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Can somebody please explain to me the purpose of this change. I read the blog post explaining the decision[0]. The crux of the argument was >many tens of milli

Can somebody please explain to me the purpose of this change. I read the blog post explaining the decision[0]. The crux of the argument was >many tens of millions of users have non-hosted add-ons that were installed without their informed consent" Why go thermonuclear and require add-on signing for everyone? Why not just make the add-on installation screen a little bit scarier. And if the concern is to make sure that people are installing what they think they're installing (i.e not something served by a man in the middle), then maybe just require that add-ons be downloaded from a site with HTTPS. I just really don't see the point in this extreme choice. [0] https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/04/15/the-case-for-extension-signing/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/04/15/the-case-for-exte...

hayksaakian 11y ago
people become 'blind' to scary screens. see: windows UAC dialogs. i wish they would clearly indicate what problem it is that they're solving. --- edit: after reading the post you linked, it's clear they're fighting against software installers that 'conveniently' install firefox addons. for example you download skype, and it 'helpfully' installs an addon for firefox. --- their solutions might solve the problem, but I think it goes too far. Is it possible to require the user to approve and addons before they are active on the user's firefox install? even if they came from a 3rd party source?
- Pxtl 11y ago
  Android does it best - you can install non-play-store stuff, but you have to go into a scary menu and fiddle with settings. Better than an are you sure popup.
  - Flimm 11y ago
    Because all apps are sandboxed on Android, it's hard for an app to fiddle with the settings. But desktop applications can fiddle with Firefox settings, so I can see why Mozilla don't want to allow even a setting.
- cpeterso 11y ago
  Skype's "Click to Call" add-on is a good (bad?) example of the harm caused by "side-loaded" add-ons. It causes Firefox to crash, hang, or take multiple seconds to respond to mouse clicks. The add-on is quietly injected into Firefox by Skype's application installer and can't be disabled or uninstalled from Firefox's Add-on Manager. Users must uninstall it from the Windows' "Add/Remove Programs" Control Panel. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215970 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215970
ossreality 11y ago
because they're being installed OUT of the browser. It's not about being scarier. It's about drawing a line in the ground and saying "fuck you, we're not loading you into memory without a guarantee that you are legit and the user added you intentionally."
mattbasta 11y ago
They tried making it scarier. They even tried adding a timer so you couldn't just blindly click the install button.
- xjay 11y ago
  I assumed the timer was there to prevent clicking Install by accident. Popup dialogs may appear right "above" something else you were clicking on, or while you're typing; hitting Enter, or Escape, which then causes the dialog to eat the input and vanish. Putting a dialog on cooldown like that would be interesting UX behavior. So if a dialog receives input < 1 sec after creation, it would discard the input and put itself on a cooldown timer, like that install dialog, or you could just change the context and avoid popups altoghether. PS: I'd mark my post Off-Topic/Digression/UX if HN had that option.

hayksaakian 11y ago

people become 'blind' to scary screens. see: windows UAC dialogs. i wish they would clearly indicate what problem it is that they're solving. --- edit: after reading the post you linked, it's clear they're fighting against software installers that 'conveniently' install firefox addons. for example you download skype, and it 'helpfully' installs an addon for firefox. --- their solutions might solve the problem, but I think it goes too far. Is it possible to require the user to approve and addons before they are active on the user's firefox install? even if they came from a 3rd party source?

Pxtl 11y ago
Android does it best - you can install non-play-store stuff, but you have to go into a scary menu and fiddle with settings. Better than an are you sure popup.
- Flimm 11y ago
  Because all apps are sandboxed on Android, it's hard for an app to fiddle with the settings. But desktop applications can fiddle with Firefox settings, so I can see why Mozilla don't want to allow even a setting.
cpeterso 11y ago
Skype's "Click to Call" add-on is a good (bad?) example of the harm caused by "side-loaded" add-ons. It causes Firefox to crash, hang, or take multiple seconds to respond to mouse clicks. The add-on is quietly injected into Firefox by Skype's application installer and can't be disabled or uninstalled from Firefox's Add-on Manager. Users must uninstall it from the Windows' "Add/Remove Programs" Control Panel. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215970 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215970

ossreality 11y ago

because they're being installed OUT of the browser. It's not about being scarier. It's about drawing a line in the ground and saying "fuck you, we're not loading you into memory without a guarantee that you are legit and the user added you intentionally."

mattbasta 11y ago

They tried making it scarier. They even tried adding a timer so you couldn't just blindly click the install button.

xjay 11y ago
I assumed the timer was there to prevent clicking Install by accident. Popup dialogs may appear right "above" something else you were clicking on, or while you're typing; hitting Enter, or Escape, which then causes the dialog to eat the input and vanish. Putting a dialog on cooldown like that would be interesting UX behavior. So if a dialog receives input < 1 sec after creation, it would discard the input and put itself on a cooldown timer, like that install dialog, or you could just change the context and avoid popups altoghether. PS: I'd mark my post Off-Topic/Digression/UX if HN had that option.