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Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

338 points by AndrewDucker 8y ago

kibwen 8y ago
HN mods: title is incorrect and misleading, should at least read "Bypass Paywalls add-on removed from Firefox add-ons store". The use of "Mozilla" in the title has caused a lot of confusion in this thread from people who haven't clicked through the link.
- Karunamon 8y ago
  Distinction without a difference, IMO. Mozilla has chosen to require this level of curation on Firefox against all complaints in the name of "safety", so they can also take the heat when their process results in an outcome like this. Their browser, their addon site, their decision, their fault.
  - kibwen 8y ago
    The idea that AMO shouldn't be curated is baffling. Browser extensions are the biggest malware vector since email attachments named `importantstuff.txt.exe`. The title saying that Mozilla "pulled" this extension is not merely incorrect, it is blatant misinformation.
    - shkkmo 8y ago
      >The idea that AMO shouldn't be curated is baffling. Browser extensions are the biggest malware vector since email attachments named `importantstuff.txt.exe`. This is a strawman, the GP did not say AMO shouldn't be curated. [Edit: added missing "n't"] > The title saying that Mozilla "pulled" this extension is not merely incorrect, it is blatant misinformation. Mozilla selected, manages and empowers the reviewer who made this decisions. Since organizations are not people, delegating authority like this is the only way that organizations can ever do anything. Therefor to claim that Mozilla did not do this is spurious at best. Now, Mozilla can disown the decision by saying the reviewer did not follow the appropriate process in making the decision. If that claim is shown to be true, only then would the title possibly be incorrect or misleading. Until then, Mozilla is as culpable for the authorized actions of its agents.
Reason077 8y ago
This is a cool add-on, but it does have the side-effect of making cookie-consent and GDPR popups/boxes appear for every page loaded. Can anyone recommend an add-on for automatically hiding/dismissing such popups?
- subsection1h 8y ago
  The following two solutions hide cookie messages. Fanboy's Anti-Cookie Filters (for uBlock Origin, etc.): https://www.fanboy.co.nz/ https://www.fanboy.co.nz/ I don't care about cookies (extension): https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-about-cookies/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-a... Here's an interesting discussion about the second solution: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/909 https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/909
laktak 8y ago
I don't want to subscribe, I also don't want to see ads or be tracked. I wish there was a universal micropayments way of paying for what I read.
- matt4077 8y ago
  publishers don’t like micropayments because (a) they don’t work, and (b) what people read doesn’t correlate with what’s important. It becomes a lot harder for journalists to justify spending months on a subject when the business side has hard data showing it brings in barely more than reprinting the soccer scores. What’s potentially workable is a Spotify-style subscription model.
  - aiCeivi9 8y ago
    It doesn't work, since people faced with paywall moe to competition that only has ads. If adblocking is common enough will try harder to make micropayments just work.
  - snaky 8y ago
    > what people read doesn’t correlate with what’s important What people read does correlate with what's important for them, by definition.
    - fwn 8y ago
      I would love to know more about this definition. If doing my taxes were as exciting as my reading list I would get much more out of my paycheck.
      - snaky 8y ago
        If the endorphins you get reading the content from your list is more important for you, so be it. You decide what's important for you, and that's the definition.
        8y ago
jape 8y ago
While this is extremely dubious behavior from Mozilla, and reminds me why I stopped donating to them (the moment Firefox started requiring _their_ signature in order to load addons), Mozilla still has the "automated signing API" in place. Supposedly, this API allows to get an XPI signed as long as it passes a series of automated checks. So it's worth a try. This was the excuse they used anyway when trying to justify their signature requirements were "not a walled garden". I didn't believe it of course. You can also just mark the addon as "not listed in AMO" when submitting it to addons.mozilla.org and it will not be listed on the store, but it will be signed. More details in https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Distribution https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Distribut...
- Vinnl 8y ago
  I've recently been experimenting with creating an extension, and the automated signing was literally one of the first things I did when I followed the Hello World tutorial. It's very easy to obtain an .xpi that you can distribute to your users yourself.
  - funklebunkle 8y ago
    How do you do this without leaking your code to mozilla?
    - Vinnl 8y ago
      I don't think you can have Mozilla sign it without letting them see the code.
    - idle_zealot 8y ago
      Out of curiosity, under what circumstances would you consider distributing an extension bundle to be leaking its code? Unless I'm misunderstanding, isn't this the same file you'll be distributing to your users? At first bluff it seems similar to worrying about leaking your website's frontend (I've got news for you...).
      - 8y ago
AndrewDucker 8y ago
The worst bit here is that they aren't explaining exactly which part of the ToS is being violated, and what needs to be done to fix it...
- fwn 8y ago
  A large part of corporate platform power is due to the ambiguity in decision making arising from the absence of clear and transparent processes or accountability regarding how the rules are applied. That's just a giant gateway for despotism.
  - dao- 8y ago
    It's unlikely that there's a corporate decision behind this. I wouldn't even call this a corporate platform. Let me copy-paste a comment from further below that deserves more attention: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18568302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18568302 > Here is what the creator actually said > >One of the community reviewers removed it from the store claiming it violated the ToS, which is BS. The ToS never mentions the word paywall once. Please support me in appealing! https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons#Getting_in_touch https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons#Getting_in_touch > Which sounds more like a zealous community member than Mozilla taking a position.
    - fwn 8y ago
      I didn't want to imply a corporate decision behind this specific case. Corporate power arises through the capability alone, not necessarily its frequent execution. I think that Mozilla is actually a great company to demonstrate how responsible platforms could operate. Past examples might be Pockets non cloud based recommendation engine or their encrypted user account setup.
- ghostly_s 8y ago
