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Unknown Mozilla dev addon "Looking Glass 1.0.3" on browser

(support.mozilla.org)
757 points shak77 | 28 comments | 15 Dec 17 13:47 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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AdmiralAsshat ◴[15 Dec 17 14:27 UTC] No.15932004[source]▶
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/lookingglass

The Mr. Robot series centers around the theme of online privacy and security. One of the 10 guiding principles of Mozilla's mission is that individuals' security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional. The more people know about what information they are sharing online, the more they can protect their privacy.

...which you've done by installing a fishy-looking addon without our permission and making us less likely to trust you?

Well-done, Mozilla.

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1. theossuary ◴[15 Dec 17 14:41 UTC] No.15932105[source]▶
If you clicked on the link about shield studies you'd see it says they're opt in, did you not getting prompted about it?
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2. icebraining ◴[15 Dec 17 14:43 UTC] No.15932122[source]▶
Apparently the addon is installed anyway, it just doesn't "change anything in Firefox" if not opted-in. I have to wonder why install it at all if it's not to be used.

Mozilla really needs to be more transparent about this kind of stuff.

3. yborg ◴[15 Dec 17 14:46 UTC] No.15932143[source]▶
Apparently it's getting loaded anyway for some people that say they had "Studies" disabled and/or "Studies" itself became re-enabled.

The whole idea of slipping paid advertorial content into what are billed as "research" kind of gives the lie to this whole thing and is why I never turn these on in any product. Which is also why it's now "opt-out" by default, and why it will eventually not be an option at all. It's all for our own good, you see.

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4. Ajedi32 ◴[15 Dec 17 14:49 UTC] No.15932169[source]▶
Yep, from https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Shield/Shield_Studies:

> Participation in an individual study is opt-in

Though I do see some people now claiming the addon got installed without them opting in. Probably a bug of some kind.

5. mizzack ◴[15 Dec 17 14:50 UTC] No.15932180[source]▶
I did not opt-in and the extension shows as being enabled. Someone messed up.
replies(1): >>15932346 #
6. ◴[15 Dec 17 14:50 UTC] No.15932182[source]▶
7. Simon_says ◴[15 Dec 17 14:51 UTC] No.15932185[source]▶
I did not knowingly opt-in to any shield studies, and I see it installed for me. I guess it's possible that I clicked on something without reading it.

Anyways, I've taken the opportunity to opt-out of Firefox.

replies(1): >>15932514 #
8. Ajedi32 ◴[15 Dec 17 14:52 UTC] No.15932194[source]▶
You don't just need "Studies" enabled, you also need to explicitly opt-in to each specific study on an individual basis:

> Participation in an individual study is opt-in

Source: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Shield/Shield_Studies

If that didn't happen in this case, then I suspect it's probably a bug.

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9. jchw ◴[15 Dec 17 14:54 UTC] No.15932210[source]▶
Firefox Studies aren't new, and aren't opt-out by default. They're opt-in per study, in fact. The code to run them comes with Firefox, that's it. All this HN link is is someone asking what the add-on is, not proclaiming it did anything.
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10. dpwm ◴[15 Dec 17 14:57 UTC] No.15932236{3}[source]▶
I can confirm this most certainly did not happen in my case and, from other comments, there seem to be a number of us who did not opt in to this "study."
replies(1): >>15932395 #
11. acqq ◴[15 Dec 17 15:10 UTC] No.15932322{3}[source]▶
> you also need to explicitly opt-in

Wrong, as far as I see: Looking in my about:config, I see

    app.shield.optoutstudies.enabled=true
    browser.onboarding.shieldstudy.enabled=true
enabled by default. The settings that I've changed from the default are shown in bold. These aren't bold. Those are the defaults. Everybody can check.

That means that the user must actively take steps to disable them, if he knows that they exist and where he can disable them.

Every time the user creates a new profile, and most probably also when he "refreshes" an old one, he has by default the studies allowed.

It's even worse in other aspects: through the UI the "Allow Firefox to install and run studies" can be unchecked but it doesn't change the value of "experiments.enabled" to false in about:config.

Apparently the "experiments" allow Mozilla to install the "experimental" extensions to any user, without him knowing. And these extensions are invisible in the GUI! Even if the user goes to the about:config and sets extensions.ui.experiment.hidden to false, it will be automatically set to true again.

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12. akerro ◴[15 Dec 17 15:12 UTC] No.15932332[source]▶
> If you clicked on the link about shield studies you'd see it says they're opt in, did you not getting prompted about it?

No, I had Firefox test pilot with `Video Min` addon, I was not prompted about he `Looking Glass` I removed all addons from Mozilla and their test pilot yesterday. There is only one thing that keeps me away from moving to Brave browser https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/3101

I hope they fix it soon so I can drop Firefox and their "mission". This is second time my Firefox got infected by Mozilla and their addons. A month ago my PC at work got infected with "Firefox Pioneer" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15648179

Firefox Pioneer is literally a spy and tracking addon:

>Pioneer is an opt-in program that allows collection of richer data from Firefox.

I did not install it.

replies(1): >>15932518 #
13. pbhjpbhj ◴[15 Dec 17 15:14 UTC] No.15932346[source]▶
"messed up", like they messed up by re-adding Pocket to toolbars a few months back.

Do Mozilla have no QC, or is it purposeful?

All these "but it's only an add-on [we foisted on you]", should just be a bullet point on the upgrade screen "we'd like it if you used this".

This is Microsoft level "customer" control, where they just ignore any chance the customer doesn't want something changing and go ahead, it's being treated now as Mozilla's browser not the users.

