The discourse about Mozilla is ridiculous, here and most everywhere. You’ve got people taking every perceived opportunity to attack them for things they do, things they didn’t do, and things it’s imagined they might’ve done. And then another crowd of equally determined people doggedly defending them for every idiotic blunder they make, such as this one.
Meanwhile Mozilla itself has nothing substantial to say. This is not the first time a prominent extension has mysteriously gone missing from amo with Mozilla telling us nothing about its role in the incident. @mozilla@mozilla.social needs to be in the discussion giving us a real explanation of what happened, why they got it wrong, and what they’re doing to improve things.
Correct, this two-sided discourse is due to a massive lack of communication on Mozilla’s part, leaving room for speculation.
The best I can think of is that the explainer language used to justify the extension’s removal was just boilerplate language that got copy+pasted here because someone clicked the wrong button. But even that makes a mockery of the review process.
I think “oops clicked wrong button” would be slightly more defensible, but not by much. If they truly rejected the extension for content in it that it does not have, it’s hard to see how a human could make that mistake even accidentally. But maybe there’s something I’m missing.
True in a way. However, there is a rather large collection of speculation on the Internet that is quite an undertaking to correct. And a large population of people and bots willing to speculate. Also, having once been speculated, each speculation takes on a life of its own. If it gets much more substantial, forget Skynet, we’re busy creating Specunet and its sidekick Confusionet – an insidious duo.
Gotta love circular reporting.
We have collectively agreed that Mozilla is a) not reviewing extentions enough, and b) reviewing too much.
Mozilla.social no longer exists, Mozilla took it down
Yep, which further highlights the problem: @mozilla@mozilla.social 🔗 https://mozilla.social/users/mozilla/statuses/113153943609185249
We’ve made the hard decision to end our experiment with Mozilla.social and will shut down the Mastodon instance on December 17, 2024. Thank you for being part of the Mozilla.social community and providing feedback during our closed beta. You can continue to use Mozilla.social until December 17. Before that date, you can download your data here (https://mozilla.social/settings/export), and migrate your account to another instance following these instructions (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/mozilla-social-faq).
19½ months. That’s how long Mozilla was prepared to listen to a small, unfiltered subset of their users, for a laughably meager maintenance cost.
Oh so ublock origin lite. A manifest V3 compatible adblocker for chromium browsers.
The original ublock origin is unaffectedFirefox will be adopting Manifest V3, but a modded version that enables ad blocking.
But they’re also not ditching v2, correct?
I’m honestly not sure.
Firefox implemented Manifest V3, but there are no plans to remove V2.
Wait, I’m confused. How are Mozilla and Firefox different? I thought what ever Mozilla decides goes…granted, I’m out of the loop.
I was using them interchangeably. I guess one is understood to be kind of a general foundation or overall company, whereas Firefox is just the browser itself
Just curious, how does uBlock Origin Lite compare to regular uBlock Origin? I’ve heard from the Chrome crowd that it’s not as good as blocking ads due to the V3 limitations, but how’s the speed? I might consider it for lower-end hardware if it’s not too compromised.
Probably due to automatic extension reviews by Mozilla.
Sad that it happened, but at least it doesn’t impact the actual uBlock, only the lite version for which I honestly see no purpose in Firefox anyways.
It was a manual review conducted by an actual person that in the end admitted they were wrong
Oh okay, not a good look.
Agreed. Especially considering uBlock origin is pretty much the main reason to use FF at all. They shouldn’t be delegating reviews of it to someone who would fuck up this badly.
Assuming this wasn’t a “test the waters” kind of thing to determine just how much they were reliant on ublock.
I’ve been using the main FF build for a while now but I’m wondering if I should start looking at the various fork options.
Are you like, those old multi colour swirly rubber balls we used to get out of 20p machines as kids? Those were ill!
I don’t understand what you are telling me
It’s a reference to your username
Ahhh
And he just leaves them hanging.
I’m referring to the users asking the questions.
Your username vintage balls reminded me of those little rubber balls we used to get at kids, I don’t see them any more (maybe they’re seen as too much of a choking hazard now?), so they feel kinda “vintage” to me now haha.
Those things could really bounce! I liked the semi translucent ones with the rainbow swirl patterns.
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Where does it say it was a manual review?