  Aren't they? The only real info I'm finding here is the terse comment from the dev in this thread claiming it was removed for vague "violated the ToS" reasons, but they have not shared the actual wording from the reviewer. It also looks like they have not even initiated voicing this objection to the ruling on the add-on developer forum. Directing your Github issue readers to spam the add-on support channels without providing them any real context seems pretty over the top, to me.
matt4077 8y ago
It’s good for Mozilla to take a stance, and drop the pretense that you can have the cake, eat it, and have all your other cookies left over. Circumventing paywalls is not a crime, but it is also not victimless. The crisis for journalism is already eating at the foundations of democracy on the local level. To blithely ignore this is the triump of short-sighted egoism. And the inability of publishers to prevent you from doing it is no more justification as the old shopkeeper’s failing eyes are a license for you to steal from the produce displayed outside.
- CzechTech 8y ago
  > The crisis for journalism is already eating at the foundations of democracy Haha this is exactly why it was pulled, some leftist idiot like you who thinks Trump is Hitler and the MSM are the Angels themselves got butthurt that somebody dares to take more money from an already dead medium.
- Endy 8y ago
  It's bad for Mozilla to take a stance that's obviously against the preferences of their users. They can't play both sides of the field - either you're for the User, or you're for the Corps. I once sincerely believed that Firefox was part of a statement that they would fight for the User. That disappeared somewhere between 4.0 and 27.0. I believed there was still some hope in Mozilla - all of it has been eroded over the years. So now, they've taken their stance. They don't want free users. They want corporate servants, the same as Microsoft, Apple, and Google.
dmortin 8y ago
The hard truth is someone has to pay for content in the end. It's either ads or some kind of paywall or micropayment. It's okay to say no to ads, but then we shouldn't circumvent paywalls. Free content is free only as long as someone somehow still pays for it.
- Lazare 8y ago
  I don't disagree, but that's a normative argument about what addons we should choose to use. My concern, however, is Mozilla putting themselves in the position of making that judgement for their users. Even if we agree that this isn't a good addon, does that mean it's fine for it to be censored by Mozilla?
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    The guidelines outright state that "Any add-ons, or add-on content, hosted on Mozilla site(s) must conform to the laws of the United States." The issue is that this addon falls in the murky category of neither being clearly legal nor clearly illegal. I suspect that the addon reviewer (who most likely does not work for Mozilla and is only a community volunteer!) felt that an addon advertising its purpose to get around copyright controls would have pushed it over the edge to illegal, even if it's only taking actions that are themselves legal.
- gpvos 8y ago
  Publishers should take some basic control of the ads on their site, just like it used to be with newspapers and broadcast. Serve them from their own domain, restrict their format (no moving parts or sound, no Javascript at all), vet them for basic decency before publishing. My uBlock Origin setup wouldn't block that.
  - dmortin 8y ago
    The problem is there are many smaller publishers on the net where a handful or only one or two people maintain a site. They don't have the capacity to look for advertisers or vet individual ads. That's why they use an ad provider which does this for them. What you say may work for big news portals and stuff, but if this becomes the norm then it will kill the small publishers resulting in further concentration of net content in the hands of the big guys. So this direction would hurt the little guys and help the big guys, because they have the resources to adapt.
ykevinator 8y ago
We need easy to use, non subscription micro payments. I was hopeful Bitcoin would do this but sadly it was never adopted as a mainstream payment platform.
- majewsky 8y ago
  Bitcoin does not scale to micropayments. Lightning could probably help, but the next problem is that Bitcoin's value is way too volatile for broader acceptance (which, I realize, is to a certain extent a chicken-and-egg problem).
- oarsinsync 8y ago
  Unfortunately, the very design of Bitcoin doesn't lend itself towards micropayments, due to the limited block size requirements. Variations (BCH) and addons (Lightning) attempt to address this, but BTC itself suffers from design flaws that restrict this.
- vesak 8y ago
  Stellar seems like a good platform for this. I'm investigating myself about implementing this, and it would be awesome.
boomboomsubban 8y ago
Here is what the creator actually said >One of the community reviewers removed it from the store claiming it violated the ToS, which is BS. The ToS never mentions the word paywall once. Please support me in appealing! https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons#Getting_in_touch https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons#Getting_in_touch Which sounds more like a zealous community member than Mozilla taking a position.
- soapdog 8y ago
  yes!!! people don't realize that volunteers review the addons and that sometimes they make mistakes. They start acting as if Mozilla sent an internal memo to kill something when it is usually not the case.
  - Aissen 8y ago
    If you read correctly, it was removed 15 days ago, and we have no idea what's the status since then.
    - soapdog 8y ago
      Did you try reaching out for the team in IRC or the mailing list?
      - Mindwipe 8y ago
        As a process, that is a flat out awful one.
        soapdog 8y ago
        Thats not the process, that is just a way to reach out for a team as apparently they've been unable to communicate with them. If you think about it it is great that you can actually use some channel to talk to people involved in a product you use. That is not that common. There is a process, it is through the AMO developer hub page for their addon. What I've been saying here is about ways to contact the team if they want to talk to them directly. From the Addon admin page, from the "review history" page, they have a form to message their review team. Usually, if something happen and by any reason your addon is rejects, you can use that form to escalate and find out why it happened. There is also an email address for escalating this stuff which I am assuming they've emailed already.
bitewhite 8y ago
If anyone is interested in installing this extension, I uploaded the .xpi file and instructions to install it in an issue on the git repo a few days ago [https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox/issues/82#issuecomment-441105276 https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox/issues...] Hopefully the maintainer puts the .xpi file somewhere it can be accessed. edit: someone has replied in the bottom of the git issue thread with a direct install link. use that instead
avian 8y ago
> Release and Beta versions of Firefox do not allow unsigned extensions to be installed I'm really disappointed at Mozilla regarding this. I recently wanted to do some Firefox customization for my own private use (not even an extension, I just wanted to have some visual indication of which Firefox windows belong to which profile). I was surprised to find out that even just a header .png in a theme can't be loaded locally but must be on-line and vetted by Mozilla. Utter craziness.
