6 ms·

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).

by 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.

funklebunkle 8y ago
> Apple does the very same thing. I understand that Apple does everything in its power to make the life of developers miserable (such as requiring a Mac to be used for iOS development), but Mozilla were supposed to be the good guys on the web.
- mkirklions 8y ago
  Can we be friends? As a Dev, Apple has been my biggest obstacle for a mainstream app. I'm not sure if HN has lots of Apple fans, or Apple marketing patrols HN, but these comments are describing real problems but are constantly downvoted. EDIT: We have been found. These Apple accounts don't even respond to legitimate points.
  - sctb 8y ago
    Please stop breaking the guidelines: > Please don't impute astroturfing or shillage. That degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about it, email us and we'll look at the data. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- zaarn 8y ago
  I think you misunderstood there. Apple's primary aim by limiting the access to the store isn't to make devs miserable, it's to have users trust the app store. Mozilla's aim is (likely) the same. If a user finds an addon in Mozilla's addon store, then Mozilla wants the user to fully trust that this addon will not violate their privacy in unexpected ways or install malware on their computer or otherwise interfere with them. Similarly, Apple spends a lot of money on making sure the PR image of the app store is clean. People should be able to fully trust Apple's app store, in Apple's opinion. That doesn't mean there won't be addons you don't like, it just means that malicious behavior is not allowed. If the user doesn't like it they can remove it without consequence.
  - mkirklions 8y ago
    >Apple's primary aim by limiting the access to the store isn't to make devs miserable, it's to have users trust the app store. What about when they force devs to buy their multi-thousand dollar ecosystem? That has nothing to do with quality apps. Also, by excluding the poor from developing for iOS, they are widening income inequality.
    - zaarn 8y ago
      That's an entirely separate decision from deciding to control what goes into the shop and by that not really part of the discussion, isn't it? And Apple asking for a fee to allow uploading apps is also a separate issue, after all, Mozilla is doing it without a fee by using volunteers to screen apps. Both points are true and a problem but it's distracting from what this is about, no?
      - mkirklions 8y ago
        These arent separate, situations do not exist in a bubble. These are Apple taking aggressive measures toward developers. Squeezing them and potentially blocking them from perfectly legitimate apps.
        zaarn 8y ago
        They don't exist in a bubble, correct, they are however separate, but again, this is not what this is about. It still means you can separate the good ideas that apple has from the bad ideas. Not everything Apple does is inherently bad or evil because they do some evil or bad things, no? And this is simply extracting the good part of apple's store policy; patrolling and checking apps so that users can trust what is in the store.
    - Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
      I develop for iOS on a secondhand Mac mini and commodity keyboard, mouse and monitor. Total cost well under £600, let alone “multi-thousands of dollars”.
- bigpicture 8y ago
  > I understand that Apple does everything in its power to make the life of developers miserable All XCode projects are automatically code signed on every build. If you have a developer membership with Apple, it uses a certificate issued by Apple. If not, it's just a locally-generated certificate. If you use make or call Clang directly, obviously there is no signing process, but there is a command-line tool that you can use and integrate into your non-Xcode build process just fine.
  - funklebunkle 8y ago
    How do I run XCode on Linux? Or do I have to spend $2k on a machine that will only be used to run a single build? Speaking of, how do I integrate that mess with my automated build systems? Also, how can I get it to sign stuff without forking over $100 every year?
the8472 8y ago
> 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. This is a non-sequitur. Reviewing things on their addon store has nothing to do with requiring a mozilla signature for sideloading.
- zaarn 8y ago
  Not quite. The signature is to ensure users install from the addon store. You can disable this if you wish to run non-store addons. Otherwise any website or external program (remember your A/V installing their safety toolbar?) could start adding fishy code to your browser.
  - the8472 8y ago
    That is a totally different issue. One thing is reviewing what's on your store. The other is restricting people to only installing what's on their store. One is happening on their property. The other is happening on the user's property. They also want to exert control over the latter, which is causing these problems.
    - zaarn 8y ago
      I would disagree this is a different issue, one leads to the other. Mozilla wants to make sure that any addon the user can possibly installed is something they can trust. Including addons that other applications install (ie AV toolbars). If you don't like that, you can use the unbranded version of firefox or the dev edition.
    - kbenson 8y ago
      It's the difference between on the one hand some spyware or adware shoving an addon in the right location in the Firefox profile directory and either accepting any dialogs to confirm you want to side-load or social engineering the user into accepting them, and on the other the same spyware having to actually patch the firefox binary or exploit it to get the same behavior, since the binary has verification baked in. It's a big annoyance for me too, because I use private extensions extensively for some business stuff (used by the users here), but had to switch to a different mechanism (because I don't want to deal with verification). It sucks for me, but I totally understand why they are doing it.
swiley 8y ago
>usually the last option means compiling it yourself The last time I did this it took so long I was able to write my own HTML parser while I was waiting (and I had never written a parser for a context free language before.)
- zaarn 8y ago
  It gets faster after the first run when most components are already compiled or only need minimal recompiling. ccache also helps.
superkuh 8y ago
Requiring people to use a buggy beta (this is what betas are!) is not acceptable. I warned about this constantly before they jumped the shark in version 37 and was always downvoted here and ignored at Moz. Well, here's what you get. Another Apple product beholden to corporate power instead of for the user.
zeveb 8y ago
> Apple does the very same thing. As my dear old mom used to say, 'if everyone else were jumping off a bridge, would you?' The fact that Apple constrain their users doesn't justify Mozilla doing the same. My browser belongs to me, not to Mozilla and not to anyone else: I should be able to load any extension into it that I wish to, just as I should be able to load any program onto my phone or install any root cert in my operating system.
- zaarn 8y ago
  "if everyone goes off and gets vaccinated, would you?" Apple constraints their users for certain reasons which they believe are good for the user (with some negative side effects that Apple also likes). Mozilla likely has a similar motive; doing good for their users. It doesn't mean every user will be happy with that, the average user will however be better off. The non-average user can then install the developer or nightly edition of firefox or even compile it themselves too get unsigned addongs if they so choose. Choosing the branded release branch of firefox means that Mozilla wants to keep you safe to some extend. This means not allowing third parties to install arbitrary addons into your browser, for example. Users rarely know what they want or if they do, they go about it in destructive ways. Install the developer edition and you get your "I want to be able to load any extension".
- SilasX 8y ago
  Also, Apple doesn't ground their existence in "we want software to be Free (as in Freedom) and we want you to be able to control your own device to do what you want". If anything, they want something that's mostly opposite.[1] Mozilla does claim to live up to that standard. [1] This isn't to say they're wrong; there are legit reasons to want a device with good defaults that are hard to bypass.