In the original post on GitHub it’s mentioned that it was a manual review
It was a manual review conducted by an actual person that in the end admitted they were wrong
Good to know! I wasn’t sure if it was automated or not. That’s rough.
I honestly see no purpose in
It’s to circumvent ManifestV3.
Manifest v2 still works on Firefox, so OP was right, it’s useless
The dev stated that it mostly exists for more performance-limited applications like mobile.
I thought that was the shit Chrome was doing to block adblockers and antimalware plugins, if Firefox is doing the same thing what browser do we use now? :-(
I don’t care about all the browser wars stuff, I lost interest when it was Netscape Vs IE, I just want a browser that I can configure fully myself and have it be as safe and secure as one can make it, within reason.
Firefox is not eliminating MV2 extensions. You can stick with Firefox.
If we want to do something radically different, there’s always gopher and gemini browsers.
I thought that was the shit Chrome was doing to block adblockers and antimalware plugins, if Firefox is doing the same thing what browser do we use now? :-(
They’re doing a modified version of V3 that they changed to restore ad-blocking functionality.
Theoretically, the browser executes the Mv3 blocking rules, so it could be optimized and more efficient than js ever could.
Mozilla isn’t google. They took it back and encouraged the guy to reach out in the future if any issues arise.
BFD, it’s not like they banned his account, just one gimped extension that doesn’t do the whole ad blocking experience and even then only because he didn’t do anything to try and reverse it. Then after it’s restored he throws his tantrum and removes it.
With all the extensions out there false positive detections of malicious apps are going to happen. Nobody has unlimited resources to hire boatloads of devs to review every single line of code of every extension for every update done. That’s an insane expectation.
Is it me or is mozilla kinda turning into a cunt lately
There is fairly substantial rumor that there may be a smear campaign against firefox lately because they are still supporting manifest v2, which our owning class does not care for.
Mozilla has made their fair share of stupid decisions lately, but they are still leagues ahead of Google, Amazon, and the other FAANG-type companies in ethics and trustworthiness. Definitely something to keep a pulse on, but nothing to throw the baby out with the bathwater over. And if it really bothers you, use LibreWolf/Fennec.
I really hope Librewolf will keep on if Mozilla enshittifies
It’s you.
That poor dev is just getting so much shit thrown their way constantly having a short temper about it makes sense. They are fighting against an entire industry to make the internet usable for people. I hope everyone who has the means to donates to support the ~~developer. ~~
Edit: donate to block list maintainers thanks to lemmyvore below for the correction
The dev has not made available any means to donate to him directly. He asks that people donate to the maintainers of the block lists instead.
thank you i updated my comment
I almost had a panic attack until I realized this was for UBlock Origin Lite rather than the normal, manifest v2 version. Still mad at Mozilla,though.
This is more likely someone fucking up and not having a second pair of eyes look at the presumed problem than anything else.
There’s a dozen Firefox extensions that really matter, at any given time. Mozilla has never appeared to give a particular shit about any of them. Paying special attention based on popularity wouldn’t be ideal, but for fuck’s sake, their passive-aggressive treatment keeps burning out the developers who fuel their ecosystem, and it would take vanishingly little effort to shield their keystone plugins.
If their active neglect had ruined both uBlock and DownThemAll - I’m not sure I’d be using Firefox anymore, and I’ve been using Firefox since before it was called Firefox. Why the fuck would anyone normal even consider it?
DownThemAll is one of those extensions which get installed immediately for me. If I didn’t have DownThemAll and uBlock origin, I’d might as well just use edge smh
And the author spent a year hassling Mozilla about how killing XUL plugins would make his wildly popular plugin nearly impossible. Did they move one iota to help that? Nope. Did they adopt DTA functionality natively, like they’d absorbed Pocket? Did they fuck. Their mantra for two straight decades has been “just rewrite!” and they cannot imagine why they kept hemorrhaging devs and plugins and users once Chrome slimed its way into everyone’s options.
my votes are for nusensor, popupblocker, dark reader, nuke anything
This guy p0rns
No, I’m married, I don’t do offline pron
As I’ve said elsewhere: I wonder what controls Mozilla has in place to prevent gradual takeover of their board by those with an interest in removing Firefox as a competitor. We’ve watched the sleeper cell in the Supreme Court transform that body into an illegitimate partisan puppet. Mozilla’s actions over the last few years would make much more sense if it were being manipulated into self destruction.
