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I am the author of that add-on ... what would you do in my shoes ? - provide an XPI (that will only benefit the few since the side-loading process is made aw

I am the author of that add-on ... what would you do in my shoes ? - provide an XPI (that will only benefit the few since the side-loading process is made awkwarder at every point release) ? - fight it ? If so, on what grounds and how ? - something else ?

IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
Stop enabling the destruction of journalism? That's an entirely serious suggestion. I'm not arguing that what you're doing is illegal. I have all sorts of qualms with copyright and its enforcement myself. If I were "copyright czar", movies would get three years, and newspapers maybe a week. But if we wish for copyright-holders to respect the rights of internet users, it would seem to be a winning proposition to maybe not actively work against their attempts to find a compromise. And a "soft paywall" that allows you to read a dozen or so articles per month without subscription seems to be jus that: a compromise, and a reasonable one at that. What do you expect to be the long-term outcome of bypassing such mechanisms? I have trouble of thinking of anything but "soft paywalls" turning into "hard paywalls". Then, we'll be left with the maybe one or two publications we subscribe to. How can such an outcome be in anyone's interest? I know you can bypass these schemes. Yes, they are laughable. I know ads are sometimes annoying. I know large swaths of the press have earned your scorn because they, like, use the wrong JS framework. Or something. But I still don't understand this attitude that appears to go even further than just "I want it for free" to an almost gleeful appreciation of vandalism destroying the foundations of democratic societies.
- hobs 8y ago
  I have a few responses to this, but the most basic is: Please dont tell people what to do on their computers. If your business model is not supportable except by other people willfully hiding information on the client computer, your business model is not good. "Avoiding a paywall that's only half implemented" is not "the destruction of journalism."
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
    You're willing to wage an awful lot on the proposition that there is another business model, even though both you as well as thousands of now-bancrupt publishers have failed to find it. Also: your own business model of "living" is just held up by the completely artificial rule of others not taking everything you own. Just because "it's on the internet" doesn't make "might is right" a true proposition.
    - hobs 8y ago
      I dont have a business model based on living as a general rule, or elsewise some people owe me some money :) And no, that's not a fair analogy, its me saying that if you tell me something, I am not beholden on your instructions to forget it. You simply have to use something as simple as a lock and key and I will be forever stopped from knowing the thing (in reality). All news orgs have this option, they simply want the cake and eat it too of working with popular search engines and also charge users for information that they effectively already have. If you want to operate a private service go for it, nobody is going to complain about it, and any unauthorized access will be met with scorn (at the least.) edit: also I am not just willing to wage failed business models all day - clinging to things that dont work isnt a way towards success.
    - pessimizer 8y ago
      > You're willing to wage an awful lot on the proposition that there is another business model, No, for a business model not to work doesn't mean that there has to be another business model that will allow you to run exactly the same business. If I need to fish with dynamite to make fishing in a particular area profitable, and dynamite becomes illegal, it's no one's responsibility to come up with another way I can fish.
- kartan 8y ago
  > Stop enabling the destruction of journalism? My two cents is that advertisement is what is killing journalism. YouTube, for example, can show advertisements for well known companies in videos about Anti-vaccination, far-right conspiracies, etc. without consequences. Why is that? Because all that happens in the privacy of your own computer. Usually any newspaper that publicly have printed such bullshit in their pages will be dead. Public will react to it. What is different? Facebook, YouTube, etc. are personalized. You are shown what you are interested in without public accountability. Niche radical content gets a lot of views for its own controversial nature. Views and money. Who wants to investigate, hire good writers and expend the money that it takes to write a good article when you can hire some one without ethics for a fraction of the price and get as many or more views as radicalization grows? YouTube, Facebook and others say that they are not responsible of the content they offer. I think that it should be true for things like comments. But for the monetized content they are 100% responsible of incentivizing that radicalization and killing good journalism in the process.
  - apostacy 8y ago
    > YouTube, for example, can show advertisements for well known companies in videos about Anti-vaccination, far-right conspiracies, etc. without consequences. It is a myth that there is any problem with ads being shown on controversial videos. YouTube demonetizing select videos is nothing more than a way to strangle independent media and help gentrify their platform.
- iovrthoughtthis 8y ago
  Chabge is hard. You can fight it or you can embrace it. Sometimes embracing change requires letting go.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
    You do realize this argument is so vacuous, it would apply to someone torching your house, right?
    - iovrthoughtthis 8y ago
      Simply because the words could be applied to another situation doesn’t mean no thought was put into them. So no, I do not realize that the argument is vacuous. I’ve simply stated that you can either fight change or embrace it. In this context I mean that many web users do not want to view their content with advertisements or be tracked through advertising. Attempting to force them to is to push against user behavior (fighting change). I don’t believe users will change their behavior if you try and force them to. I believe that by embracing the users behaviour we can learn how to make it work. I think that might require letting go of our predetermined notions of what “journalism” is and how it should be funded. I think we need to be more open to reviewing why people paid for journalism in the first place and how the need it fulfilled is met today.
