8 ms·
The Mr. Robot thing was not "malware". It was an easter egg, just like about:mozilla. You may say it was poor taste on Mozilla's part, since it was essentially
by TheCoreh 9y ago
The Mr. Robot thing was not "malware". It was an easter egg, just like about:mozilla. You may say it was poor taste on Mozilla's part, since it was essentially a paid-for promotional tie-in with a TV show, and I would probably agree with you. But it did not damage anyone's computer, compromise any data or do anything that could put it on the "Malware" category.
Something similar that noone has complained about are the Android version names which are promotional tie-ins: Kit Kat and Oreo. Mozilla's biggest screw up IMO was failing to disclose properly what was going on.
- Ajedi32 9y ago> it was essentially a paid-for promotional tie-in From what I recall, it wasn't paid-for either. > we developed an unpaid collaboration to engage our users and viewers of the show in a new way Source: https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/update-looking-glass-add/ https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/update-looking-glass-add/
- bluetwo 9y agoIf they didn't get paid, why on earth did they do it?
- bugmen0t 9y agoSomeone actually that it was fun and valuable. Shocking, I know.
- paulryanrogers 9y ago^thought
- QAPereo 9y agoOf all possible explanations, that is the one I suspect is most divorced from reality.
- 794CD01 9y agoThey assumed their user base has dwindled to only the kind of anticorporate hacker wannabes that watch Mr. Robot.
- Swizec 9y agofor the lulz? Hackers gonna hack. In the “let’s build cool stuff because we can” way.
- teilo 9y agoNot all incentives are direct financial incentives. It's free marketing. It increases market penetration. It encourages people who only use Chrome to try Firefox. It was absolutely the wrong thing to do, but it's not like they stood nothing to gain from it.
- emveeoh 9y agoIt seems they wanted press. Well, they got it...
- micro-ram 9y agoand lost a lot of trust as a result.
- bigleagueposter 9y agobribery
- mintplant 9y agoPeople who wanted to solve the Mr. Robot ARG/puzzle had to download Firefox to complete the part of it the add-on enabled.
- ben174 9y agoI think it was the opposite of paid. They wanted to draw the Mr. Robot crowd to Firefox.
- syshum 9y ago>>Mozilla's biggest screw up IMO was failing to disclose properly what was going on. That was not the only issue 1. Failure to Disclose it before distribution 2. Failure to Properly name or provide any support context to the Add In. 3. Using the "Studies" System designed to improve the technology and advance the web browser for this Adware "Easter egg" not really an Easter egg addin 4. Failure to Publicly Comment about it until a full 72 hours after concerns were raised 5. Deleting and Hiding Bug Reports about the Addin in Bugzilla 6. Failure to adequately respond, apologize, or explain why and how the Studies system was used to distribute this Adware, There blog post so far is woefully inadequate. 7. Failure to disclose what steps are being taken immediately to ensure the Studies system is not abused in this manner in the future Should I go on? There were many many many failures here, which are compounded by the many other failures Mozilla has had over the last few years.
- fatwa 9y agoAnd enabling the "studies" thing without my permission, which they did.
- kevin_b_er 9y agoThen you can go back to chrome or chromium, both of which Google has pushed a binary plugin to that records voice in the past. Debian had to raise a storm over it and turned into a compile-time only option to not get the microphone listening plugin on your chromium install.
- eckza 9y agoFine, but that doesn't make the points in the comment you're replying to any less valid. That's... not how it works.
- syshum 9y agoI never left FF, I have been using FF since the very first Beta Releases, I have been using Mozilla Browsers since before FF was even a concept I support Mozilla on Ideological grounds and it is said they are dropping their Ideology in favor of a pure commercial company.
- muraiki 9y agoNote that the advertisement was for a TV show _owned by a company that helped destroy net neutrality_: Comcast. How am I supposed to "Join Mozilla in defending it" (from mozilla.org) when they are going to work for their own enemies?
- Insanity 9y agoThat's an interesting aspect I did not consider. (I had no idea it was a TV show owned by comcast)