This one is completely on Mozilla. TBH I’m not very happy with their governance either. Stop spending money on bullshit and start working on the damn browser. Stop hassling devs like him who have had an immense contribution to not only open source, but your fucking browser’s usage metrics.
I wish another browser standard comes up and we can say goodbye to this google-infested shit-bucket that is mozilla.
Ok, but “google-infested shit-buckets” are also Chrome and all the chromium poop cups, even more so one might say.
Not disagreeing, especially with the sad sentiment of what’s happening at Mozilla, just trying to keep in mind the other 95% of the browser picture.
Which is why I’d like to see a third player. I don’t use Chrome except for ungoogled chromium when the other browsers are tied up
Yes, as said, Im agreeing, I was just pointing out the sad reality of what the majority is doing (and like it or not, that affects us all).
I’d love a legit third choice (again)!Yeah
Not to disagree but mozilla and firefox are not the same thing
Thats kind of like saying Valve and Steam are not the same thing. Like, yea, Valve owns and develops Steam, but most people will understand someone who calls the company “Steam” (even if they sound a bit daft in doing so).
The funny part is I did mean Mozilla
I didn’t say they were. For the most part, if a third option really comes up, I’m OK with Mozilla not existing at all.
I dont get why you would run that on Firefox. Users will find the corrent one, all good.
Btw is the uBlock without Origin addon still there?
That’s a real bummer about Mozilla and uBlock Origin clashing. It’s weird 'cause their values seem pretty aligned with privacy and user control. Hopefully they can smooth things out soon—users like us just want our browsing to be smooth and ad-free!
“Seem” : had been, were previously. Now, Mozilla’s values seem no longer reliably aligned with privacy and user control
I think it’s just Mozilla has a messy moderation. Don’t overreact.
I reacted accurately. Mozilla blog today: “ Improving online advertising through product and infrastructure” 🤑
Gorhill is free to do whatever he wants, of course, I thank him for all the good work. But his reaction is honestly childish and dangerous for the community. Once again his decision to pull the plug opens the door to abusers. Now when you go to the addons page and search for uBlock, you may find illegitimate extensions pretending to be uBlock which are trying to collect your data or worse. Less tech say people don’t know any better.
then someone with much more talent can step up, rename the plugin, and carry on.
The challenge is choosing the next maintainer user handle.
https://github.com/msftcangoblowm/sphinx-external-toc-strict
Good choice?
It’s probably a coincidence that shortly after Mozilla acquires an ad company, they “accidentally” remove an ad blocker.
They made an error and quickly corrected. It’s the addon author who threw a fit and removed the addon.
This just makes me worried to rely on uBO but more because what if the author just fucks off because someone else pissed them off.
It would seem that the ubo lite version was made specifically to cater to chrome and manifest v3 if I’m not mistaken…
In the end the author may have just felt it was too much energy keeping a pared down chrome version on Firefox when the full version is present and working. Especially after this particular drama.
Some say the Lite one was good for mobile since it was lighter weight but I didn’t notice a difference tbh.
Indeed I’m using ubo full on my nothing 2a, and it feels like nothing at all.
Another nothinger! How’s the 2a? Sorry, I know it’s off topic, just curious.
Nothingers! Do we get a secret handshake? A mid range phone, that doesnt feel like a mid range phone. My previous phone was Oneplus 6. Nothing 2a feels like how Oneplus 6 felt right at the beginning, at 30% lower a price. I’m loving the face down light only notifications, and the gesture navigation. Gestures means i can use my one thumb to scroll back and forth easily.
Performance wise they should be identical, what matters is how many lists you have enabled, etc. If anything, performance-focused list management will result in more performance with ordinary uBO. Either way, gothill is a legend
Edit: I’m wrong, apparently Lite can be faster on android after all
This just makes me worried to rely on uBO but more because what if the author just fucks off because someone else pissed them off.
That is very concerning to me, also.
Large parts of the internet relying on one or two tiny one-man FOSS projects? (UBO and ADguard are often cited as the only two reliable-ish and safe adblockers)
If he can’t be bothered with that nonsense, how secure is UBO’s future? How secure is the future of adblocking?