  - Veen 8y ago
    Harmful changes can and should be fought. Journalism plays a vital role in democracies. Journalism is expensive. Someone needs to pay for it.
    - iovrthoughtthis 8y ago
      “Harmful changes should be fought” - Harmful is a pretty context dependent word in this situation. “Journalism places a vital role in democracies” - what role is that? (I’m not disagreeing, I simply want to know your opinion). “Journalism is expensive” - does it need to be? Why is that? “Someone needs to pay for it” - This seems quite vacuous. If the thing is valuable then someone will likely pay for it (if they can be convinced of the value and it’s realized). It’s not readers who pay for it now though is it? It’s advertising companies since they buy the ads. We’re not asking people to pay for it we’re asking them to be visually and audibly distracted into buying products and services in return for journalism. Perhaps this is not a fair deal for many anymore?
- liftbigweights 8y ago
  > Stop enabling the destruction of journalism? If paywall is what is destroying journalism, maybe it's a useless and worthless enterprise to begin with. Especially with today's journalist spreading ideological poison rather than reporting news. Stop blaming technology for the problems of modern day journalism. > But I still don't understand this attitude that appears to go even further than just "I want it for free" to an almost gleeful appreciation of vandalism destroying the foundations of democratic societies. Journalism has never been one of the foundation of democratic societies. The united states and democracy itself existed far before journalist. How about you people get off your high horse and stop pretending you are better or more important than you really are? Frankly, journalism today is a net negative - causing racial/societal strife, pushing fake nonsense like campus rape culture, peddling conspiracies and rather than holding power to account, all journalism today is acting as mouthpieces for the power. Journalists and newspapers are free to get off the internet. Don't see why the internet has to change so that a few journalists can make money peddling poison to the masses. The news industry should adapt to the internet and not the other way around.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
    > Journalism has never been one of the foundation of democratic societies. So I'm assuming the news of what the people you voted for get to you via... diffusion? > . The united states and democracy itself existed far before journalist. You should sue your school for the permanent damage they did. Both in terms of grammar as well as history. In any case: if journalism is so useless, why are you jumping through hoops to read it?
    - liftbigweights 8y ago
      > So I'm assuming the news of what the people you voted for get to you via... diffusion? Maybe. > You should sue your school for the permanent damage they did. Both in terms of grammar as well as history. Okay. You might want to read about US history yourself. Take a gander at yellow journalism also and the history of news and news companies. > In any case: if journalism is so useless, why are you jumping through hoops to read it? I'm not.
- dvogel 8y ago
  Multiple news orgs have stated in public that they don't care about paywalls bypassers because they put up the paywall to convert only the most amenable readers. This is very similar to the paper distribution model where an extreme minority of subscribers represented the majority of revenue, due to extreme discounts and other subsidies given to most readers.
  - coffeefirst 8y ago
    That's true, but it's also on the assumption that the paywall adds just enough friction and reminds readers "you know, if you like this, eventually you might think about paying for it." Some will. Some won't. Automating the process by pretending to be Google means the user won't even see that friction or messaging. It's clever, but it breaks the premise.
    - jhasse 8y ago
      The friction is installing the addon.
- fredsanford 8y ago
  "Journalism" in the last oh.... 20 years or so, IMHO, is mostly regurgitation of press releases. Said regurgitators then use SEO to splatter their shit all over the search engines and then want you to pay to read it after crowding out other articles in the search engines. I find this to be shitty. After noticing this and a few other behavoirs, I'd suggest that "journalism" needs no help destroying itself... You behave as if you work for some web media company with a soft paywall.
- cipherzero 8y ago
  I’ve responded elsewhere in this thread but I’d like to discuss the double standard being applied. Have you ever been in a conversation where someone talks about something and you said “hey I read this cool article on that, let me send it to you?” If so, guess what - you were the search engine for that conversation. Should you then have access to view the non-paywalled content?
- m-p-3 8y ago
  Then these websites should block the ability of search engine crawlers from accessing their paywalled content, which is basically moving the content out of the clear web onto the deep web (which is not the dark web, there's a difference). If they can't accept that compromise and not have these paywalled articles indexed, then the problem is on them.
  - Zak 8y ago
    They can even have a summary or introductory paragraph indexed while designing a paywall that way. What they can't have is search engines able to read the whole article and not everyone else. I think this is fair, and so do the search engines. Google calls doing otherwise "cloaking" and says they penalize the ranking of sites that do it. Perhaps they're not doing so effectively enough.
deleted 8y ago
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kgwxd 8y ago
Raly all your users to bug Mozilla about unbreaking side-loading. If addons really isnt supposed be a walled garden as they claim, they should be willing to open a discussion with the community about how to open things up so we can avoid legal bullying like this.
- dao- 8y ago
  It's not gonna happen. Firefox would be dead by now if it still allowed bad or incompetent actors to make Firefox unusable (as in slow, unstable, and btw insecure), because users wouldn't keep up with that for too long. They'd just use another browser. This may be okay with you for now because you know how to protect yourself against malware, but in the long run Mozilla needs market share to stay relevant and be able to compete with the richest companies on this planet.