- Vinnl 8y ago
  Why must it be online? Can't you package it with the theme? (I have no experience creating themes, but I can package images with an extension. I only have to upload it for Mozilla to sign them, but after that I can download the signed package and load that locally.)
- myfonj 8y ago
  You can use `<profile folder>\chrome\userChrome.css` for that, perhaps. https://www.userchrome.org/ https://www.userchrome.org/
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  Have you thought about just using Firefox containers? You can maintain containers that have completely separate login sessions with their own icons and colors. I use it to develop and test out 5 different user roles (or whatever) for different web applications, it's very useful. If interested check this plugin out: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-account...
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  Is for your own good comrade! If Mozilla let you make your own decisions, you might make wrong ones, so is better this way.
- zaarn 8y ago
  IIRC you can install unsigned extensions in the dev and nightly as well as unbranded versions of firefox (usually the last option means compiling it yourself). Mozilla is, to some extend understandably, concerned with the image of Firefox and patrolling what Addons are available in the store is part of that. Apple does the very same thing.
znhy 8y ago
Mozilla shooting themselves in the foot again? Really, these people can't take a break. What's worse is that both Google and Mozilla are equally vile, so what browser am I supposed to use? In the end I guess I'll go with Brave.
- smt88 8y ago
  The idea that Google and Mozilla are equally vile is so ludicrous that I wouldn't even know where to begin refuting it.
  - znhy 8y ago
    You are right, and I apologise. Firefox has had many more scandals than Chrome by far. Sending my private data to Cliqz, Mr. Robot addon being installed remotely, showing ads on the home page by default, preinstalling Pocket, etc.
- soapdog 8y ago
  You're kind overreacting here. Addons are reviewed by volunteers. Someone thought this violates the policies and acted. There are many ways to verify what is happening, including talking to the AMO team on IRC or other communication channel. It is not like you can't ask for clarification, it might all just be a honest mistake.
  - znhy 8y ago
    Addon security is vital to the security of the browser. The fact that addons are reviewed by volunteers, instead of employees, is even more ludicrous.
- AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
  A lot of my friends have moved to qutebrowser.
doe88 8y ago
Meanwhile in useless podcast ads they try to paint Firefox as the parangon of virtue for users privacy.
- hartator 8y ago
  Yeah, I don’t get Mozilla fanboys when it’s not the first time they are doing things in the like.
village-idiot 8y ago
Mozilla’s rhetoric and their actions have been drifting apart for years now.
soapdog 8y ago
Lots of heat in this thread... So, Addons are mostly reviewed by volunteers. Sometimes people make mistakes. The best course of action is to try to reach out for the AMO team on IRC or their mailing list. - Addons forum is at https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/add-ons https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/add-ons - All contact info for AMO dev stuff is at: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons#Contact_us https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons#Con... - Developer Hub for addons is at: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/ There is no need for FUD or conspiracy theories. We can just talk to people and find out what happened and maybe revert it if possible.
- modzu 8y ago
  this. from experience, the group at AMO does a good job even tho it's unpraised and when working well it's basically transparent. so i don't think they deserve all this heat (unless attempts to correct the mistake reveal some actual conspiracy ;)
- motdiem 8y ago
  My experience with firefox add-on reviewers has been hit or miss - One of the most frustrating things is that reviews often happen long after your add-on has been published. I'd rather have a longer waiting time, but once an add-on is published then it means it's been approved. From the developer point of view it means that it's very hard to communicate on releases, because you never know when your addon is going to be reviewed. From the end user, it means that if someone maliciouly changes one of your addons, you may already have updated to that version before the review. I also feel that the guidelines around reviews aren't well explained, and the reviewers comments are often terse, bordering on the incomprehensible : at least with Apple, you get pointed to which part of the rules they think you didn't respect - with firefox, we often get broad comments that require a bit of back and forth to figure out what it is they're actually thinking is wrong.
  - kbrosnan 8y ago
    This was the old model and it put a lot of pressure on the volunteer add-on reviewers and their were times where the delays stretched out to several months.
gradschool 8y ago
Isn't this exactly the kind of user-hostile behavior open source is supposed to prevent? Apologies if this is a naive question, but how hard would it be to delete the parts of the release version of the Firefox source code that pertain to checking signatures for add-ons and recompile it?
- zaarn 8y ago
  You don't need to delete anything, simply use the developer version, nightly or an unbranded version. Unbranded is a compile option. It's not really user hostile either, from what I gather one of the volunteers who check addons has flagged the addon for violating the ToS. They may have had that impression and the author can bring it up elsewhere (there is plenty of contact points for addon authors) or resubmit the addon and see if another volunteer waves it through.
- kbumsik 8y ago
  > Isn't this exactly the kind of user-hostile behavior open source is supposed to prevent? What part of behavior is user-hostile?
  - Karunamon 8y ago
    Preventing the user from installing whatever they choose, for starters.
    - kbumsik 8y ago
      > for starters. It is not only for starter but for the whole platform ecosystem. It is not even user-hostile. It is just to prevent "Nah forget Firefox add-on market, just install this file" fragmentation. Firefox add-on platform is already much smaller than Google chrome (of course). I wouldn't be happy if the market got even smaller because of the fragmentation. And Firefox already allows us to install whatever we want in dev/nightly version, for hackers. So I don't see any problems here.
      - 8y ago
adam12 8y ago
Now I want it.
millzlane 8y ago
It's always about money. It's not about a free and open web.
- Endy 8y ago
  Someone else has finally figured it out.
nyghtly 8y ago
Waiting for the day when news sites start blocking your IP when you circumvent the paywall--to bad there isn't an add-on for that right?
beart 8y ago
