7 ms·

Looks like it's a promo for Mr Robot, which is really not ok. > What's happening? Are you a fan of Mr Robot? Are you trying to solve one of the many puzzles th

Looks like it's a promo for Mr Robot, which is really not ok. > What's happening? Are you a fan of Mr Robot? Are you trying to solve one of the many puzzles that the Mr Robot team has built? You’re on the right track. Firefox and Mr Robot have collaborated on a shared experience to further your immersion into the Mr Robot universe, also known as an Alternate Reality Game (ARG). The effects you’re seeing are a part of this shared experience.[0] EDIT: looking at this[1] comment, perhaps it's not a promo? [0]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/lookingglass https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/lookingglass [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/7jh9rv/what_is_looking_glass/dr6fiaz/ https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/7jh9rv/what_is_loo...

dpwm 9y ago
From the page: > No changes will be made to Firefox unless you have opted in to this Alternate Reality Game. Also, from the same page for those that appreciate irony: > One of the 10 guiding principles of Mozilla's mission is that individuals' security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional. The more people know about what information they are sharing online, the more they can protect their privacy.
- majewsky 9y ago
  > No changes will be made to Firefox unless you have opted in to this Alternate Reality Game. How does it not occur to them that this is a clear lie?
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    Because the previous ads for Pocket and Telefonica were effective and they don't care?
  - gvx 9y ago
    I hardly think it's a lie. My browser contains no trace of anything related to Looking Glass, even though I'm opted into Shield Studies. It seems to affect some people but not others. Definitely something that should be fixed in the core mechanism of how these things are downloaded by your browser if there are cases where it can happen without user intervention, but it doesn't seem to be intentional to download extensions without the user's consent.
    - Mizza 9y ago
      It's absolutely a lie. Mozilla has injected malicious-looking advertisement executable software into my process without my permission and then lied about it. I have no idea what this software is, what it does, or whether it is proprietary or free. I opted into nothing. This is a huge, huge mistake by Mozilla.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  > No changes will be made to Firefox unless you have opted in to this Alternate Reality Game. That can't possibly be true. I had it installed, and I'm on my work machine using Firefox Developer Edition. I didn't opt in to any ARG.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    I think what they mean is that the addon doesn't do anything unless you opt-in. Still, why install it at all?
    - dpwm 9y ago
      The installation of the add-on is unquestionably a change to Firefox. Whether the add-on does anything is largely immaterial.
    - bigbugbag 9y ago
      Really poor choice of words here from mozilla. "The changes that already happened will not make changes to your firefox unless you enable them to", in other words the changes already happened and are just waiting to be activated.
  - sp332 9y ago
    It's installed, but apparently doesn't do anything if you don't have "studies" enabled.
    - _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
      Installing extensions is not "No changes will be made to Firefox".
    - LyndsySimon 9y ago
      Something was installed on my system without my permission, from a vendor that I chose specifically because they promise not to do things like that. To put it another way - if I discovered a rootkit sitting in the ~/Downloads directory on my Mac, that would be a problem. If the entity that surreptitiously placed it there said that I shouldn't worry about it because it hadn't been run, I wouldn't be inclined to trust them.
nkrisc 9y ago
Wow. So Mozilla lets advertisers push extensions to your browser? Is that right or am I misunderstanding something?
- icebraining 9y ago
  It seems to be developed by Mozilla employees, which is less terrible than allowing actual third-party addons, and it's disabled by default, but still - pretty distasteful.
- teamhappy 9y ago
  > So Mozilla lets advertisers push extensions to your browser? Of course not. Mozilla can install extensions if you have "shield studies" enabled. They use extensions it to run UI studies and things like that. I think you have to opt-in to each study individually if you want to be part of it. Enabling the studies in your settings only means "notify me when there's a new study I can participate in". See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield and https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Shield/Shield_Studies https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Shield/Shield_Studies Now they have partnered with Mr Robot to use the same feature to offer some sort of "Alternate Reality Game".
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    That sounds like "no they haven't pushed an unsolicited advert at all ... except to people who offered to be in a development program, who they've pushed an unsolicited advert to" ...
    - teamhappy 9y ago
      I was talking about advertisers running code in your browser. I think you have to opt-in to participate in one of the studies, so that's not happening without your consent. It looks like Firefox auto-installs the studies though if you've enabled the feature. But it only activates the individual extensions for the studies once you've opted in to participate. The extensions themselves need to be approved by a bunch of people at mozilla (at least for the normal studies). So I guess nothing bad can happen until you click "participate" or whatever they call it. Still, I would also consider the notification itself to be an ad. This was obviously a bad idea and I don't want anyone to think I'm defending it. I guess they've chosen to abuse their shield studies for this because it's the only way for them to send notifications to the browser, but that's no excuse. I have the studies disabled anyway but now I'm not even going to consider ever turning them on.
exelius 9y ago
Seems kind of like it is part of an ARG. I can't say I'm totally against something like that; Mozilla's gotta make money somehow, and as long as it's not selling out user privacy it's a better tradeoff than Chrome.
- revelation 9y ago
  You think having advertisers change text on unrelated websites you visit is an acceptable tradeoff?
  - walterstucco 9y ago
    Yes Still better than everything else
- tamriel 9y ago
  > Mozilla's gotta make money somehow They're a nonprofit; they're not allowed to just "make money". And, they already take donations.
  - hbosch 9y ago
    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...
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > I think the the term “non-profit” is more about how an organization spends the money, rather than how they make it. Tax-exempt non-profit (especially charity) status is very much about both how money is made and how it is distributed/spent.
    - tamriel 9y ago
      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.
kevinSuttle 9y ago
The ads during the show are super cringey. It's not as bad as the Alexa product placement, but still
dao- 9y ago
> Looks like it's a promo for Mr Robot, which is really not ok. From what I've heard (I work for Mozilla), this is promo for Firefox. As I just wrote elsewhere in this thread: I believe the idea is that Mr. Robot fans use Firefox to participate in the ARG, not that Firefox users suddenly start watching Mr. Robot. So if anything I'd expect that Mozilla pays Mr. Robot for this.
- mynewtb 9y ago
  That would be an idiotic waste of money by a non-profit organisation considering the audience of Mr Robot.
- supernintendo 9y ago
  > So if anything I'd expect that Mozilla pays Mr. Robot for this. The irony is that Mr. Robot is owned by Universal, a subsidiary of Comcast. So much for that commitment to net neutrality.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    Google is among the worst privacy offender there is and mozilla has been sending their users towards then in return for a small share of the google mega profits. So much for the advertised protection of user privacy.
takeda 9y ago
If it was a promo, it would be a real bad promo. I did not watch Mr Robot and that quote did not made me aware of it until people started referencing it here. The extension is for shield study, when you install Firefox for the first time it asks if you want to take part in it (it is enabled by default though)
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  Mr Robot is a tv show repeatedly showing how you can pwn other people computer by pushing seemingly innocuous code. It has been praised for its technical accuracy, basically the show warns us about exactly what mozilla did as this could be exploited to hack into computers.