  - the8472 8y ago
    That's like saying windows is dead in the water because it gives the user the ability to install applications not approved by microsoft.
    - dao- 8y ago
      Well, it's actually a been big problem for Windows, and installing unsigned software on Windows is harder than it used to be. Also, luckily for Microsoft, installing another OS is harder than using another browser. (I say using, not installing, because there's always another browser already installed on most OSes.)
      - kingofhdds 8y ago
        I'm not sure the "big problem" of Windows stemmed exactly from possibility to install third-party apps, and not from poor security defaults which let those apps to mangle everything around without asking for permission, and poor architectural decisions which let some programs to install themselves (aka viruses). Nowadays Windows is much better with this staff than it's used to be, in spite of the fact that (contrary to your statement) installing unsigned software is still as easy as pushing buttons.
Confusion 8y ago
Rename the plugin and change the description. The message from Mozilla states that the problem is the intent of the plugin. The technological measures it actually takes are not illegal per sé, but are illegal when used to circumvent paywalls (of course IANAL). If you present this as a plug-in that allows you to view websites as the Google bot views them, for educational and debugging purposes, there is no problem. You can give the fact that it won’t see the paywall as an example. It’s actually useful for that purpose: you are not lying. It’s just that most people will install the plugin for its ‘side effects’. Their use of it will still be illegal, but the intent will not be illegal. Cf. Firearms, crypto, drugs, ... (I say this as someone that pays for various journalistic sources and I encourage everyone to pay for at least their three favorite sources)
- dao- 8y ago
  Your first paragraph reads a bit crazy and I imagine that's why you're being downvoted, but as you're expanding your idea in the second paragraph I think you might have a point.
  - Confusion 8y ago
    Thanks, reread and adjusted it a bit. Better like this?
- shiado 8y ago
  This is the best idea here. What's funny is that the news sites in their typical technical incompetence are actually way far behind in this battle. Spoofing user agent does not work anymore on most 'techy' sites who have quality software engineering. Analyzing user agent is preschool tier blocking these days. If the news sites want to get serious they need to use browser fingerprinting to detect human behavior and only accept Googlebot user agents from Google IPs. They are basically complaining about something that they are too technically incompetent to solve themselves.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
gnomewascool 8y ago
Firstly, thanks for the useful add-on! > - provide an XPI (that will only benefit the few since the side-loading process is made awkwarder at every point release) ? You could get your add-on signed as an "unlisted"[0] add-on and upload it to GitHub as a "release" (for which you can upload binary files[1]). This would make the add-on less easily discoverable (than it had been), but at least all Firefox users could install it without much of a hassle. OTOH if the add-on becomes popular again, take-down requests might be sent to you or GitHub. [0] By unlisted I mean not publicly distributed via AMO; there's no restriction on distribution via other channels. See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Distribution https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Dis... [1] https://help.github.com/articles/distributing-large-binaries/ https://help.github.com/articles/distributing-large-binaries...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- nextgens 8y ago
  They make it clear that it's not the listing of the addon on AMO that makes it subject to their policies (and local laws)... it's the signing itself. So yeah... I can provide an unsigned copy of my add-ons to users... but unsigned add-ons are by design awkward to side-load :/
alexandernst 8y ago
How about stop the development? The fact that you can break the paywall (easily) doesn't give you the right to do it. Current laws (in that country) state that it's ilegal, so why do you insist in doing it?
- dvogel 8y ago
  It's far from clear that draw-on-top paywalls qualify for the protection offered by either the DMCA or the CFAA. Even if they did, the mechanisms by which this specific extension works are indistinguishable actions users take for many other reasons. The legal notice is a gamble that the extension author doesn't want to spend the money to find out the hard way.
- dreamdu5t 8y ago
  Paywalls aren’t enshrined by any law. You’re misinformed. the web is public, despite SV’s best attempts to subvert and exploit that. If you don’t want someone accessing information don’t publish it as a website that anyone can access.
  - alexandernst 8y ago
    Okey. So how about respecting the right of those who use paywalls to get money for the content they create? Just because something is on the internet doesn't give you the holly right of getting it for free.
    - m52go 8y ago
      > Just because something is on the internet doesn't give you the holly right of getting it for free. Correct. Others have the holy right to charge, and I have the holy right to try getting around it.
      - alexandernst 8y ago
        Yeah. That's the point. I won't go into the subject of discussing if that is legal or not, but for sure it's not ethical. That said, you're free to try to get around easy "protections", Mozilla is free to take down your methods for doing that.
naner 8y ago
I'd just move on. To be honest sites with those types of paywalls should not be indexed. The loophole you are taking advantage of here is a bait and switch by these sites. They want the search traffic but don't want public access. Most of us have already adapted, however, and avoid these sites or pay for them. Your plugin title blatantly describes that you're avoiding paying for something they are charging for so even though it may not be illegal it's not something I'd waste energy fighting for.
- bitpush 8y ago
  How is that bait and switch? Their content, their rules. Its like saying some people get Nike shoes for free in exchange for a review. And when I ask for it, or even take it, they have a problem with it. I think with physical goods we have an innate understanding of what constitutes as theft. Just because the distribution cost is zero doesn't make digital costs free-for-all.