14. JackC ◴[15 Dec 17 15:16 UTC] No.15932363[source]▶
I did not opt in and I have the "Looking Glass - MY REALITY IS JUST DIFFERENT THAN YOURS." extension enabled.

Adding my me-too because I was fully convinced this was user error until I saw it myself. The opt-in is busted.

15. sli ◴[15 Dec 17 15:22 UTC] No.15932395{4}[source]▶
Same here. I didn't even known about Studies until reading this thread.
16. thyrsus ◴[15 Dec 17 15:36 UTC] No.15932495{3}[source]▶
In my Firefox 52.5.1 under a current CentOS 7, there is no about:studies. Either "studies" has been newly removed (Firefox updated yesterday, I think?) or about:studies is new or Firefox Studies has been included by default after the 52 series. Perhaps its just me, but I still think of post-52 Firefox as "new".

It's nonetheless not obvious to me why you were downvoted; I don't know if someone else was annoyed at your definition of "new" or whether there were other dubious claims in your comment. Perhaps privacy advocates are just too exhausted and cranky to explain themselves again.

replies(1): >>15933072 #
17. ◴[15 Dec 17 15:39 UTC] No.15932514[source]▶
18. GenericsMotors ◴[15 Dec 17 15:39 UTC] No.15932518[source]▶
Not surprised to see your comment being downvoted...HN has such a double standard when it comes to certain brands/vendors.

Windows 10 sends telemetry by default? Microsoft is literally Satan incarnate! BURN THEM AT THE STAKE!!!

Firefox installs crapware addons without user permissions and signs them up to participate in "studies"? Shhhhh...it probably only an innocent bug, nothing to see here, move along now.

19. Feniks ◴[15 Dec 17 15:56 UTC] No.15932656{4}[source]▶
I speak from experience that a lot of FF users don't even know what about:config is or how to edit it.

It all seems sneaky and deliberately obtuse.

20. zelos ◴[15 Dec 17 16:07 UTC] No.15932742{3}[source]▶
about:studies->Preferences shows "Allow Firefox to install and run studies" is enabled on my copy of Firefox 57.0.2(OSX). I don't remember opting in at install time, was it hidden behind some innocuous-sounding checkbox?
21. lozenge ◴[15 Dec 17 16:07 UTC] No.15932744{4}[source]▶
It looks like experiments are previews of potential new features, like letting you pop a video out of a page https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/min-vid?utm_source...

Whereas studies collect usage data.

replies(1): >>15932816 #
22. djsumdog ◴[15 Dec 17 16:15 UTC] No.15932810[source]▶
I remember this prompt (sending Mozilla crash/performance data) and disabled it a long time ago, and I don't have the add-on currently.

Often these days I disable every "Help us with information" box, both on close/commercial software and even open source software. I mean I'd like the help the community, but I really no longer like submitting any type of tracking information or even debugging information. Everyone is already clamoring for my data, and I guess it's more of a mentality of I don't want to give it away for free. They already get so much for free.

I'll still file a bug report on bugzillas and compile stack traces on faults. But I want to do it myself, explicitly.

23. acqq ◴[15 Dec 17 16:16 UTC] No.15932816{5}[source]▶
Why should the "previews of potential new features" in the form of the extensions be hidden from the user, and even if the user "unhides" them be automatically hidden again?
24. uep ◴[15 Dec 17 16:17 UTC] No.15932829{3}[source]▶
Well, this is very troubling; it's installed in my browser. Not only did I not get prompted, I never volunteered for being in any studies. I'm running Firefox on Linux, but I installed it from Mozilla, and not the package manager.
25. ashark ◴[15 Dec 17 16:26 UTC] No.15932901{3}[source]▶
I just installed FF on my mom's new desktop yesterday, noticed this crap while installing ublock origin. Definitely didn't opt in to anything. Made me wonder whether I'd accidentally downloaded some malware from a look-alike site, instead of official Firefox.
26. libertyEQ ◴[15 Dec 17 16:45 UTC] No.15933072{4}[source]▶
Just as another data point, I'm on 56.0, and while the option is there, it is default not enabled. So, it looks like something changed in the move to Quantum.
27. Ajedi32 ◴[15 Dec 17 17:01 UTC] No.15933164{4}[source]▶
Are you sure that's what those config options do? I tried looking them up, but they don't seem to be listed in Mozilla's config documentation: http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_entries

According to the Wiki page I linked in my previous comment, global settings shouldn't even matter in this case; since each SHIELD study must be opted into on an individual basis. (Or at least, that's how it's _supposed_ to work.)

Edit: Looks like the wiki was updated to state that some studies can be opt-out rather than opt-in. This also seems in-line with the documentation for SHIELD, which has a section on opt-out studies: https://normandy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user/actions/opt-o...

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28. acqq ◴[15 Dec 17 18:08 UTC] No.15933730{5}[source]▶
Your link in edit part is the answer to your question before the edit:

https://normandy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user/actions/opt-o...

"opt-out-study: Install a Study Add-on Without Prompting

The opt-out-study action installs an add-on, typically one that implements a feature experiment by changing Firefox and measuring how it affects the user."

They are obviously the topic of:

app.shield.optoutstudies.enabled=true

That I mentioned.

I see a lot of commenters trying to excuse them. The problem is, people allowed the "studies" because Mozilla claimed that they are "measuring" whatever "to make Firefox better." They never told anybody that they are selling the "studies" functionality which silently installs ("opt-out" not opt in!) to the advertisers.

I don't know how anybody can defend such an approach.