6 ms·

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 ext

by 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.
  - the8472 8y ago
    I am aware of mozilla's given rationale (and I disagree with the implementation), I was just pointing out that patrolling an addon store is orthogonal. And the decision to not even let users add additional signing root keys is yet another axis on the decision space that was totally neglected.
    - tux1968 8y ago
      That would go a long way to solving the problem once and for all. It would be nice if Mozilla would provide the ability to install private signing keys to the browser.
    - kbenson 8y ago
      The problem is that it's essentially just another dialog or control to be scripted or socially engineered around. You can make it more onerous because it's basically a one-time action that's not something most users will do, but to what degree is adding a signing key before install different that a dialog asking you if you really want to install this third party extension? Until you have different access levels and can both restrict users/programs from running at the base level required to do this, and condition users to recognize when increased access is being requested, I don't see this problem going away. Windows UAC is basically what we're talking about, and it still took years to users to understand it and not just always allow it (if that's even true!), and that's a system shared over all of windows. I think the only sane way to accomplish this that worked for users and didn't cause enterprise admins to totally shun Firefox would be to piggy back on Windows' certificate store and register certificate for Firefox use only (I assume this is possible, I'm pretty sure you can do this for app-to-app communication such as MSSQL encrypted connections), but then you have to make sure you also handle the mechanisms to do the same in Linux and OS X, and now we're seeing it's a much more complex undertaking. Protecting users from their own stupidity is a tough and mostly unsolved problem. Punting and eating their own resources to provide the safest solution they can, even if it's annoying for a more technically literate subset of users, is a solution I can understand and respect, even if it's problematic for me, because it's putting safety and security the majority of users over a simple solution that would be worse overall.
SilasX 8y ago
As in the sibling, thread, no, you can't disable the signature check, not in the regular, mainline FF download. Even if you enable it in about::config! This was a change introduced in ~August 2016, to ignore your preferences on that setting. (As you note in the sibling thread, you can get it in a special development version, but that still contradicts your claim that you can toggle something to allow it.)
- zaarn 8y ago
  You can toggle a compile option to allow unsigned addons. I've mentioned this repeatedly and I'm unsure how you didn't notice that.
  - SilasX 8y ago
    And I've explained that you can't expect the average newbie coder to navigate the recompilation process; I'm unsure why you blithely dismiss people who aren't as capable as you.
    - zaarn 8y ago
      I don't because I also mention the developer edition and nightly, which allows unsigned addons and has regular updates. I'm not dismissing people who aren't as capable as me either, I've mentioned alternative approaches and I'm getting tired of having to repeat "there is the dev and nightly edition" to the same 5 people over and over again. Mozilla is making tradeoffs in protecting the average user and giving the power users a little bit less freedom unless they use an edition of firefox intended for power users and developers. Simple as that.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      1. So you have the set of people who would be much better off in a “walled garden”, in my experience that is almost everyone. 2. You have the set of people who can compile the code from source and who want to get outside of the wall. 3. You have the set of people who want to get out of the wall but don’t have the technical expertise to know the dangers of doing so. 4. You have people who have the technical expertise to know the dangers but not the technical expertise to compile code. I think people in group 4 should learn how to be in group 2, because we have almost four decades worth of evidence to know how badly people in group 3 can do. Edit: changed group 2 to group 3 in the last sentence.

by zaarn 8y ago

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.
- the8472 8y ago
  I am aware of mozilla's given rationale (and I disagree with the implementation), I was just pointing out that patrolling an addon store is orthogonal. And the decision to not even let users add additional signing root keys is yet another axis on the decision space that was totally neglected.
  - tux1968 8y ago
    That would go a long way to solving the problem once and for all. It would be nice if Mozilla would provide the ability to install private signing keys to the browser.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    The problem is that it's essentially just another dialog or control to be scripted or socially engineered around. You can make it more onerous because it's basically a one-time action that's not something most users will do, but to what degree is adding a signing key before install different that a dialog asking you if you really want to install this third party extension? Until you have different access levels and can both restrict users/programs from running at the base level required to do this, and condition users to recognize when increased access is being requested, I don't see this problem going away. Windows UAC is basically what we're talking about, and it still took years to users to understand it and not just always allow it (if that's even true!), and that's a system shared over all of windows. I think the only sane way to accomplish this that worked for users and didn't cause enterprise admins to totally shun Firefox would be to piggy back on Windows' certificate store and register certificate for Firefox use only (I assume this is possible, I'm pretty sure you can do this for app-to-app communication such as MSSQL encrypted connections), but then you have to make sure you also handle the mechanisms to do the same in Linux and OS X, and now we're seeing it's a much more complex undertaking. Protecting users from their own stupidity is a tough and mostly unsolved problem. Punting and eating their own resources to provide the safest solution they can, even if it's annoying for a more technically literate subset of users, is a solution I can understand and respect, even if it's problematic for me, because it's putting safety and security the majority of users over a simple solution that would be worse overall.

SilasX 8y ago

As in the sibling, thread, no, you can't disable the signature check, not in the regular, mainline FF download. Even if you enable it in about::config! This was a change introduced in ~August 2016, to ignore your preferences on that setting. (As you note in the sibling thread, you can get it in a special development version, but that still contradicts your claim that you can toggle something to allow it.)

zaarn 8y ago
You can toggle a compile option to allow unsigned addons. I've mentioned this repeatedly and I'm unsure how you didn't notice that.
- SilasX 8y ago
  And I've explained that you can't expect the average newbie coder to navigate the recompilation process; I'm unsure why you blithely dismiss people who aren't as capable as you.
  - zaarn 8y ago
    I don't because I also mention the developer edition and nightly, which allows unsigned addons and has regular updates. I'm not dismissing people who aren't as capable as me either, I've mentioned alternative approaches and I'm getting tired of having to repeat "there is the dev and nightly edition" to the same 5 people over and over again. Mozilla is making tradeoffs in protecting the average user and giving the power users a little bit less freedom unless they use an edition of firefox intended for power users and developers. Simple as that.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    1. So you have the set of people who would be much better off in a “walled garden”, in my experience that is almost everyone. 2. You have the set of people who can compile the code from source and who want to get outside of the wall. 3. You have the set of people who want to get out of the wall but don’t have the technical expertise to know the dangers of doing so. 4. You have people who have the technical expertise to know the dangers but not the technical expertise to compile code. I think people in group 4 should learn how to be in group 2, because we have almost four decades worth of evidence to know how badly people in group 3 can do. Edit: changed group 2 to group 3 in the last sentence.