  - naner 8y ago
    It is a strained metaphor. What I was trying to say is that clicking on a search result and getting a paywall instead of the content alluded to on the search page is not expected behavior to the end user.
    - Mirioron 8y ago
      Do you think Google might start removing or lowering the priorities of sites like this in search results?
      - throwawaywhynot 8y ago
        they should if it's even possible. They knowingly allow web crawlers to index their sites
bypasspaywalls 8y ago
My bypass paywalls addon got taken down too, just provide on XPI file like I did: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox
austincheney 8y ago
I would consult with an attorney to determine legal options for an adequate defense and expected expenses. A consult is not a contract and you can change your mind if you are unwilling to take the risk with a law suit. I suspect the take down notice is a DMCA take down based upon an flawed assumption of the law. The hard part about this is arguing the technical merits of the case before non-technical people. While the take down notice is probably in error they could still make a good argument around bypassing their security controls. You could appeal to the EFF or ACLU. If they are willing to take your case it will be pro bono.
andrethegiant 8y ago
What about re-releasing it as a bookmarklet? Slightly worse UX but not blockable by a first party
- nextgens 8y ago
  The most effective trick it uses requires the ability to send custom HTTP headers... that wouldn't work as a bookmarklet.
cabalamat 8y ago
> provide an XPI (that will only benefit the few since the side-loading process is made awkwarder at every point release) ? This add-on is the first XPI I have ever loaded. I didn't find it awkward to do; it is simply: Tools -> Add-Ons -> Cog Icon -> Install add-on from file... The only thing I found unintuitive was the cog icon.
- kgwxd 8y ago
  Have you restarted Firefox since you did that? Can't test right now, but I'm pretty sure it will be uninstalled, by design.
  - cabalamat 8y ago
    I've just tested it, still working. Mind you I'm using Firefox 61 (current version is 63). I switched off auto-updates when it kept changing my user interface and trashing the extensions I need to use to make the web half-usable (e.g. Adblock Plus, Bypass Paywalls, Disable Javascript, Font Contrast Fix, Stylish). I'm guessing Firefox 63 doesn't let you run Bypass Paywalls, then? I suspect if fucks up other stuff, though I'm not trying it to find out. If Firefox want to increase their market share, a good start would be not to make changes that are actively hostile to the user.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tgsovlerkhgsel 8y ago
I think users should direct their attention towards Mozilla. They're the ones who decided that it is appropriate to take the extension down, and they're in the best position to fight it (compared to individual extension developers). There's a chance that this decision was done by a low-level reviewer and does not represent the official stance of Mozilla. Also, anything that gets (or forces) the actors behind this to issue a takedown request against GitHub is good, because then there's a chance GitHub will tell them to pound sand (sending a strong signal to others that unconditional compliance with such demands may not be the only, or best, course of action) or actively fight it.
c2h5oh 8y ago
Both DMCA and EU directive 2001/29/EC prohibit circumventing technological measures that "effectively control access". Checking user agent doesn't meet the requirement to be considered an effective access control technological measure.
- otterley 8y ago
  Attorney here! (Not providing legal counsel, though.) It’s a common misconception that the word “effective,” as used in the respective legislation, was intended to mean “successful” or “always cause.” Rather, it’s always been interpreted to mean, “is designed or intended to have the effect of.” The fact that the measure is not always successful or is breakable does not make the law no longer applicable; that would be an absurd result. The law isn’t interpreted literally when the result would be absurd; this is doctrine that goes back to at least 1892 and even further back to English common law. See, e.g., Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892).
  - c2h5oh 8y ago
    Ah, but in this case we're provided a definition: > a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work. 17 U.S. Code § 1201 (a) (3) (B)
    - otterley 8y ago
      Correct; thanks for providing the definition.
      - c2h5oh 8y ago
        With this definition does you opinion change? I mean this user agent isn't a secret information - this provides weaker access control than not advertising a public URL.
- 8y ago
thepra 8y ago
Ok, maybe it's not legal in US, but the rest of the world shouldn't be deprived of it!
justinclift 8y ago
Perhaps ask Mozilla if they could have it not be displayed in the legal jurisdiction it's accused of illegal, but have it keep on being displayed in all other jurisdictions? The backwards laws of one jurisdiction shouldn't enable take downs across all of them.
cmroanirgo 8y ago
As I mentioned in a previous discussion on this [0], I would investigate removal of those websites from google by quoting google's terms of service: "Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to human users and search engines. Cloaking is considered a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines because it provides our users with different results than they expected. Some examples of cloaking include: ... Inserting text or keywords into a page only when the User-agent requesting the page is a search engine, not a human visitor." [1] That you're able to provide the same view shown to google isn't exactly 'bypassing' anything. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18299374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18299374 [1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66355?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66355?hl=en
kapad 8y ago
I'm not sure if this has already been suggested, but if it hasn't been, then maybe you could market/describe your add-on as one that prevents sneaky websites from tracking you. And instead of calling it a anti-paywall add-on, instead call it a anti-tracking add-on. If you do that though, you may be asked to explain the list of websites for which the add-on activates. I guess you'll need to have some sort of "valid" explanation for that.

IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago

Stop enabling the destruction of journalism? That's an entirely serious suggestion. I'm not arguing that what you're doing is illegal. I have all sorts of qualms with copyright and its enforcement myself. If I were "copyright czar", movies would get three years, and newspapers maybe a week. But if we wish for copyright-holders to respect the rights of internet users, it would seem to be a winning proposition to maybe not actively work against their attempts to find a compromise. And a "soft paywall" that allows you to read a dozen or so articles per month without subscription seems to be jus that: a compromise, and a reasonable one at that. What do you expect to be the long-term outcome of bypassing such mechanisms? I have trouble of thinking of anything but "soft paywalls" turning into "hard paywalls". Then, we'll be left with the maybe one or two publications we subscribe to. How can such an outcome be in anyone's interest? I know you can bypass these schemes. Yes, they are laughable. I know ads are sometimes annoying. I know large swaths of the press have earned your scorn because they, like, use the wrong JS framework. Or something. But I still don't understand this attitude that appears to go even further than just "I want it for free" to an almost gleeful appreciation of vandalism destroying the foundations of democratic societies.

hobs 8y ago
I have a few responses to this, but the most basic is: Please dont tell people what to do on their computers. If your business model is not supportable except by other people willfully hiding information on the client computer, your business model is not good. "Avoiding a paywall that's only half implemented" is not "the destruction of journalism."
- IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
  You're willing to wage an awful lot on the proposition that there is another business model, even though both you as well as thousands of now-bancrupt publishers have failed to find it. Also: your own business model of "living" is just held up by the completely artificial rule of others not taking everything you own. Just because "it's on the internet" doesn't make "might is right" a true proposition.
  - hobs 8y ago
    I dont have a business model based on living as a general rule, or elsewise some people owe me some money :) And no, that's not a fair analogy, its me saying that if you tell me something, I am not beholden on your instructions to forget it. You simply have to use something as simple as a lock and key and I will be forever stopped from knowing the thing (in reality). All news orgs have this option, they simply want the cake and eat it too of working with popular search engines and also charge users for information that they effectively already have. If you want to operate a private service go for it, nobody is going to complain about it, and any unauthorized access will be met with scorn (at the least.) edit: also I am not just willing to wage failed business models all day - clinging to things that dont work isnt a way towards success.
  - pessimizer 8y ago
    > You're willing to wage an awful lot on the proposition that there is another business model, No, for a business model not to work doesn't mean that there has to be another business model that will allow you to run exactly the same business. If I need to fish with dynamite to make fishing in a particular area profitable, and dynamite becomes illegal, it's no one's responsibility to come up with another way I can fish.
kartan 8y ago
> Stop enabling the destruction of journalism? My two cents is that advertisement is what is killing journalism. YouTube, for example, can show advertisements for well known companies in videos about Anti-vaccination, far-right conspiracies, etc. without consequences. Why is that? Because all that happens in the privacy of your own computer. Usually any newspaper that publicly have printed such bullshit in their pages will be dead. Public will react to it. What is different? Facebook, YouTube, etc. are personalized. You are shown what you are interested in without public accountability. Niche radical content gets a lot of views for its own controversial nature. Views and money. Who wants to investigate, hire good writers and expend the money that it takes to write a good article when you can hire some one without ethics for a fraction of the price and get as many or more views as radicalization grows? YouTube, Facebook and others say that they are not responsible of the content they offer. I think that it should be true for things like comments. But for the monetized content they are 100% responsible of incentivizing that radicalization and killing good journalism in the process.
- apostacy 8y ago
  > YouTube, for example, can show advertisements for well known companies in videos about Anti-vaccination, far-right conspiracies, etc. without consequences. It is a myth that there is any problem with ads being shown on controversial videos. YouTube demonetizing select videos is nothing more than a way to strangle independent media and help gentrify their platform.
iovrthoughtthis 8y ago
Chabge is hard. You can fight it or you can embrace it. Sometimes embracing change requires letting go.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
  You do realize this argument is so vacuous, it would apply to someone torching your house, right?
  - iovrthoughtthis 8y ago
    Simply because the words could be applied to another situation doesn’t mean no thought was put into them. So no, I do not realize that the argument is vacuous. I’ve simply stated that you can either fight change or embrace it. In this context I mean that many web users do not want to view their content with advertisements or be tracked through advertising. Attempting to force them to is to push against user behavior (fighting change). I don’t believe users will change their behavior if you try and force them to. I believe that by embracing the users behaviour we can learn how to make it work. I think that might require letting go of our predetermined notions of what “journalism” is and how it should be funded. I think we need to be more open to reviewing why people paid for journalism in the first place and how the need it fulfilled is met today.
- Veen 8y ago
  Harmful changes can and should be fought. Journalism plays a vital role in democracies. Journalism is expensive. Someone needs to pay for it.
  - iovrthoughtthis 8y ago
    “Harmful changes should be fought” - Harmful is a pretty context dependent word in this situation. “Journalism places a vital role in democracies” - what role is that? (I’m not disagreeing, I simply want to know your opinion). “Journalism is expensive” - does it need to be? Why is that? “Someone needs to pay for it” - This seems quite vacuous. If the thing is valuable then someone will likely pay for it (if they can be convinced of the value and it’s realized). It’s not readers who pay for it now though is it? It’s advertising companies since they buy the ads. We’re not asking people to pay for it we’re asking them to be visually and audibly distracted into buying products and services in return for journalism. Perhaps this is not a fair deal for many anymore?