I've never understood how paywall bypass addons can be considered ethical. Even if you hate paywalls, it's the publisher's decision to use them. If I were to take a newspaper from a news stand without paying because there's an article I want to read but I don't want to pay, is that much different? I'm honestly asking what the justification is for people who use these addons. Do you not consider it unethical or do you not care? To clarify the tone of this post, I'm not trying to judge the value of someone's character based on if they bypass paywalls, I'm really just interested in other perspectives on this.
- dleslie 8y ago
  Remember when there were scandals in the early days of digitization where redacted government documents were easily revealed because the redaction was performed by layering a black rectangle on top of the PDF text? The text was there to read for anyone savvy enough to remove the rectangles. The solution, of course, was to remove the text from the PDF altogether. Paywalls are a similar sort of measure: if publishers don't want their content to be available without payment then they ought not serve it publicly. Similarly, if they don't want users using adblock then they ought not serve the content to those who fail to load the ads. Is it ethical to bypass flimsy DRM? The bits are on the user's computer and are processed by the user's software at the user's discretion. Publishers _may_ have no right to exert control upon the user's property; and I suppose whether they do is the crux of concern.
- Karunamon 8y ago
  >is that much different? Well, considering we're talking about physical vs digital, it's inherently different. But let's ignore that; it's still not even close. You send content to my browser, my agent acting on my behalf, and it is up to me how I render that content. If that bothers you, don't send me the content. You as a publisher have no inherent right, be it moral, ethical, or legal, to have content displayed a certain way on my screen.
- jccalhoun 8y ago
  I use it because I am not a regular reader of any paywalled site. If I end up at one it is because I saw a post about it or it showed up in a search result. At that point I don't even know if the article is any good so I'm not going to jump through hoops to view the article. Is it ethical? Probably not but since it is at most something like 1 article a month that I read from any of these sites then I can justify it to myself.
snek 8y ago
you can sign and distribute xpi addons without putting them on the addon marketplace
vesak 8y ago
Bypassing paywalls is easily in top ten most evil things you can do as a consumer in a modern information society. We should pay for the things we consume, with money. But only with money. Then again, if the thing behind the paywall expects money and tracks/mines you, then fuck'em.
dec0dedab0de 8y ago
What I want is something that blackholes links to paywalled sites from search results, hackernews, and social media.
alexeiz 8y ago
Thanks, Mozilla. I never knew about this useful extension. But now I do and I'm going to install and use it. Use it in Chrome, of course. I stopped caring about Firefox a long time ago.
superkuh 8y ago
This would not be an issue at all if Firefox had not jumped the shark in version 37 by implementing anti-user features like requiring Mozilla approval (signed) to run add-ons.
- tux1968 8y ago
  The idea is to protect users, not hurt them in any way. Anyone can sign and run their own add-ons, or offer those add-ons for others to use. The only thing being restricted now is who can distribute their addons via addons.mozilla.org, which seems more than fair.
  - Endy 8y ago
    The idea might be good. The execution is harmful to users, and they refuse to roll it back. That's all that matters. Mozilla has shown this pattern consistently - they have an idea they think will be good for people, and when it ends up being hurtful and damaging not only the core product but the userbase - driving more people to alternate browsers - they steadfastly refuse to see what's going on around them. Frankly, those of us who went to Pale Moon may as well have been the last rats off a sinking ship.
    - __david__ 8y ago
      > The idea might be good. The execution is harmful to users, and they refuse to roll it back. Howso? I've been using FF forever and I didn't notice this change…
      - Endy 8y ago
        I'm glad that all of the addons you use are the ones they've approved of and which haven't been made incompatible by any of the major breaking changes they've introduced in the last few years.
        rrix2 8y ago
        Those seem like two entirely unrelated issues
buboard 8y ago
I 'm going to have to defend Mozilla here. There is this very perverse idea here that everything should be free, but that's only because you are used to using VC-funded services with an expiration (acquisition) date. This seems to be endemic thinking in SV but the rest of the world has to make their own paycheck. Maybe mozilla should think of experimenting with some micropayment service though. They are ideally positioned for that.
- probably_wrong 8y ago
  I would argue that this position is contrary to Mozilla's stated values about freedom on the web. If they truly support freedom, that should include my freedom to decide which add-ons I want to run on my browser. Sure, they can have an opinion about where should the web go, and in fact it would probably be a very well-informed one. But they can't both claim to support freedom for their users while, at the same time, imposing their ideas on their users.
  - ghostly_s 8y ago
    Which "position"? No one has even shared the stated reasoning for removing this extension yet. Just a bunch of people jumping at an opportunity to disparage Evil Mozilla in here with no details on the real situation. This whole thread should be deleted if you ask me.
- wetpaws 8y ago
  This is a huge PR issue for Mozilla given how their entire strategy nowadays is to promote free and open internet.
crankylinuxuser 8y ago
After reading all these comments, perhaps its time to branch Firefox to something else? This situation feels like the old Mozilla vs Firefox issue that happened a decade and a half ago. Perhaps the fact that the Mozilla Foundation is treating their browser like an Apple device is the final impetus to move elsewhere?
- kodablah 8y ago
  Unfortunately, with the size and scope of a browser and the sheer numbers of features constantly being added, this is a difficult task. What would be ideal is a company (preferably with financial incentive to do so) maintaining an embeddable, highly configurable form of FF (ala CEF[0]) and then the rest of us can build UI around it. [0] - https://bitbucket.org/chromiumembedded/cef https://bitbucket.org/chromiumembedded/cef
championshutler 8y ago
Hi All, You can reach out to addon reviewers in #addon-reviewers in Mozilla IRC server or shoot an email at amo-admins AT mozilla DOT org.
Amy_Anders 8y ago
Thank you so much for bringing up this topic. I love mozilla more than internet explorer. https://confidenceclub.com.au https://confidenceclub.com.au
KronenR 8y ago
Thank you Mozilla I didn't knew about this very helpful extension.
russdpale 8y ago
Boy, ungoogled chrome and brave are looking mighty appeasing at the moment. Im not sure how long I can continue to support mozilla.. Why do they keep doing these things? They can't just be satisfied with what they were? Profit over all, always and forever.
- gkoberger 8y ago
  In your mind, how is this decision one that was made to increase profit?
mariuolo 8y ago
Is it a matter of liability on part of Mozilla's? Could they be have been sued?