dpwm 9y ago

From the page: > No changes will be made to Firefox unless you have opted in to this Alternate Reality Game. Also, from the same page for those that appreciate irony: > One of the 10 guiding principles of Mozilla's mission is that individuals' security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional. The more people know about what information they are sharing online, the more they can protect their privacy.

majewsky 9y ago
> No changes will be made to Firefox unless you have opted in to this Alternate Reality Game. How does it not occur to them that this is a clear lie?
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  Because the previous ads for Pocket and Telefonica were effective and they don't care?
- gvx 9y ago
  I hardly think it's a lie. My browser contains no trace of anything related to Looking Glass, even though I'm opted into Shield Studies. It seems to affect some people but not others. Definitely something that should be fixed in the core mechanism of how these things are downloaded by your browser if there are cases where it can happen without user intervention, but it doesn't seem to be intentional to download extensions without the user's consent.
  - Mizza 9y ago
    It's absolutely a lie. Mozilla has injected malicious-looking advertisement executable software into my process without my permission and then lied about it. I have no idea what this software is, what it does, or whether it is proprietary or free. I opted into nothing. This is a huge, huge mistake by Mozilla.
LyndsySimon 9y ago
> No changes will be made to Firefox unless you have opted in to this Alternate Reality Game. That can't possibly be true. I had it installed, and I'm on my work machine using Firefox Developer Edition. I didn't opt in to any ARG.
- icebraining 9y ago
  I think what they mean is that the addon doesn't do anything unless you opt-in. Still, why install it at all?
  - dpwm 9y ago
    The installation of the add-on is unquestionably a change to Firefox. Whether the add-on does anything is largely immaterial.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    Really poor choice of words here from mozilla. "The changes that already happened will not make changes to your firefox unless you enable them to", in other words the changes already happened and are just waiting to be activated.
- sp332 9y ago
  It's installed, but apparently doesn't do anything if you don't have "studies" enabled.
  - _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
    Installing extensions is not "No changes will be made to Firefox".
  - LyndsySimon 9y ago
    Something was installed on my system without my permission, from a vendor that I chose specifically because they promise not to do things like that. To put it another way - if I discovered a rootkit sitting in the ~/Downloads directory on my Mac, that would be a problem. If the entity that surreptitiously placed it there said that I shouldn't worry about it because it hadn't been run, I wouldn't be inclined to trust them.

