241–250 of 537 posts
But oh boy, do they have a talent for always doing benign and harmless things that look bad at first glance. It's almost like they want to turn away typical messaging board users.
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That lack of permissions make this illegal IMO. CFAA in USA and CMA in UK both make unauthorised access and unauthorised modification of a computer a crime. I've used FF since before it was FF, and I've installeded it on umpteen other people's computers; strongly advocating for it. Since they sacked that guy for not conforming to a specific liberal ideology they seem to have gone batshit crazy ... what happened? Was…
Hahaha. You gave them permission when you agreed to their TOS. But you didn't read it, did you?
By that definition, this would be unallowed modification of the computer of the user, and fall under the various hacking acts.
The more interesting thing is that this has also been rolled out to german government computers, which mostly used to use Firefox, but due to previous troubles with CliqZ and the Google Analytics in the addon menus, have already moved on to other browsers.
Many people seem to be shocked because Mozilla installed an add-on automatically. In my opinion, it doesn't really matter since the code is coming from Mozilla - they're building the whole browser, so they could introduce functionality anywhere. If someone distrusts their add-ons, why trust their browser at all? The main question is what behavior is being introduced. I haven't researched deeply, but apparently the ad…
> If someone distrusts their add-ons, why trust their browser at all? "Well, I'm your bank. You already gave me authority to reinvest all your savings. Why are you mad now that I invested everything into bitcoin futures?" What exactly does "trust" mean? We might have given mozilla such a widespread access exactly because we trust them not to abuse it. Stuff like this undermine that trust.
Just checked and saw the Looking Glass add-on installed on my work laptop. I've uninstalled Firefox and will be removing it from all of my computers. I had just started slowly migrating back to it with the performance enhancements in the latest update, but honestly I don't think I can get past a breach of trust at this level.
Are you switching to Chrome, the browser that sends your every keystroke back to HQ?
In a previous discussion, a Mozilla employee gave me as official statement that if I don’t trust Google, I shouldn’t use Firefox.
If I have to trust Google anyway, I can at least use the better browser.
Disclaimer: Until today, I’ve defended Mozilla in all such discussions, and kept the same PoV that you have presented here, but I just can’t do that anymore, when Mozilla is now just as evil as Google.
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I think the the term “non-profit” is more about how an organization spends the money, rather than how they make it. Non profits and charities definitely bring in money through channels other than donations...
I agree. I merely challenge the notion that a nonprofit -- which proudly tumpets its benevolence and non-profitness -- should get a free pass for covertly installing advertising arrangements, just because they need to "make money". Their charter and marketing is all about defending the internet from the companies doing shady things to make money, so they can't have their cake and eat it.
The addon itself does not advertise for Mr. Robot, Mr. Robot advertises for this addon.
Many people seem to be shocked because Mozilla installed an add-on automatically. In my opinion, it doesn't really matter since the code is coming from Mozilla - they're building the whole browser, so they could introduce functionality anywhere. If someone distrusts their add-ons, why trust their browser at all? The main question is what behavior is being introduced. I haven't researched deeply, but apparently the ad…
If this were the first incident, and they quickly backtracked on it, then maybe we can give them a pass. But this isn't the first case of somewhat shady behavior. Remember the "user-enhancing" sponsored tiles a few years ago? https://twitter.com/dherman76/status/433320156496789504 > Excited to share the launch of @mozilla @firefox Tiles program, the first of our user-enhancing programs The problem there wasn't just t…
I don't know how far we got with it, but one of the ideas was to serve a generic bundle of ads, and then select which ones to display locally, based on an entirely private, client-side analysis of the browser's history. Now, that probably shouldn't have been on the new tab page, and probably not in Firefox at all, but if ads are going to be the way we fund the Internet, then that sounded like the best possible outcome: better targeting without remote tracking. Heck, even Brave ran with the idea for a while: https://brave.com/about-ad-replacement/
Many people seem to be shocked because Mozilla installed an add-on automatically. In my opinion, it doesn't really matter since the code is coming from Mozilla - they're building the whole browser, so they could introduce functionality anywhere. If someone distrusts their add-ons, why trust their browser at all? The main question is what behavior is being introduced. I haven't researched deeply, but apparently the ad…
> If someone distrusts their add-ons, why trust their browser at all? "Well, I'm your bank. You already gave me authority to reinvest all your savings. Why are you mad now that I invested everything into bitcoin futures?" What exactly does "trust" mean? We might have given mozilla such a widespread access exactly because we trust them not to abuse it. Stuff like this undermine that trust.
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Speaking for myself here, but I'm not concerned that Mozilla might push malware into Firefox installations. I'm concerned about the lack of judgement in pushing an extension with a vague, scary-sounding name and description simply for a cross-marketing tie-in, and I'm worried that it could have damaged the trust ordinary users have in Firefox.
> I'm not concerned that Mozilla might push malware into Firefox installations Nobody is concerned about that, in my opinion. I'm concerned someone will push malware through Mozilla into Firefox installations. Pushing addon installs should not be possible at all.
Mozilla installing a bunch of addons that look like viruses ends up preventing users from being able to identify actual viruses.
Many people seem to be shocked because Mozilla installed an add-on automatically. In my opinion, it doesn't really matter since the code is coming from Mozilla - they're building the whole browser, so they could introduce functionality anywhere. If someone distrusts their add-ons, why trust their browser at all? The main question is what behavior is being introduced. I haven't researched deeply, but apparently the ad…
> I haven't researched deeply, but apparently the add-on does nothing until the user opts-in on studies. It adds some css to a list of words: https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/blob/da464ac8f1c3b0894...
mozilla is rapidly burning through over a decade of hard-earned trust and goodwill. i install firefox on other people's machines. i'm not a good user to piss off.
am i gonna have to wait for servo to mature and make an unmozillad servo? what a sad reality that would be.
this is not the browser we were looking for.
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The source lives at https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/
Looking over [the contributors list][1], looks like the plugin was written entirely by Mozilla employees. So, no "Mr Robot marketing department", as some commenters here have been speculating. [1]: https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/graphs/contributors
"Looking Glass is a collaboration between Mozilla and the makers of Mr. Robot to provide a shared world experience."
It doesn't matter who technically coded it. "Mr Robot marketing department" was obviously deciding about its existence, behavior and content -- if that description is true.
But looking at the source of the extension, I find the following URLs inside:
https://www.red-wheelbarrow.com/forkids/
https://red-wheelbarrow-stage.apps.nbcuni.com/forkids/activi...
So it seems it is some marketing, the question is which company now, and do they change?