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Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

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Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#301

Post by akira2501 »

wnevets wrote: post #262
akira2501 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that assumes the person running it has 0 clue about your extension. I would tend to assume that a person given responsibility for reviewing this software, supposedly to protect end users, would not be this clueless. What value is the "Firefox Store" actually offering then?

> I would tend to assume that a person given responsibility for reviewing this software, supposedly to protect end users, would not be this clueless. would you do that job 8+ hours a day for little pay?

Would you run a foundation that forces it's users to be dependent on such a job?

Ya'll are putting the cart before the horse. I'm not being critical of the reviewer but of the large non profit organization that is responsible for creating this failure. Which apparently only exists to pantomime what the for profit players have built and is unsurprisingly equally wasteful of open source developers time and skill set.

Why does Firefox even need a curated "store?" They could have built anything better. I'm sure they were paid, er given "donations," that ensured they would never try. And from what everyone has been saying here those donations got exactly what they were intended to get.

Even Hacker News seems to unquestioningly assume this is a rational way to manage an open source plugin ecosystem. That this is the fault of the plugin author somehow or the store reviewer somehow. It's really disappointing to see.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#302

Post by wtallis »

chimeracoder wrote: post #219
wtallis wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Providing full read/write access to all websites is a huge security risk, and the fact that we're willing to do it is really a testament to how bad the state of the web is without adblockers. That seems to be completely ignoring that extensions aren't just independent self-contained programs. They're intended to extend and modify the capabilities of your user agent to better suit the needs of the user. Trusting the…

> Sure, it's nice when you can sandbox a helper, but it's irresponsible to suggest there's anything wrong or unusual about having the kind of powerful extensions that Google doesn't want you to have. You're arguing against a straw man here.

What's inaccurate? Do you really want to claim that Google isn't actively reducing the scope of what browser extensions can do on behalf of end users? Having security as a justification does nothing to erase the fact that they are locking down the browser platform and making some useful categories of extensions impossible.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#303

Post by move-on-by »

neilv wrote: post #197

Gorhill's full uBlock Origin might be the only remaining selling point for Firefox. With the outrageous sum of money that the Mozilla top executive was recently taking for themself, they could've instead staffed an entire team of first-rate people, with the sole mission of doing whatever Mr. Gorhill needed.

They are too busy working for the advertising companies Mr. Gorhill is blocking. Most recently adding ‘privacy preserving attribution’ - a feature that no user has asked for.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#304

Post by akira2501 »

ethbr1 wrote: post #265
akira2501 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That anyone dumber than such a reviewer cannot sneak malicious extensions in. Although people smarter than such a reviewer are free to? What kind of standard is that? > Which, sadly, is probably a non-trivial number of submissions. Then they're not, as an organization, actually capable of doing what they're promising here. There are more ways to get this wrong than to get it right, and borrowing the Google strategy…

> What kind of standard is that? That's the standard of all currated stores. We can argue about whether Mozilla's reviewer skillset is too low, but there's always going to be someone smarter than a reviewer, when reviewing is a cost center that companies want to spend the minimum amount of money on.

> That's the standard of all currated stores.

This seems to ignore how boutique stores and high end retail operates. This is the standard of rent seeking middlemen stores. You still haven't answered why this model is appropriate for Firefox.

> We can argue about whether Mozilla's reviewer skillset is too low

We're not. I'm pointing out how simply taking the opposing view reveals that your reasoning could not possibly be correct.

> reviewing is a cost center that companies want to spend the minimum amount of money on.

Which is weird because I assumed the cost of re-creating the plugin yourself would be much higher than that. It's almost like continual failure of these simplistic analyses reveal that a broader examination is required.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#305

Post by okanat »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #77
phoronixrly wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a long-winded way to say $0

You gain $0 for uploading your Linux package to yum/apt/dnf as well, but you recognize that there's value in being able to install such packages easily through a well-curated repository, no?

Well you, the programmer, usually don't upload it. Some package maintainer does it since they want your software and ideally they should handle the bug reports for their package as well.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#306

Post by mmwelt »

spartanatreyu wrote: post #291
mod50ack wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true anymore. You have to press the Firefox logo on the about screen a few times, which will make the menu option appear in settings to install an extension from the local filesystem

Fixing this explanation: You need to go Settings -> About Firefox -> Click the logo a bunch of times on this page specifically -> Press the back button You will now see the Install extension from file option.

Wow, that's good to know, thanks!

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#307

Post by somerandom2407 »

51Cards wrote: post #64
Timshel wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He gains by not having to interact with them for UBOL. When you waste people's time sometimes an apology is not enough for them to want to continue to work with you ...

An outlook like that will really limit who you work with in the future. I don't know anyone, corp or otherwise, that doesn't mess up from time to time. What matters is the acknowledgement of the mistake and taking steps to rectify it. IMO, as much as I highly respect his products, the dev pulled a hissy fit over a mistake.

The unpaid dev who produces something of value to users of Firefox. Removing the addon doesn't hurt him, and may hurt Firefox if people switch to Brave over this. Mozilla need to make changes to their review process or risk losing users.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#308

Post by okanat »

yencabulator wrote: post #87
noworriesnate wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish they'd get smaller first, build up a fund so they could literally just invest in the stock market and run indefinitely off the returns, and only then go Google-free. That would be a more permanent solution.

That sounds like it'd make less money for the CEO, why would they be interested in that? Mozilla no longer does what is good for Firefox.

Yeah, I think getting sold to a company like Proton AG would be the better outcome for Firefox.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#309

Post by somerandom2407 »

busterarm wrote: post #95
seneca wrote: post #56

Mozilla is an absolute joke of an organization, and it's tragic that they are still the primary alternative to Google having a total monopoly on browsers. I suppose you shouldn't expect much from a company that is just there to maintain a facade to fend off regulators.

We're at a really dangerous point with browsers at the moment where there's really no consumer-friendly option available. I'm scared to say that Safari comes closest but you're just in Apple's walled garden then instead of someone elses'. Our only hope seems to lie with Ladybird, if that even ends up being good and it seems extensions aren't on the agenda at least for a while.

Have you heard of Brave? It's a great browser with a built-in ad blocker founded by Brendan Eich, one of the co-founders of Mozilla and the creator of Javascript. I'm not a shill, I swear - I just think it's a great initiative that should be more well known than it is.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#310

Post by sfink »

That sucks. I work for Mozilla, but nowhere near Addons so I don't know what pressures they're under or whatever.

But if I ran the zoo... this is gorhill we're talking about. We ought to just make him an add-on reviewer with full rights, and tell him it's ok if the only add-ons he reviews are his own. We do not need to vet either his competence or trustworthiness; we have vastly more historical data backing him up than on any contractor or employee.

He's not a one-off either. We aren't nearly as volunteer-oriented as we used to be, sadly. But we still get many and major contributions from volunteers, and at least in my team (SpiderMonkey) there's no wall between external and paid contributors. (Except for the company-wide offsites, grr...) I don't see any reason why gorhill couldn't be made a full member of the review team, not that I'd expect him to be up for it right now given what's happened.

That makes more sense to me than giving him a special pass that we could potentially give out to other people or organizations. He is a major contributor to Firefox's capability and success already, let him contribute reviews that are already a thing and provide value. (Again, only self-reviews would be just fine with me.)

Now I need to figure out who to pester on Slack.

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