6 ms·

Mozilla's ownership of Pocket taints basically every decision Mozilla makes about Firefox's content consumption features. Maybe they really are independent, bu

Mozilla's ownership of Pocket taints basically every decision Mozilla makes about Firefox's content consumption features. Maybe they really are independent, but there's no way to tell and Mozilla's past transparency failures (like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15956325#15956653 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15956325#15956653) haven't earned them the benefit of the doubt.

Dylan16807 8y ago
So the issue you're referencing is when they put the code for an easter egg in a dumb spot, which made people rightfully confused and worried. What does that have to do with independence and transparency?
- albedoa 8y ago
  > What does that have to do with independence and transparency? It was a marketing stunt performed in partnership with a television show and was installed without the user's knowledge or consent.
- newacctjhro 8y ago
  It wasn't an easter egg, it was advertising. Preinstalled in my fucking web browser.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    It was code that did absolutely nothing unless you set a secret flag. It was not advertising. It was an easter egg.
    - reitanqild 8y ago
      Background: I've been a Firefox fan for maybe 10 years and I still consider myself to be one > It was code that did absolutely nothing unless you set a secret flag. It destroyed a lot of trust. Seriously. I too was really confused when I suddenly saw an extension I never installed. (This could happen before when desktop installers could add extensions but I don't think they can anymore so I was properly confused until K searched for it on the Internet.) > It was not advertising. It was an easter egg. Those two are not mutually exclusive :-]
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        > It destroyed a lot of trust. The thing is, Mozilla has always had the ability to put arbitrary things into firefox, and it's always had easter eggs in it. The way they did it was a big mistake but from my point of view only because it was scary-looking (and showed their extension pipeline had issues, I guess), not because of what it actually did. > Those two are not mutually exclusive :-] How about this: It wasn't there to advertise to anyone that didn't already know about it.
        reitanqild 8y ago
        I'd go a bit further about why it was a big mistake - basically I always knew they could put anything they wanted into Firefox but thought they'd never do such a childish thing in such a scary way. - but it seems we mostly agree on this.
        emn13 8y ago
        Would the you of many years ago that first started using firefox similarly have objected to an easter egg? I still don't have any problems with easter eggs. Give me back my whimsy.
        reitanqild 8y ago
        You might have caught me in hypocrisy, my jury is still out. I mean: I too like whimsy, and adding an about:<something noncommercial> would probably be ok with me. (In fact I think there was an easter egg on some about:-protocol-page st some point.) It was just the sudden surprise of seing an extension I didn't expect and then what at least felt like a hidden commercial motive on top of that.
        emn13 8y ago
        Yeah, they sure bungled that one up well. Maybe it's the jarring worlds of security! paranoia! Absolute Control! vs. the FF wants to fun! unpredictable! Think different (no wait, that slogan's tainted now...)! Given the way they present the extensions... it - in retrospect - should have been clear to them it would trigger more initial reactions from the first set of perspectives, and not just the second.
    - ldarby 8y ago
      Easter eggs are generally hidden and take users doing something special to find out about it. You calling this an easter egg had me confused as to what the hell this thread was about, searching for "firefox easter egg" shows nothing about it.
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        So this is the looking glass thing. You could see the existence of the extension because of poor decisions. But it didn't turn on unless you went into about:config and manually flipped "extensions.pug.lookingglass" to true. Definitely intended as an easter egg. Even of the people getting upset about the visible extension, 99+% of them never saw the enabled effect.
        ldarby 8y ago
        You're forgetting what "easter eggs" are IRL - chocolate eggs hidden in a back yard that people have to look for. The analogy applies to computing in 2 ways: they're hidden, and it's something desirable. Niether of those ways apply to what Mozilla did. Therefore it wasn't an easter egg and you trying to pretend otherwise is just confusing.
        Dylan16807 8y ago
        The intent was for it to be hidden! That's why it didn't activate! And for the person that would activate it, it was desirable. They made a mistake in deployment that turned it into a scary mysterious blob. That's bad, but doesn't change the underlying nature of the code. We can agree that the exact same code in C, not showing up in any lists or menus, not triggering without a magic about:config phrase, would be a clear easter egg, right? (Also easter eggs don't inherently have to be fun, sometimes they're just someone's initials.)
petre 8y ago
Just don't use Pocket. Maybe then they'll remove it in five years like they did with RSS claiming low usage. If you don't use it there's also no money to be made.
- gregknicholson 8y ago
  It's on by default. I used to be able to recommend Firefox on the grounds that it was different by design — non-commercial, open source, and supporting the open web. I can't do that now without being an obvious liar, hypocrite and/or idiot.
  - SamWhited 8y ago
    More importantly, on the mobile version at least it is very difficult to turn off all the way and randomly comes back. On the desktop I found the option buried down in the settings to turn it off easier, but I think I still have a bunch of random broken pocket icons scattered about now that I had to dig through about:config to actually remove.

