Unknown Mozilla dev addon "Looking Glass 1.0.3" on browser

> I haven't researched deeply, but apparently the add-on does nothing until the user opts-in on studies.

It adds some css to a list of words:

https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/blob/da464ac8f1c3b0894...

The extension only starts up if the config option "extensions.pug.lookingglass" is set to "true" though:

https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/blob/da464ac8f1c3b0894...

(It defaults to "false.")

Only if the preference extensions.pug.lookingglass is changed from the default of false.

I haven't figured out how that setting is exposed yet. Maybe they expect people to go to about:config and change it? Is there video footage suggesting that in the TV show?

https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/blob/104-rename-less-v...

i'm on nightly and the default was to opt me in. that's some shady shit. i'm pissed.

mozilla is rapidly burning through over a decade of hard-earned trust and goodwill. i install firefox on other people's machines. i'm not a good user to piss off.

am i gonna have to wait for servo to mature and make an unmozillad servo? what a sad reality that would be.

this is not the browser we were looking for.

From reading the source, that setting is not exposed anywhere; about:config seems to be the only way to turn it on.

We already have a mechanism for disabling or enabling addons, it's not installing them in the first place. Why on earth would we put it to addons to self-police them.

if you're on Nightly, this is literally what you signed up for: all the experimental settings and all new functionality turned on by default so that you can be part of the test bed of users and devs that can report back to the larger developer community through Bugzilla when things aren't working the way they should be. Complaining about the fact that Nightly did exactly what it's supposed to is kind of ridiculous.

> if you're on Nightly, this is literally what you signed up for

no, it is not, because i signed up for nightly a decade ago when mozilla still had my trust and admiration. i signed up to help mozilla find bugs before they hit end users. i signed up for new web platform features and bug fixes. i signed up to see the perf and ui improvements.

what i get force-fed now is an additional mystery platter of ad experiments, privacy erosion, forced third-party integration, random auto-addons and who knows what else at this point - they can literally push anything behind my back. the absence of all of these things is the exact reason i have stuck with firefox. i guess this relationship is not meant to last.

as another comment says in this thread, it's literally the "Windows 10 of browsers". Want faster perf and more security? Just sign up for the next version with more ads, less privacy and random third party services we auto-push to you. I know Chrome does this too, which doesnt make it ok for mozilla - it just leaves me with 0 options. if i had other viable options, i would leave quietly and never post this comment.

It's behind a preference flag because it's installed automatically, and Mozilla's the only one who can do that. That's also why there's a lengthy approval process before such an addon can be pushed out:

https://mozilla.github.io/shield-studies-docs/study-process/

You can just not install (and enable) addons automatically. Those addons should only be delivered to users who have 1) opted into the study process and 2) opted into the study in the first place.

There are a number of decent suggestions in the rest of this threaed, like the various un-mozilla'd versions of firefox.

a bit like saying, "your problem is your expectations about mozilla's commitment to privacy, transparency and choice"

I was in your boots when mozilla dropped ALSA and announced they were dropping extensions.

I have since found waterfox and have been very happy with it.

From reading the commit history, it looks like it's still under active development.

    @gregglind re-add 'fuck' to the word list
    gregglind committed 3 days ago

https://github.com/gregglind/addon-wr/commit/da464ac8f1c3b08...

How can I get my bitcoin mining extension included in the nightly build, too? Trust me, it really needs lots and lots of widespread testing by as many users as possible!

kind of, but more "your original complaint is about a release channel intentionally designed to give you all the latest features turned on by default, including experiments", which has been true since the release/beta/nightly channels were set up. If you don't like something Mozilla did to the browser in nightly, you file an issue in bugzilla, and if you missed this and discovered it too late, then that's a consequence of being a single human being who can't discover every single that is introduced every single day when nightly gets updated.

If your problem is with the actual _release_ version of firefox, that's a completely different complaint, and you have lots of choice in terms of getting the Firefox codebase but without some of the stuff that Mozilla feels is appropriate to put on top. If that's the level of control you want, then there are actually several options for you.