages to the reviewers, right from the same tool you use to admin everything.

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

#152

Post by jamesgeck0 »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #111
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…

Any version of Firefox can load unpackaged addons for the current session. IIRC, with the CLI tool you can even auto-reload it as you make changes to source.

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

#153

Post by zaarn »

swiley wrote: post #145
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.

>usually the last option means compiling it yourself The last time I did this it took so long I was able to write my own HTML parser while I was waiting (and I had never written a parser for a context free language before.)

It gets faster after the first run when most components are already compiled or only need minimal recompiling. ccache also helps.

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

#154

Post by qw »

jccalhoun wrote: post #139
beart wrote: post #90

I've never understood how paywall bypass addons can be considered ethical. Even if you hate paywalls, it's the publisher's decision to use them. If I were to take a newspaper from a news stand without paying because there's an article I want to read but I don't want to pay, is that much different? I'm honestly asking what the justification is for people who use these addons. Do you not consider it unethical or do you…

I use it because I am not a regular reader of any paywalled site. If I end up at one it is because I saw a post about it or it showed up in a search result. At that point I don't even know if the article is any good so I'm not going to jump through hoops to view the article. Is it ethical? Probably not but since it is at most something like 1 article a month that I read from any of these sites then I can justify it t…

Many of the sites allow you to read a number of articles for free. If you exceed that number, it means that you find the content interesting. I think you should probably pay for it in that case.

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

#155

Post by zaarn »

Mindwipe wrote: post #146
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…

> 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. It really isn't. It's to prop up their own services through anti-competitive blocking, to maintain a level of terrifying censorship, and to rent seek on what remains.

That is a good side effect for apple but it's not the primary aim/goal of controlling the app store. They already control the ecosystem by virtue of not allowing sideloading easily so controlling the app store serves little additional effect other than cleaning it up and increasing trust.

It's still bad overall though.

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

#156

Post by yason »

logfromblammo wrote: post #148
laktak wrote: post #2

I don't want to subscribe, I also don't want to see ads or be tracked. I wish there was a universal micropayments way of paying for what I read.

The economics and game theory of this suggests that newspapers should be forced to cooperate with each other. Cartelize on-line journalism. Make the 4th estate official. Create a pseudo-governmental entity like the US post office, Fannie Mae, or the Fed. If you have an Internet connection, you have the option, through your ISP, to pay $X towards journalism on the web. Your ISP will then cryptographically vouch for an…

That sounds like you could just paraphrase it as "Spotify for newspapers".

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

#158

Post by buboard »

michaelbrooks wrote: post #88
buboard wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i dont agree with the tracking that goes along with all of them. i shouldnt be recording my action to a bunch of unrelated companies just so i can give a few cents to a website.

Brave records that data locally, none of it is actually sent to any servers. The only thing they know is an amount of money must go to the websites that your browser viewed. They don't record IP addresses or any personal data.

correct, brave is excluded

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

#159

Post by zaarn »

SilasX wrote: post #149
zaarn wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As in the sibling, thread, no, you can't disable the signature check, not in the regular, mainline FF download. Even if you enable it in about::config! This was a change introduced in ~August 2016, to ignore your preferences on that setting. (As you note in the sibling thread, you can get it in a special development version, but that still contradicts your claim that you can toggle something to allow it.)

You can toggle a compile option to allow unsigned addons. I've mentioned this repeatedly and I'm unsure how you didn't notice that.

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

#160

Post by ballenf »

beart wrote: post #90

I've never understood how paywall bypass addons can be considered ethical. Even if you hate paywalls, it's the publisher's decision to use them. If I were to take a newspaper from a news stand without paying because there's an article I want to read but I don't want to pay, is that much different? I'm honestly asking what the justification is for people who use these addons. Do you not consider it unethical or do you…

Just to give one example where I consider it ethical: the WSJ doesn't paywall articles if they originate from FB and it's simple to simulate this link.

These bypasses aren't "hacking" the sites in any normal sense. They are using publisher-created methods of accessing articles that any person could do if they had enough time and knowledge of the particular side channel.

In short, unless the bypass is truly hacking the site (using compromised credentials, e.g.), the argument is altruistic more than moral: "giving as much money as possible to good journalism."

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