338 points by AndrewDucker 8y ago

HN mods: title is incorrect and misleading, should at least read "Bypass Paywalls add-on removed from Firefox add-ons store". The use of "Mozilla" in the title has caused a lot of confusion in this thread from people who haven't clicked through the link.

Karunamon 8y ago
Distinction without a difference, IMO. Mozilla has chosen to require this level of curation on Firefox against all complaints in the name of "safety", so they can also take the heat when their process results in an outcome like this. Their browser, their addon site, their decision, their fault.
- kibwen 8y ago
  The idea that AMO shouldn't be curated is baffling. Browser extensions are the biggest malware vector since email attachments named `importantstuff.txt.exe`. The title saying that Mozilla "pulled" this extension is not merely incorrect, it is blatant misinformation.
  - shkkmo 8y ago
    >The idea that AMO shouldn't be curated is baffling. Browser extensions are the biggest malware vector since email attachments named `importantstuff.txt.exe`. This is a strawman, the GP did not say AMO shouldn't be curated. [Edit: added missing "n't"] > The title saying that Mozilla "pulled" this extension is not merely incorrect, it is blatant misinformation. Mozilla selected, manages and empowers the reviewer who made this decisions. Since organizations are not people, delegating authority like this is the only way that organizations can ever do anything. Therefor to claim that Mozilla did not do this is spurious at best. Now, Mozilla can disown the decision by saying the reviewer did not follow the appropriate process in making the decision. If that claim is shown to be true, only then would the title possibly be incorrect or misleading. Until then, Mozilla is as culpable for the authorized actions of its agents.

Reason077 8y ago

This is a cool add-on, but it does have the side-effect of making cookie-consent and GDPR popups/boxes appear for every page loaded. Can anyone recommend an add-on for automatically hiding/dismissing such popups?

subsection1h 8y ago
The following two solutions hide cookie messages. Fanboy's Anti-Cookie Filters (for uBlock Origin, etc.): https://www.fanboy.co.nz/ https://www.fanboy.co.nz/ I don't care about cookies (extension): https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-about-cookies/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-a... Here's an interesting discussion about the second solution: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/909 https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/909

laktak 8y ago

I don't want to subscribe, I also don't want to see ads or be tracked. I wish there was a universal micropayments way of paying for what I read.

matt4077 8y ago
publishers don’t like micropayments because (a) they don’t work, and (b) what people read doesn’t correlate with what’s important. It becomes a lot harder for journalists to justify spending months on a subject when the business side has hard data showing it brings in barely more than reprinting the soccer scores. What’s potentially workable is a Spotify-style subscription model.
- aiCeivi9 8y ago
  It doesn't work, since people faced with paywall moe to competition that only has ads. If adblocking is common enough will try harder to make micropayments just work.
- snaky 8y ago
  > what people read doesn’t correlate with what’s important What people read does correlate with what's important for them, by definition.
  - fwn 8y ago
    I would love to know more about this definition. If doing my taxes were as exciting as my reading list I would get much more out of my paycheck.
    - snaky 8y ago
      If the endorphins you get reading the content from your list is more important for you, so be it. You decide what's important for you, and that's the definition.
      - 8y ago

jape 8y ago

While this is extremely dubious behavior from Mozilla, and reminds me why I stopped donating to them (the moment Firefox started requiring _their_ signature in order to load addons), Mozilla still has the "automated signing API" in place. Supposedly, this API allows to get an XPI signed as long as it passes a series of automated checks. So it's worth a try. This was the excuse they used anyway when trying to justify their signature requirements were "not a walled garden". I didn't believe it of course. You can also just mark the addon as "not listed in AMO" when submitting it to addons.mozilla.org and it will not be listed on the store, but it will be signed. More details in https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Distribution https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Distribut...

Vinnl 8y ago
I've recently been experimenting with creating an extension, and the automated signing was literally one of the first things I did when I followed the Hello World tutorial. It's very easy to obtain an .xpi that you can distribute to your users yourself.
- funklebunkle 8y ago
  How do you do this without leaking your code to mozilla?
  - Vinnl 8y ago
    I don't think you can have Mozilla sign it without letting them see the code.
  - idle_zealot 8y ago
    Out of curiosity, under what circumstances would you consider distributing an extension bundle to be leaking its code? Unless I'm misunderstanding, isn't this the same file you'll be distributing to your users? At first bluff it seems similar to worrying about leaking your website's frontend (I've got news for you...).
    - 8y ago

AndrewDucker 8y ago

The worst bit here is that they aren't explaining exactly which part of the ToS is being violated, and what needs to be done to fix it...

fwn 8y ago
A large part of corporate platform power is due to the ambiguity in decision making arising from the absence of clear and transparent processes or accountability regarding how the rules are applied. That's just a giant gateway for despotism.
- dao- 8y ago
  It's unlikely that there's a corporate decision behind this. I wouldn't even call this a corporate platform. Let me copy-paste a comment from further below that deserves more attention: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18568302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18568302 > Here is what the creator actually said > >One of the community reviewers removed it from the store claiming it violated the ToS, which is BS. The ToS never mentions the word paywall once. Please support me in appealing! https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons#Getting_in_touch https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons#Getting_in_touch > Which sounds more like a zealous community member than Mozilla taking a position.
  - fwn 8y ago
    I didn't want to imply a corporate decision behind this specific case. Corporate power arises through the capability alone, not necessarily its frequent execution. I think that Mozilla is actually a great company to demonstrate how responsible platforms could operate. Past examples might be Pockets non cloud based recommendation engine or their encrypted user account setup.
ghostly_s 8y ago
Aren't they? The only real info I'm finding here is the terse comment from the dev in this thread claiming it was removed for vague "violated the ToS" reasons, but they have not shared the actual wording from the reviewer. It also looks like they have not even initiated voicing this objection to the ruling on the add-on developer forum. Directing your Github issue readers to spam the add-on support channels without providing them any real context seems pretty over the top, to me.

matt4077 8y ago

It’s good for Mozilla to take a stance, and drop the pretense that you can have the cake, eat it, and have all your other cookies left over. Circumventing paywalls is not a crime, but it is also not victimless. The crisis for journalism is already eating at the foundations of democracy on the local level. To blithely ignore this is the triump of short-sighted egoism. And the inability of publishers to prevent you from doing it is no more justification as the old shopkeeper’s failing eyes are a license for you to steal from the produce displayed outside.