liftbigweights 8y ago
> Stop enabling the destruction of journalism? If paywall is what is destroying journalism, maybe it's a useless and worthless enterprise to begin with. Especially with today's journalist spreading ideological poison rather than reporting news. Stop blaming technology for the problems of modern day journalism. > But I still don't understand this attitude that appears to go even further than just "I want it for free" to an almost gleeful appreciation of vandalism destroying the foundations of democratic societies. Journalism has never been one of the foundation of democratic societies. The united states and democracy itself existed far before journalist. How about you people get off your high horse and stop pretending you are better or more important than you really are? Frankly, journalism today is a net negative - causing racial/societal strife, pushing fake nonsense like campus rape culture, peddling conspiracies and rather than holding power to account, all journalism today is acting as mouthpieces for the power. Journalists and newspapers are free to get off the internet. Don't see why the internet has to change so that a few journalists can make money peddling poison to the masses. The news industry should adapt to the internet and not the other way around.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
  > Journalism has never been one of the foundation of democratic societies. So I'm assuming the news of what the people you voted for get to you via... diffusion? > . The united states and democracy itself existed far before journalist. You should sue your school for the permanent damage they did. Both in terms of grammar as well as history. In any case: if journalism is so useless, why are you jumping through hoops to read it?
  - liftbigweights 8y ago
    > So I'm assuming the news of what the people you voted for get to you via... diffusion? Maybe. > You should sue your school for the permanent damage they did. Both in terms of grammar as well as history. Okay. You might want to read about US history yourself. Take a gander at yellow journalism also and the history of news and news companies. > In any case: if journalism is so useless, why are you jumping through hoops to read it? I'm not.
dvogel 8y ago
Multiple news orgs have stated in public that they don't care about paywalls bypassers because they put up the paywall to convert only the most amenable readers. This is very similar to the paper distribution model where an extreme minority of subscribers represented the majority of revenue, due to extreme discounts and other subsidies given to most readers.
- coffeefirst 8y ago
  That's true, but it's also on the assumption that the paywall adds just enough friction and reminds readers "you know, if you like this, eventually you might think about paying for it." Some will. Some won't. Automating the process by pretending to be Google means the user won't even see that friction or messaging. It's clever, but it breaks the premise.
  - jhasse 8y ago
    The friction is installing the addon.
fredsanford 8y ago
"Journalism" in the last oh.... 20 years or so, IMHO, is mostly regurgitation of press releases. Said regurgitators then use SEO to splatter their shit all over the search engines and then want you to pay to read it after crowding out other articles in the search engines. I find this to be shitty. After noticing this and a few other behavoirs, I'd suggest that "journalism" needs no help destroying itself... You behave as if you work for some web media company with a soft paywall.
cipherzero 8y ago
I’ve responded elsewhere in this thread but I’d like to discuss the double standard being applied. Have you ever been in a conversation where someone talks about something and you said “hey I read this cool article on that, let me send it to you?” If so, guess what - you were the search engine for that conversation. Should you then have access to view the non-paywalled content?
m-p-3 8y ago
Then these websites should block the ability of search engine crawlers from accessing their paywalled content, which is basically moving the content out of the clear web onto the deep web (which is not the dark web, there's a difference). If they can't accept that compromise and not have these paywalled articles indexed, then the problem is on them.
- Zak 8y ago
  They can even have a summary or introductory paragraph indexed while designing a paywall that way. What they can't have is search engines able to read the whole article and not everyone else. I think this is fair, and so do the search engines. Google calls doing otherwise "cloaking" and says they penalize the ranking of sites that do it. Perhaps they're not doing so effectively enough.

deleted 8y ago

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kgwxd 8y ago

Raly all your users to bug Mozilla about unbreaking side-loading. If addons really isnt supposed be a walled garden as they claim, they should be willing to open a discussion with the community about how to open things up so we can avoid legal bullying like this.

dao- 8y ago
It's not gonna happen. Firefox would be dead by now if it still allowed bad or incompetent actors to make Firefox unusable (as in slow, unstable, and btw insecure), because users wouldn't keep up with that for too long. They'd just use another browser. This may be okay with you for now because you know how to protect yourself against malware, but in the long run Mozilla needs market share to stay relevant and be able to compete with the richest companies on this planet.
- the8472 8y ago
  That's like saying windows is dead in the water because it gives the user the ability to install applications not approved by microsoft.
  - dao- 8y ago
    Well, it's actually a been big problem for Windows, and installing unsigned software on Windows is harder than it used to be. Also, luckily for Microsoft, installing another OS is harder than using another browser. (I say using, not installing, because there's always another browser already installed on most OSes.)
    - kingofhdds 8y ago
      I'm not sure the "big problem" of Windows stemmed exactly from possibility to install third-party apps, and not from poor security defaults which let those apps to mangle everything around without asking for permission, and poor architectural decisions which let some programs to install themselves (aka viruses). Nowadays Windows is much better with this staff than it's used to be, in spite of the fact that (contrary to your statement) installing unsigned software is still as easy as pushing buttons.