I would bet that advertising companies are rubbing their hands now and planning to ramp up pressure against these poor devs.
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I don’t think throwing a fit and it being a hissy fit are the same thing.
I don’t think throwing a fit and it being a hissy fit are the same thing.
the things people will debate onlineedit: I beefed it on this one. They were being normal and I misunderstood. Note to self to think before typing in the future.
Throwing a fit can mean getting angry. It being a hissy fit would mean the cause was something childish and not serious.
I’m not trying to debate it, if you look I’m the one who originally wrote the comment so I’m trying to explain what I meant.
Lite is barely relevant for Firefox anyway. Gorhill (along with host list maintainers) is one of the saints of modern day open source; if he felt overwhelmed by Mozilla’s actions, and chose to just take Lite down from the extension store, he has every right to. No one should shit on someone who has given so much to the community.
Mozilla can’t be trusted to host the addon, so the author is taking on the responsibility of hosting it himself. How is that his fault and not Mozilla’s?
Whether Mozilla acted out of malice or incompetence is irrelevant. The report was false and the findings were incorrect, they have to be held responsible either way.
I’d much rather have them be overzealous and mistakenly block an addon for a few hours, than have them be too lax and approve addons actually stealing data.
They also removed all previous versions except a very old one with known issues, thus exposing people to more danger than necessary in any way.
Mozilla did apologize, said they were wrong and said they’d correct the issue. The author refused and decided not to put it back to AMO. At that points its on the author that it’s not AMO.
Promises from a for-profit company don’t mean shit. How many times have you seen the “we’ve heard you and we’ll do better next time” routine, only for next time to be the same or worse? They’d promise you the pissing Sun if it meant more dollar signs.
They’re empty words. No company will put out a statement saying “we fucked up, we’re sorry, it’s going to happen again”. Until Mozilla can prove through actions that the issue is fixed, Hill is correct in distrusting them.
This is such a storm in a teacup. Someone making the manual checks at Mozilla fucked up and the situation was quickly admitted. I don’t know what else to wish, other than that the failure wouldn’t have happened in the first place. Sucks that it did. Now what sucks is that gorhill doesn’t want to do put it back but it is what it is, luckily it was just the Lite version.
While I like a juicy conspiracy and fuck the sytsems and all, I don’t think they were lying when they said that they’d put the addon back if gorhill just resubmitted it.
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As the article says, only when it blew up. But you’re right, the author doesn’t look good either.
More honestly, I enjoy a good conspiracy theory with my coffee.
As the article says, only when it blew up.
The article also seems to say that he didn’t bother to disprove the mistaken findings and so Mozilla might’ve not even heard anything back until it blew up. The whole thing seems to have happened pretty quickly.
Yeah, I know. If I was in a sensible mood this AM, I probably wouldn’t have started this chain. But if you look back to my first comment, I did say it was probably a coincidence.
…are we pretending your original comment wasn’t sarcastic?
I think they had reasons to act how they acted. They’re probably on a lot of pressure because the whole tech world is fighting ad blocking now.
There’s always some reason. I’m just worried that something happens with uBO and same happens there
Things always change in the world. Case in point being Lemmy and Federation. Whatever comes after uBO will never be like the same old thing, but we just keep on going forward and fondly remember the nice things we used to have, thanking those that worked tirelessly so we could enjoy those nice things.
This is a peaceful but not the best approach. Though we should always respect and thank the developers, we (if possible) shouldn’t just let things be replaced with worse alternatives all the time.
God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
then someone with much more talent can step up, rename the plugin, and carry on.
The challenge is choosing the next maintainer user handle.
https://github.com/msftcangoblowm/sphinx-external-toc-strict
That is the power of open source, but gorhill is a very respected and uncompromising maintainer so can be hard to find someone as good
It’s probably a coincidence that shortly after Mozilla acquires an ad company, they “accidentally” remove an ad blocker.
I mean I’m of two minds here. One, there’s an epidemic of intellectually lazy, kneejerk Mozilla hate and it’s time to turn the tide on that.
But on the other hand, even as a Mozilla fanboy I can see how this is a really bad look, and really indefensible. I think it’s more of a huge error of judgment, and if there are other huge errors, I can begin to see a problem, but I think they have too much of a positive track record in their history to just go reaching for the tinfoil hats so quickly.