by zaarn 8y ago

funklebunkle 8y ago

> Apple does the very same thing. I understand that Apple does everything in its power to make the life of developers miserable (such as requiring a Mac to be used for iOS development), but Mozilla were supposed to be the good guys on the web.

mkirklions 8y ago
Can we be friends? As a Dev, Apple has been my biggest obstacle for a mainstream app. I'm not sure if HN has lots of Apple fans, or Apple marketing patrols HN, but these comments are describing real problems but are constantly downvoted. EDIT: We have been found. These Apple accounts don't even respond to legitimate points.
- sctb 8y ago
  Please stop breaking the guidelines: > Please don't impute astroturfing or shillage. That degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about it, email us and we'll look at the data. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
zaarn 8y ago
I think you misunderstood there. Apple's primary aim by limiting the access to the store isn't to make devs miserable, it's to have users trust the app store. Mozilla's aim is (likely) the same. If a user finds an addon in Mozilla's addon store, then Mozilla wants the user to fully trust that this addon will not violate their privacy in unexpected ways or install malware on their computer or otherwise interfere with them. Similarly, Apple spends a lot of money on making sure the PR image of the app store is clean. People should be able to fully trust Apple's app store, in Apple's opinion. That doesn't mean there won't be addons you don't like, it just means that malicious behavior is not allowed. If the user doesn't like it they can remove it without consequence.
- mkirklions 8y ago
  >Apple's primary aim by limiting the access to the store isn't to make devs miserable, it's to have users trust the app store. What about when they force devs to buy their multi-thousand dollar ecosystem? That has nothing to do with quality apps. Also, by excluding the poor from developing for iOS, they are widening income inequality.
  - zaarn 8y ago
    That's an entirely separate decision from deciding to control what goes into the shop and by that not really part of the discussion, isn't it? And Apple asking for a fee to allow uploading apps is also a separate issue, after all, Mozilla is doing it without a fee by using volunteers to screen apps. Both points are true and a problem but it's distracting from what this is about, no?
    - mkirklions 8y ago
      These arent separate, situations do not exist in a bubble. These are Apple taking aggressive measures toward developers. Squeezing them and potentially blocking them from perfectly legitimate apps.
      - zaarn 8y ago
        They don't exist in a bubble, correct, they are however separate, but again, this is not what this is about. It still means you can separate the good ideas that apple has from the bad ideas. Not everything Apple does is inherently bad or evil because they do some evil or bad things, no? And this is simply extracting the good part of apple's store policy; patrolling and checking apps so that users can trust what is in the store.
  - Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
    I develop for iOS on a secondhand Mac mini and commodity keyboard, mouse and monitor. Total cost well under £600, let alone “multi-thousands of dollars”.
bigpicture 8y ago
> I understand that Apple does everything in its power to make the life of developers miserable All XCode projects are automatically code signed on every build. If you have a developer membership with Apple, it uses a certificate issued by Apple. If not, it's just a locally-generated certificate. If you use make or call Clang directly, obviously there is no signing process, but there is a command-line tool that you can use and integrate into your non-Xcode build process just fine.
- funklebunkle 8y ago
  How do I run XCode on Linux? Or do I have to spend $2k on a machine that will only be used to run a single build? Speaking of, how do I integrate that mess with my automated build systems? Also, how can I get it to sign stuff without forking over $100 every year?