Confusion 8y ago

Rename the plugin and change the description. The message from Mozilla states that the problem is the intent of the plugin. The technological measures it actually takes are not illegal per sé, but are illegal when used to circumvent paywalls (of course IANAL). If you present this as a plug-in that allows you to view websites as the Google bot views them, for educational and debugging purposes, there is no problem. You can give the fact that it won’t see the paywall as an example. It’s actually useful for that purpose: you are not lying. It’s just that most people will install the plugin for its ‘side effects’. Their use of it will still be illegal, but the intent will not be illegal. Cf. Firearms, crypto, drugs, ... (I say this as someone that pays for various journalistic sources and I encourage everyone to pay for at least their three favorite sources)

dao- 8y ago
Your first paragraph reads a bit crazy and I imagine that's why you're being downvoted, but as you're expanding your idea in the second paragraph I think you might have a point.
- Confusion 8y ago
  Thanks, reread and adjusted it a bit. Better like this?
shiado 8y ago
This is the best idea here. What's funny is that the news sites in their typical technical incompetence are actually way far behind in this battle. Spoofing user agent does not work anymore on most 'techy' sites who have quality software engineering. Analyzing user agent is preschool tier blocking these days. If the news sites want to get serious they need to use browser fingerprinting to detect human behavior and only accept Googlebot user agents from Google IPs. They are basically complaining about something that they are too technically incompetent to solve themselves.
- deleted 8y ago
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gnomewascool 8y ago

Firstly, thanks for the useful add-on! > - provide an XPI (that will only benefit the few since the side-loading process is made awkwarder at every point release) ? You could get your add-on signed as an "unlisted"[0] add-on and upload it to GitHub as a "release" (for which you can upload binary files[1]). This would make the add-on less easily discoverable (than it had been), but at least all Firefox users could install it without much of a hassle. OTOH if the add-on becomes popular again, take-down requests might be sent to you or GitHub. [0] By unlisted I mean not publicly distributed via AMO; there's no restriction on distribution via other channels. See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Distribution https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Dis... [1] https://help.github.com/articles/distributing-large-binaries/ https://help.github.com/articles/distributing-large-binaries...

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nextgens 8y ago
They make it clear that it's not the listing of the addon on AMO that makes it subject to their policies (and local laws)... it's the signing itself. So yeah... I can provide an unsigned copy of my add-ons to users... but unsigned add-ons are by design awkward to side-load :/

alexandernst 8y ago

How about stop the development? The fact that you can break the paywall (easily) doesn't give you the right to do it. Current laws (in that country) state that it's ilegal, so why do you insist in doing it?

dvogel 8y ago
It's far from clear that draw-on-top paywalls qualify for the protection offered by either the DMCA or the CFAA. Even if they did, the mechanisms by which this specific extension works are indistinguishable actions users take for many other reasons. The legal notice is a gamble that the extension author doesn't want to spend the money to find out the hard way.
dreamdu5t 8y ago
Paywalls aren’t enshrined by any law. You’re misinformed. the web is public, despite SV’s best attempts to subvert and exploit that. If you don’t want someone accessing information don’t publish it as a website that anyone can access.
- alexandernst 8y ago
  Okey. So how about respecting the right of those who use paywalls to get money for the content they create? Just because something is on the internet doesn't give you the holly right of getting it for free.
  - m52go 8y ago
    > Just because something is on the internet doesn't give you the holly right of getting it for free. Correct. Others have the holy right to charge, and I have the holy right to try getting around it.
    - alexandernst 8y ago
      Yeah. That's the point. I won't go into the subject of discussing if that is legal or not, but for sure it's not ethical. That said, you're free to try to get around easy "protections", Mozilla is free to take down your methods for doing that.

naner 8y ago

I'd just move on. To be honest sites with those types of paywalls should not be indexed. The loophole you are taking advantage of here is a bait and switch by these sites. They want the search traffic but don't want public access. Most of us have already adapted, however, and avoid these sites or pay for them. Your plugin title blatantly describes that you're avoiding paying for something they are charging for so even though it may not be illegal it's not something I'd waste energy fighting for.