Dylan16807 8y ago

So the issue you're referencing is when they put the code for an easter egg in a dumb spot, which made people rightfully confused and worried. What does that have to do with independence and transparency?

albedoa 8y ago
> What does that have to do with independence and transparency? It was a marketing stunt performed in partnership with a television show and was installed without the user's knowledge or consent.
newacctjhro 8y ago
It wasn't an easter egg, it was advertising. Preinstalled in my fucking web browser.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  It was code that did absolutely nothing unless you set a secret flag. It was not advertising. It was an easter egg.
  - reitanqild 8y ago
    Background: I've been a Firefox fan for maybe 10 years and I still consider myself to be one > It was code that did absolutely nothing unless you set a secret flag. It destroyed a lot of trust. Seriously. I too was really confused when I suddenly saw an extension I never installed. (This could happen before when desktop installers could add extensions but I don't think they can anymore so I was properly confused until K searched for it on the Internet.) > It was not advertising. It was an easter egg. Those two are not mutually exclusive :-]
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      > It destroyed a lot of trust. The thing is, Mozilla has always had the ability to put arbitrary things into firefox, and it's always had easter eggs in it. The way they did it was a big mistake but from my point of view only because it was scary-looking (and showed their extension pipeline had issues, I guess), not because of what it actually did. > Those two are not mutually exclusive :-] How about this: It wasn't there to advertise to anyone that didn't already know about it.
      - reitanqild 8y ago
        I'd go a bit further about why it was a big mistake - basically I always knew they could put anything they wanted into Firefox but thought they'd never do such a childish thing in such a scary way. - but it seems we mostly agree on this.
        emn13 8y ago
        Would the you of many years ago that first started using firefox similarly have objected to an easter egg? I still don't have any problems with easter eggs. Give me back my whimsy.
        reitanqild 8y ago
        You might have caught me in hypocrisy, my jury is still out. I mean: I too like whimsy, and adding an about:<something noncommercial> would probably be ok with me. (In fact I think there was an easter egg on some about:-protocol-page st some point.) It was just the sudden surprise of seing an extension I didn't expect and then what at least felt like a hidden commercial motive on top of that.
        emn13 8y ago
        Yeah, they sure bungled that one up well. Maybe it's the jarring worlds of security! paranoia! Absolute Control! vs. the FF wants to fun! unpredictable! Think different (no wait, that slogan's tainted now...)! Given the way they present the extensions... it - in retrospect - should have been clear to them it would trigger more initial reactions from the first set of perspectives, and not just the second.
  - ldarby 8y ago
    Easter eggs are generally hidden and take users doing something special to find out about it. You calling this an easter egg had me confused as to what the hell this thread was about, searching for "firefox easter egg" shows nothing about it.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      So this is the looking glass thing. You could see the existence of the extension because of poor decisions. But it didn't turn on unless you went into about:config and manually flipped "extensions.pug.lookingglass" to true. Definitely intended as an easter egg. Even of the people getting upset about the visible extension, 99+% of them never saw the enabled effect.
      - ldarby 8y ago
        You're forgetting what "easter eggs" are IRL - chocolate eggs hidden in a back yard that people have to look for. The analogy applies to computing in 2 ways: they're hidden, and it's something desirable. Niether of those ways apply to what Mozilla did. Therefore it wasn't an easter egg and you trying to pretend otherwise is just confusing.
        Dylan16807 8y ago
        The intent was for it to be hidden! That's why it didn't activate! And for the person that would activate it, it was desirable. They made a mistake in deployment that turned it into a scary mysterious blob. That's bad, but doesn't change the underlying nature of the code. We can agree that the exact same code in C, not showing up in any lists or menus, not triggering without a magic about:config phrase, would be a clear easter egg, right? (Also easter eggs don't inherently have to be fun, sometimes they're just someone's initials.)

petre 8y ago

Just don't use Pocket. Maybe then they'll remove it in five years like they did with RSS claiming low usage. If you don't use it there's also no money to be made.

gregknicholson 8y ago
It's on by default. I used to be able to recommend Firefox on the grounds that it was different by design — non-commercial, open source, and supporting the open web. I can't do that now without being an obvious liar, hypocrite and/or idiot.
- SamWhited 8y ago
  More importantly, on the mobile version at least it is very difficult to turn off all the way and randomly comes back. On the desktop I found the option buried down in the settings to turn it off easier, but I think I still have a bunch of random broken pocket icons scattered about now that I had to dig through about:config to actually remove.