CzechTech 8y ago
> The crisis for journalism is already eating at the foundations of democracy Haha this is exactly why it was pulled, some leftist idiot like you who thinks Trump is Hitler and the MSM are the Angels themselves got butthurt that somebody dares to take more money from an already dead medium.
Endy 8y ago
It's bad for Mozilla to take a stance that's obviously against the preferences of their users. They can't play both sides of the field - either you're for the User, or you're for the Corps. I once sincerely believed that Firefox was part of a statement that they would fight for the User. That disappeared somewhere between 4.0 and 27.0. I believed there was still some hope in Mozilla - all of it has been eroded over the years. So now, they've taken their stance. They don't want free users. They want corporate servants, the same as Microsoft, Apple, and Google.

dmortin 8y ago

The hard truth is someone has to pay for content in the end. It's either ads or some kind of paywall or micropayment. It's okay to say no to ads, but then we shouldn't circumvent paywalls. Free content is free only as long as someone somehow still pays for it.

Lazare 8y ago
I don't disagree, but that's a normative argument about what addons we should choose to use. My concern, however, is Mozilla putting themselves in the position of making that judgement for their users. Even if we agree that this isn't a good addon, does that mean it's fine for it to be censored by Mozilla?
- jcranmer 8y ago
  The guidelines outright state that "Any add-ons, or add-on content, hosted on Mozilla site(s) must conform to the laws of the United States." The issue is that this addon falls in the murky category of neither being clearly legal nor clearly illegal. I suspect that the addon reviewer (who most likely does not work for Mozilla and is only a community volunteer!) felt that an addon advertising its purpose to get around copyright controls would have pushed it over the edge to illegal, even if it's only taking actions that are themselves legal.
gpvos 8y ago
Publishers should take some basic control of the ads on their site, just like it used to be with newspapers and broadcast. Serve them from their own domain, restrict their format (no moving parts or sound, no Javascript at all), vet them for basic decency before publishing. My uBlock Origin setup wouldn't block that.
- dmortin 8y ago
  The problem is there are many smaller publishers on the net where a handful or only one or two people maintain a site. They don't have the capacity to look for advertisers or vet individual ads. That's why they use an ad provider which does this for them. What you say may work for big news portals and stuff, but if this becomes the norm then it will kill the small publishers resulting in further concentration of net content in the hands of the big guys. So this direction would hurt the little guys and help the big guys, because they have the resources to adapt.

ykevinator 8y ago

We need easy to use, non subscription micro payments. I was hopeful Bitcoin would do this but sadly it was never adopted as a mainstream payment platform.

majewsky 8y ago
Bitcoin does not scale to micropayments. Lightning could probably help, but the next problem is that Bitcoin's value is way too volatile for broader acceptance (which, I realize, is to a certain extent a chicken-and-egg problem).
oarsinsync 8y ago
Unfortunately, the very design of Bitcoin doesn't lend itself towards micropayments, due to the limited block size requirements. Variations (BCH) and addons (Lightning) attempt to address this, but BTC itself suffers from design flaws that restrict this.
vesak 8y ago
Stellar seems like a good platform for this. I'm investigating myself about implementing this, and it would be awesome.

boomboomsubban 8y ago

Here is what the creator actually said >One of the community reviewers removed it from the store claiming it violated the ToS, which is BS. The ToS never mentions the word paywall once. Please support me in appealing! https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons#Getting_in_touch https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons#Getting_in_touch Which sounds more like a zealous community member than Mozilla taking a position.

soapdog 8y ago
yes!!! people don't realize that volunteers review the addons and that sometimes they make mistakes. They start acting as if Mozilla sent an internal memo to kill something when it is usually not the case.
- Aissen 8y ago
  If you read correctly, it was removed 15 days ago, and we have no idea what's the status since then.
  - soapdog 8y ago
    Did you try reaching out for the team in IRC or the mailing list?
    - Mindwipe 8y ago
      As a process, that is a flat out awful one.
      - soapdog 8y ago
        Thats not the process, that is just a way to reach out for a team as apparently they've been unable to communicate with them. If you think about it it is great that you can actually use some channel to talk to people involved in a product you use. That is not that common. There is a process, it is through the AMO developer hub page for their addon. What I've been saying here is about ways to contact the team if they want to talk to them directly. From the Addon admin page, from the "review history" page, they have a form to message their review team. Usually, if something happen and by any reason your addon is rejects, you can use that form to escalate and find out why it happened. There is also an email address for escalating this stuff which I am assuming they've emailed already.

bitewhite 8y ago

If anyone is interested in installing this extension, I uploaded the .xpi file and instructions to install it in an issue on the git repo a few days ago [https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox/issues/82#issuecomment-441105276 https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox/issues...] Hopefully the maintainer puts the .xpi file somewhere it can be accessed. edit: someone has replied in the bottom of the git issue thread with a direct install link. use that instead

avian 8y ago

> Release and Beta versions of Firefox do not allow unsigned extensions to be installed I'm really disappointed at Mozilla regarding this. I recently wanted to do some Firefox customization for my own private use (not even an extension, I just wanted to have some visual indication of which Firefox windows belong to which profile). I was surprised to find out that even just a header .png in a theme can't be loaded locally but must be on-line and vetted by Mozilla. Utter craziness.