bitpush 8y ago
How is that bait and switch? Their content, their rules. Its like saying some people get Nike shoes for free in exchange for a review. And when I ask for it, or even take it, they have a problem with it. I think with physical goods we have an innate understanding of what constitutes as theft. Just because the distribution cost is zero doesn't make digital costs free-for-all.
- naner 8y ago
  It is a strained metaphor. What I was trying to say is that clicking on a search result and getting a paywall instead of the content alluded to on the search page is not expected behavior to the end user.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    Do you think Google might start removing or lowering the priorities of sites like this in search results?
    - throwawaywhynot 8y ago
      they should if it's even possible. They knowingly allow web crawlers to index their sites

bypasspaywalls 8y ago

My bypass paywalls addon got taken down too, just provide on XPI file like I did: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox

austincheney 8y ago

I would consult with an attorney to determine legal options for an adequate defense and expected expenses. A consult is not a contract and you can change your mind if you are unwilling to take the risk with a law suit. I suspect the take down notice is a DMCA take down based upon an flawed assumption of the law. The hard part about this is arguing the technical merits of the case before non-technical people. While the take down notice is probably in error they could still make a good argument around bypassing their security controls. You could appeal to the EFF or ACLU. If they are willing to take your case it will be pro bono.

andrethegiant 8y ago

What about re-releasing it as a bookmarklet? Slightly worse UX but not blockable by a first party

nextgens 8y ago
The most effective trick it uses requires the ability to send custom HTTP headers... that wouldn't work as a bookmarklet.

cabalamat 8y ago

> provide an XPI (that will only benefit the few since the side-loading process is made awkwarder at every point release) ? This add-on is the first XPI I have ever loaded. I didn't find it awkward to do; it is simply: Tools -> Add-Ons -> Cog Icon -> Install add-on from file... The only thing I found unintuitive was the cog icon.

kgwxd 8y ago
Have you restarted Firefox since you did that? Can't test right now, but I'm pretty sure it will be uninstalled, by design.
- cabalamat 8y ago
  I've just tested it, still working. Mind you I'm using Firefox 61 (current version is 63). I switched off auto-updates when it kept changing my user interface and trashing the extensions I need to use to make the web half-usable (e.g. Adblock Plus, Bypass Paywalls, Disable Javascript, Font Contrast Fix, Stylish). I'm guessing Firefox 63 doesn't let you run Bypass Paywalls, then? I suspect if fucks up other stuff, though I'm not trying it to find out. If Firefox want to increase their market share, a good start would be not to make changes that are actively hostile to the user.

deleted 8y ago

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tgsovlerkhgsel 8y ago

I think users should direct their attention towards Mozilla. They're the ones who decided that it is appropriate to take the extension down, and they're in the best position to fight it (compared to individual extension developers). There's a chance that this decision was done by a low-level reviewer and does not represent the official stance of Mozilla. Also, anything that gets (or forces) the actors behind this to issue a takedown request against GitHub is good, because then there's a chance GitHub will tell them to pound sand (sending a strong signal to others that unconditional compliance with such demands may not be the only, or best, course of action) or actively fight it.

c2h5oh 8y ago

Both DMCA and EU directive 2001/29/EC prohibit circumventing technological measures that "effectively control access". Checking user agent doesn't meet the requirement to be considered an effective access control technological measure.

otterley 8y ago
Attorney here! (Not providing legal counsel, though.) It’s a common misconception that the word “effective,” as used in the respective legislation, was intended to mean “successful” or “always cause.” Rather, it’s always been interpreted to mean, “is designed or intended to have the effect of.” The fact that the measure is not always successful or is breakable does not make the law no longer applicable; that would be an absurd result. The law isn’t interpreted literally when the result would be absurd; this is doctrine that goes back to at least 1892 and even further back to English common law. See, e.g., Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892).
- c2h5oh 8y ago
  Ah, but in this case we're provided a definition: > a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work. 17 U.S. Code § 1201 (a) (3) (B)
  - otterley 8y ago
    Correct; thanks for providing the definition.
    - c2h5oh 8y ago
      With this definition does you opinion change? I mean this user agent isn't a secret information - this provides weaker access control than not advertising a public URL.
8y ago

thepra 8y ago

Ok, maybe it's not legal in US, but the rest of the world shouldn't be deprived of it!

justinclift 8y ago

Perhaps ask Mozilla if they could have it not be displayed in the legal jurisdiction it's accused of illegal, but have it keep on being displayed in all other jurisdictions? The backwards laws of one jurisdiction shouldn't enable take downs across all of them.

cmroanirgo 8y ago

As I mentioned in a previous discussion on this [0], I would investigate removal of those websites from google by quoting google's terms of service: "Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to human users and search engines. Cloaking is considered a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines because it provides our users with different results than they expected. Some examples of cloaking include: ... Inserting text or keywords into a page only when the User-agent requesting the page is a search engine, not a human visitor." [1] That you're able to provide the same view shown to google isn't exactly 'bypassing' anything. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18299374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18299374 [1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66355?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66355?hl=en

kapad 8y ago

I'm not sure if this has already been suggested, but if it hasn't been, then maybe you could market/describe your add-on as one that prevents sneaky websites from tracking you. And instead of calling it a anti-paywall add-on, instead call it a anti-tracking add-on. If you do that though, you may be asked to explain the list of websites for which the add-on activates. I guess you'll need to have some sort of "valid" explanation for that.