nkrisc 9y ago

Wow. So Mozilla lets advertisers push extensions to your browser? Is that right or am I misunderstanding something?

icebraining 9y ago
It seems to be developed by Mozilla employees, which is less terrible than allowing actual third-party addons, and it's disabled by default, but still - pretty distasteful.
teamhappy 9y ago
> So Mozilla lets advertisers push extensions to your browser? Of course not. Mozilla can install extensions if you have "shield studies" enabled. They use extensions it to run UI studies and things like that. I think you have to opt-in to each study individually if you want to be part of it. Enabling the studies in your settings only means "notify me when there's a new study I can participate in". See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield and https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Shield/Shield_Studies https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Shield/Shield_Studies Now they have partnered with Mr Robot to use the same feature to offer some sort of "Alternate Reality Game".
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  That sounds like "no they haven't pushed an unsolicited advert at all ... except to people who offered to be in a development program, who they've pushed an unsolicited advert to" ...
  - teamhappy 9y ago
    I was talking about advertisers running code in your browser. I think you have to opt-in to participate in one of the studies, so that's not happening without your consent. It looks like Firefox auto-installs the studies though if you've enabled the feature. But it only activates the individual extensions for the studies once you've opted in to participate. The extensions themselves need to be approved by a bunch of people at mozilla (at least for the normal studies). So I guess nothing bad can happen until you click "participate" or whatever they call it. Still, I would also consider the notification itself to be an ad. This was obviously a bad idea and I don't want anyone to think I'm defending it. I guess they've chosen to abuse their shield studies for this because it's the only way for them to send notifications to the browser, but that's no excuse. I have the studies disabled anyway but now I'm not even going to consider ever turning them on.

exelius 9y ago

Seems kind of like it is part of an ARG. I can't say I'm totally against something like that; Mozilla's gotta make money somehow, and as long as it's not selling out user privacy it's a better tradeoff than Chrome.

revelation 9y ago
You think having advertisers change text on unrelated websites you visit is an acceptable tradeoff?
- walterstucco 9y ago
  Yes Still better than everything else
tamriel 9y ago
> Mozilla's gotta make money somehow They're a nonprofit; they're not allowed to just "make money". And, they already take donations.
- hbosch 9y ago
  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...
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > I think the the term “non-profit” is more about how an organization spends the money, rather than how they make it. Tax-exempt non-profit (especially charity) status is very much about both how money is made and how it is distributed/spent.
  - tamriel 9y ago
    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.

kevinSuttle 9y ago

The ads during the show are super cringey. It's not as bad as the Alexa product placement, but still

dao- 9y ago

> Looks like it's a promo for Mr Robot, which is really not ok. From what I've heard (I work for Mozilla), this is promo for Firefox. As I just wrote elsewhere in this thread: I believe the idea is that Mr. Robot fans use Firefox to participate in the ARG, not that Firefox users suddenly start watching Mr. Robot. So if anything I'd expect that Mozilla pays Mr. Robot for this.

mynewtb 9y ago
That would be an idiotic waste of money by a non-profit organisation considering the audience of Mr Robot.
supernintendo 9y ago
> So if anything I'd expect that Mozilla pays Mr. Robot for this. The irony is that Mr. Robot is owned by Universal, a subsidiary of Comcast. So much for that commitment to net neutrality.
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  Google is among the worst privacy offender there is and mozilla has been sending their users towards then in return for a small share of the google mega profits. So much for the advertised protection of user privacy.

takeda 9y ago

If it was a promo, it would be a real bad promo. I did not watch Mr Robot and that quote did not made me aware of it until people started referencing it here. The extension is for shield study, when you install Firefox for the first time it asks if you want to take part in it (it is enabled by default though)

bigbugbag 9y ago
Mr Robot is a tv show repeatedly showing how you can pwn other people computer by pushing seemingly innocuous code. It has been praised for its technical accuracy, basically the show warns us about exactly what mozilla did as this could be exploited to hack into computers.