the8472 8y ago

> 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. This is a non-sequitur. Reviewing things on their addon store has nothing to do with requiring a mozilla signature for sideloading.

zaarn 8y ago
Not quite. The signature is to ensure users install from the addon store. You can disable this if you wish to run non-store addons. Otherwise any website or external program (remember your A/V installing their safety toolbar?) could start adding fishy code to your browser.
- the8472 8y ago
  That is a totally different issue. One thing is reviewing what's on your store. The other is restricting people to only installing what's on their store. One is happening on their property. The other is happening on the user's property. They also want to exert control over the latter, which is causing these problems.
  - zaarn 8y ago
    I would disagree this is a different issue, one leads to the other. Mozilla wants to make sure that any addon the user can possibly installed is something they can trust. Including addons that other applications install (ie AV toolbars). If you don't like that, you can use the unbranded version of firefox or the dev edition.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    It's the difference between on the one hand some spyware or adware shoving an addon in the right location in the Firefox profile directory and either accepting any dialogs to confirm you want to side-load or social engineering the user into accepting them, and on the other the same spyware having to actually patch the firefox binary or exploit it to get the same behavior, since the binary has verification baked in. It's a big annoyance for me too, because I use private extensions extensively for some business stuff (used by the users here), but had to switch to a different mechanism (because I don't want to deal with verification). It sucks for me, but I totally understand why they are doing it.

swiley 8y ago

>usually the last option means compiling it yourself The last time I did this it took so long I was able to write my own HTML parser while I was waiting (and I had never written a parser for a context free language before.)

zaarn 8y ago
It gets faster after the first run when most components are already compiled or only need minimal recompiling. ccache also helps.

superkuh 8y ago

Requiring people to use a buggy beta (this is what betas are!) is not acceptable. I warned about this constantly before they jumped the shark in version 37 and was always downvoted here and ignored at Moz. Well, here's what you get. Another Apple product beholden to corporate power instead of for the user.

zeveb 8y ago

> Apple does the very same thing. As my dear old mom used to say, 'if everyone else were jumping off a bridge, would you?' The fact that Apple constrain their users doesn't justify Mozilla doing the same. My browser belongs to me, not to Mozilla and not to anyone else: I should be able to load any extension into it that I wish to, just as I should be able to load any program onto my phone or install any root cert in my operating system.

zaarn 8y ago
"if everyone goes off and gets vaccinated, would you?" Apple constraints their users for certain reasons which they believe are good for the user (with some negative side effects that Apple also likes). Mozilla likely has a similar motive; doing good for their users. It doesn't mean every user will be happy with that, the average user will however be better off. The non-average user can then install the developer or nightly edition of firefox or even compile it themselves too get unsigned addongs if they so choose. Choosing the branded release branch of firefox means that Mozilla wants to keep you safe to some extend. This means not allowing third parties to install arbitrary addons into your browser, for example. Users rarely know what they want or if they do, they go about it in destructive ways. Install the developer edition and you get your "I want to be able to load any extension".
SilasX 8y ago
Also, Apple doesn't ground their existence in "we want software to be Free (as in Freedom) and we want you to be able to control your own device to do what you want". If anything, they want something that's mostly opposite.[1] Mozilla does claim to live up to that standard. [1] This isn't to say they're wrong; there are legit reasons to want a device with good defaults that are hard to bypass.