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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

#71

Post by jeroenhd »

pdpi wrote: post #61
greentxt wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there was a privacy policy it's hard to understand how that could be a mistake. The insinuation is the reviewer was not acting in hood faith.

Which brings us to: It's unclear why the author of the article decided that the reviewer was not acting in good faith.

The reviewer asserts that the addon transmits data. It does not.

That may not be malice, of course. It could just be incompetence (someone running an automated scanner and not verifying that the results are correct), someone trusted with a job they're not capable of doing, or maybe it's just Mozilla pretending someone reviewed the addon while using shitty AI like ChatGPT to do all the work.

The email even directly links to resources that are supposedly "minified, concatenated or otherwise machine-generated". That's simply not true.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#72

Post by jampekka »

ForHackernews wrote: post #47

So Mozilla goofed, apologised of their own accord and corrected the mistake? And in response this dev is throwing his toys out of the pram? Do I read this right?

I can see how having to jump pointless bureaucratic hoops in a volunteer project can cause throwing out toys.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#73

Post by panarky »

SSLy wrote: post #54
lol768 wrote: post #52

Why does this extension even exist on AMO? The article says it's the "Lite/Manifest v3 version" - why would you ever install the inferior edition meant for legacy browsers, instead of the one that blocks ads properly that's meant for Firefox?

Because it's lighter on power usage, and that matters for firefox on android.

And because it can block ads without infinite permission to read and change every site you visit.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#74

Post by yojo »

4bpp wrote: post #53

If 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…

I think it’s reasonable to expect that one of Firefox’s most popular extension publishers gets a higher tier of review service. Gorhill (and other top extension devs) are providing real value to Firefox, and have demonstrated good behavior for years.

This doesn’t mean they should get to publish whatever they want, but if a reviewer is about to reject a high profile plugin, they should get a second set of eyes on it. Which would have obviously caught the mistake here.

Feels like another “Firefox is underinvested in developer relations” story, which is surprising given how much they rely on them.

Edit: honestly the idea that gorhill doesn’t have a dedicated rep at Mozilla is baffling to me. According to their stats the extension has 8.4 million users. They should call him on the phone to let him know there’s a problem with his extension.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#75

Post by sunaookami »

It'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 the same and it's even worse there but this it to be expected from them, but not from Mozilla.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#76

Post by Crespyl »

phoronixrly wrote: post #59
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He gains Mozilla's distribution model and audience, which allows users of Firefox to download add-ons from their browser's UI and updates automatically, rather than having to manually pull an extension file from a Github page for each new release and install it.

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

Time and effort are usually considered to be worth some amount of money.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#77

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

phoronixrly wrote: post #59
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He gains Mozilla's distribution model and audience, which allows users of Firefox to download add-ons from their browser's UI and updates automatically, rather than having to manually pull an extension file from a Github page for each new release and install it.

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?

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#78

Post by jeroenhd »

lol768 wrote: post #52

Why does this extension even exist on AMO? The article says it's the "Lite/Manifest v3 version" - why would you ever install the inferior edition meant for legacy browsers, instead of the one that blocks ads properly that's meant for Firefox?

For the few good reasons Google had for restricting addon manifests: performance and security. Declarative domain lists are easier to cache and lead to fewer (unnecessary) addon activations. Fewer permissions means the impact of a malware-infected version hitting the addon store in the future is a lot lower. uBlock's rule engine is incredibly powerful, to the point where a custom ruleset can inject code into any website. That applies to custom rulesets, but also to the built-in ones that may or may not get their accounts/hosting hacked, or bought out in the future.

Not that I would use the lite version myself, or that I agree with Google's choice, of course; they killed ad blocker APIs without providing an alternative API, after all. With the code already out there anyway, for the people stuck in their ways still using Google Chrome, they may as well make this version available for Firefox.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#79

Post by bambax »

4bpp wrote: post #53

If 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…

> manually review every add-on revision for safety in a timely manner

Sure, but uBlock Origin, lite or not, is one of the most important browser add-on, if not the single most important one. This may not justify to give it a pass without looking, but it should certainly be reason enough to jump it in front of the queue and review it manually every time.

Re: Gorhill pulls uBlock Origin Lite from Firefox store

#80

Post by asadotzler »

bambax wrote: post #79
4bpp wrote: post #53

If 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…

> manually review every add-on revision for safety in a timely manner Sure, but uBlock Origin, lite or not, is one of the most important browser add-on, if not the single most important one. This may not justify to give it a pass without looking, but it should certainly be reason enough to jump it in front of the queue and review it manually every time.

Lite is meaningless to 99% of Firefox users. The real deal is available and they aren't force to use the inferior Chrome version.
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