Vinnl 8y ago
Why must it be online? Can't you package it with the theme? (I have no experience creating themes, but I can package images with an extension. I only have to upload it for Mozilla to sign them, but after that I can download the signed package and load that locally.)
myfonj 8y ago
You can use `<profile folder>\chrome\userChrome.css` for that, perhaps. https://www.userchrome.org/ https://www.userchrome.org/
giancarlostoro 8y ago
Have you thought about just using Firefox containers? You can maintain containers that have completely separate login sessions with their own icons and colors. I use it to develop and test out 5 different user roles (or whatever) for different web applications, it's very useful. If interested check this plugin out: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-account...
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
Is for your own good comrade! If Mozilla let you make your own decisions, you might make wrong ones, so is better this way.
zaarn 8y ago
IIRC you can install unsigned extensions in the dev and nightly as well as unbranded versions of firefox (usually the last option means compiling it yourself). Mozilla is, to some extend understandably, concerned with the image of Firefox and patrolling what Addons are available in the store is part of that. Apple does the very same thing.

znhy 8y ago

Mozilla shooting themselves in the foot again? Really, these people can't take a break. What's worse is that both Google and Mozilla are equally vile, so what browser am I supposed to use? In the end I guess I'll go with Brave.

smt88 8y ago
The idea that Google and Mozilla are equally vile is so ludicrous that I wouldn't even know where to begin refuting it.
- znhy 8y ago
  You are right, and I apologise. Firefox has had many more scandals than Chrome by far. Sending my private data to Cliqz, Mr. Robot addon being installed remotely, showing ads on the home page by default, preinstalling Pocket, etc.
soapdog 8y ago
You're kind overreacting here. Addons are reviewed by volunteers. Someone thought this violates the policies and acted. There are many ways to verify what is happening, including talking to the AMO team on IRC or other communication channel. It is not like you can't ask for clarification, it might all just be a honest mistake.
- znhy 8y ago
  Addon security is vital to the security of the browser. The fact that addons are reviewed by volunteers, instead of employees, is even more ludicrous.
AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
A lot of my friends have moved to qutebrowser.

doe88 8y ago

Meanwhile in useless podcast ads they try to paint Firefox as the parangon of virtue for users privacy.

hartator 8y ago
Yeah, I don’t get Mozilla fanboys when it’s not the first time they are doing things in the like.

village-idiot 8y ago

Mozilla’s rhetoric and their actions have been drifting apart for years now.

soapdog 8y ago

Lots of heat in this thread... So, Addons are mostly reviewed by volunteers. Sometimes people make mistakes. The best course of action is to try to reach out for the AMO team on IRC or their mailing list. - Addons forum is at https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/add-ons https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/add-ons - All contact info for AMO dev stuff is at: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons#Contact_us https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons#Con... - Developer Hub for addons is at: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/ There is no need for FUD or conspiracy theories. We can just talk to people and find out what happened and maybe revert it if possible.

modzu 8y ago
this. from experience, the group at AMO does a good job even tho it's unpraised and when working well it's basically transparent. so i don't think they deserve all this heat (unless attempts to correct the mistake reveal some actual conspiracy ;)
motdiem 8y ago
My experience with firefox add-on reviewers has been hit or miss - One of the most frustrating things is that reviews often happen long after your add-on has been published. I'd rather have a longer waiting time, but once an add-on is published then it means it's been approved. From the developer point of view it means that it's very hard to communicate on releases, because you never know when your addon is going to be reviewed. From the end user, it means that if someone maliciouly changes one of your addons, you may already have updated to that version before the review. I also feel that the guidelines around reviews aren't well explained, and the reviewers comments are often terse, bordering on the incomprehensible : at least with Apple, you get pointed to which part of the rules they think you didn't respect - with firefox, we often get broad comments that require a bit of back and forth to figure out what it is they're actually thinking is wrong.
- kbrosnan 8y ago
  This was the old model and it put a lot of pressure on the volunteer add-on reviewers and their were times where the delays stretched out to several months.

gradschool 8y ago

Isn't this exactly the kind of user-hostile behavior open source is supposed to prevent? Apologies if this is a naive question, but how hard would it be to delete the parts of the release version of the Firefox source code that pertain to checking signatures for add-ons and recompile it?

zaarn 8y ago
You don't need to delete anything, simply use the developer version, nightly or an unbranded version. Unbranded is a compile option. It's not really user hostile either, from what I gather one of the volunteers who check addons has flagged the addon for violating the ToS. They may have had that impression and the author can bring it up elsewhere (there is plenty of contact points for addon authors) or resubmit the addon and see if another volunteer waves it through.
kbumsik 8y ago
> Isn't this exactly the kind of user-hostile behavior open source is supposed to prevent? What part of behavior is user-hostile?
- Karunamon 8y ago
  Preventing the user from installing whatever they choose, for starters.
  - kbumsik 8y ago
    > for starters. It is not only for starter but for the whole platform ecosystem. It is not even user-hostile. It is just to prevent "Nah forget Firefox add-on market, just install this file" fragmentation. Firefox add-on platform is already much smaller than Google chrome (of course). I wouldn't be happy if the market got even smaller because of the fragmentation. And Firefox already allows us to install whatever we want in dev/nightly version, for hackers. So I don't see any problems here.
    - 8y ago

adam12 8y ago

Now I want it.

millzlane 8y ago

It's always about money. It's not about a free and open web.

Endy 8y ago
Someone else has finally figured it out.

nyghtly 8y ago

Waiting for the day when news sites start blocking your IP when you circumvent the paywall--to bad there isn't an add-on for that right?

beart 8y ago

I've never understood how paywall bypass addons can be considered ethical. Even if you hate paywalls, it's the publisher's decision to use them. If I were to take a newspaper from a news stand without paying because there's an article I want to read but I don't want to pay, is that much different? I'm honestly asking what the justification is for people who use these addons. Do you not consider it unethical or do you not care? To clarify the tone of this post, I'm not trying to judge the value of someone's character based on if they bypass paywalls, I'm really just interested in other perspectives on this.

dleslie 8y ago
Remember when there were scandals in the early days of digitization where redacted government documents were easily revealed because the redaction was performed by layering a black rectangle on top of the PDF text? The text was there to read for anyone savvy enough to remove the rectangles. The solution, of course, was to remove the text from the PDF altogether. Paywalls are a similar sort of measure: if publishers don't want their content to be available without payment then they ought not serve it publicly. Similarly, if they don't want users using adblock then they ought not serve the content to those who fail to load the ads. Is it ethical to bypass flimsy DRM? The bits are on the user's computer and are processed by the user's software at the user's discretion. Publishers _may_ have no right to exert control upon the user's property; and I suppose whether they do is the crux of concern.
Karunamon 8y ago
>is that much different? Well, considering we're talking about physical vs digital, it's inherently different. But let's ignore that; it's still not even close. You send content to my browser, my agent acting on my behalf, and it is up to me how I render that content. If that bothers you, don't send me the content. You as a publisher have no inherent right, be it moral, ethical, or legal, to have content displayed a certain way on my screen.
jccalhoun 8y ago
I use it because I am not a regular reader of any paywalled site. If I end up at one it is because I saw a post about it or it showed up in a search result. At that point I don't even know if the article is any good so I'm not going to jump through hoops to view the article. Is it ethical? Probably not but since it is at most something like 1 article a month that I read from any of these sites then I can justify it to myself.

snek 8y ago

you can sign and distribute xpi addons without putting them on the addon marketplace

vesak 8y ago

Bypassing paywalls is easily in top ten most evil things you can do as a consumer in a modern information society. We should pay for the things we consume, with money. But only with money. Then again, if the thing behind the paywall expects money and tracks/mines you, then fuck'em.

dec0dedab0de 8y ago

What I want is something that blackholes links to paywalled sites from search results, hackernews, and social media.

alexeiz 8y ago

Thanks, Mozilla. I never knew about this useful extension. But now I do and I'm going to install and use it. Use it in Chrome, of course. I stopped caring about Firefox a long time ago.

superkuh 8y ago

This would not be an issue at all if Firefox had not jumped the shark in version 37 by implementing anti-user features like requiring Mozilla approval (signed) to run add-ons.

tux1968 8y ago
The idea is to protect users, not hurt them in any way. Anyone can sign and run their own add-ons, or offer those add-ons for others to use. The only thing being restricted now is who can distribute their addons via addons.mozilla.org, which seems more than fair.
- Endy 8y ago
  The idea might be good. The execution is harmful to users, and they refuse to roll it back. That's all that matters. Mozilla has shown this pattern consistently - they have an idea they think will be good for people, and when it ends up being hurtful and damaging not only the core product but the userbase - driving more people to alternate browsers - they steadfastly refuse to see what's going on around them. Frankly, those of us who went to Pale Moon may as well have been the last rats off a sinking ship.
  - __david__ 8y ago
    > The idea might be good. The execution is harmful to users, and they refuse to roll it back. Howso? I've been using FF forever and I didn't notice this change…
    - Endy 8y ago
      I'm glad that all of the addons you use are the ones they've approved of and which haven't been made incompatible by any of the major breaking changes they've introduced in the last few years.
      - rrix2 8y ago
        Those seem like two entirely unrelated issues

buboard 8y ago

I 'm going to have to defend Mozilla here. There is this very perverse idea here that everything should be free, but that's only because you are used to using VC-funded services with an expiration (acquisition) date. This seems to be endemic thinking in SV but the rest of the world has to make their own paycheck. Maybe mozilla should think of experimenting with some micropayment service though. They are ideally positioned for that.

probably_wrong 8y ago
I would argue that this position is contrary to Mozilla's stated values about freedom on the web. If they truly support freedom, that should include my freedom to decide which add-ons I want to run on my browser. Sure, they can have an opinion about where should the web go, and in fact it would probably be a very well-informed one. But they can't both claim to support freedom for their users while, at the same time, imposing their ideas on their users.
- ghostly_s 8y ago
  Which "position"? No one has even shared the stated reasoning for removing this extension yet. Just a bunch of people jumping at an opportunity to disparage Evil Mozilla in here with no details on the real situation. This whole thread should be deleted if you ask me.
wetpaws 8y ago
This is a huge PR issue for Mozilla given how their entire strategy nowadays is to promote free and open internet.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago

After reading all these comments, perhaps its time to branch Firefox to something else? This situation feels like the old Mozilla vs Firefox issue that happened a decade and a half ago. Perhaps the fact that the Mozilla Foundation is treating their browser like an Apple device is the final impetus to move elsewhere?

kodablah 8y ago
Unfortunately, with the size and scope of a browser and the sheer numbers of features constantly being added, this is a difficult task. What would be ideal is a company (preferably with financial incentive to do so) maintaining an embeddable, highly configurable form of FF (ala CEF[0]) and then the rest of us can build UI around it. [0] - https://bitbucket.org/chromiumembedded/cef https://bitbucket.org/chromiumembedded/cef

championshutler 8y ago

Hi All, You can reach out to addon reviewers in #addon-reviewers in Mozilla IRC server or shoot an email at amo-admins AT mozilla DOT org.

Amy_Anders 8y ago

Thank you so much for bringing up this topic. I love mozilla more than internet explorer. https://confidenceclub.com.au https://confidenceclub.com.au

KronenR 8y ago

Thank you Mozilla I didn't knew about this very helpful extension.

russdpale 8y ago

Boy, ungoogled chrome and brave are looking mighty appeasing at the moment. Im not sure how long I can continue to support mozilla.. Why do they keep doing these things? They can't just be satisfied with what they were? Profit over all, always and forever.

gkoberger 8y ago
In your mind, how is this decision one that was made to increase profit?

mariuolo 8y ago

Is it a matter of liability on part of Mozilla's? Could they be have been sued?