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Unknown Mozilla dev addon "Looking Glass 1.0.3" on browser

(support.mozilla.org)
757 points shak77 | 3 comments | 15 Dec 17 13:47 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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blauditore ◴[15 Dec 17 16:23 UTC] No.15932880[source]▶
Many people seem to be shocked because Mozilla installed an add-on automatically. In my opinion, it doesn't really matter since the code is coming from Mozilla - they're building the whole browser, so they could introduce functionality anywhere. If someone distrusts their add-ons, why trust their browser at all?

The main question is what behavior is being introduced. I haven't researched deeply, but apparently the add-on does nothing until the user opts-in on studies.

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kryptiskt ◴[15 Dec 17 17:58 UTC] No.15933656[source]▶
The major problem is that they installed an add-on without properly communicating what it was. A somewhat smaller problem but still a big problem is that was an utterly frivolous add-on that shouldn't have been pushed to people who didn't explicitly want it. But the biggest problem is that Mozilla seems to have trouble understanding why any of those two would be a problem, I want my browser vendor to be serious and not play silly games that can so easily backfire.

Yeah, add-ons from Mozilla merits the same trust as the browser. But this cuts both ways, this stuff undermines my and probably more people's trust in the browser.

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1. michel-slm ◴[15 Dec 17 19:50 UTC] No.15934482[source]▶
Indeed. I'm seeing people recommending Chromium (not Chrome) instead of Firefox because of this.
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2. bigbugbag ◴[15 Dec 17 22:42 UTC] No.15935877[source]▶
Why not recommending waterfox[1] instead ? It's firefox without the mozilla nonsense.

[1]:https://www.waterfoxproject.org/

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3. michel-slm ◴[16 Dec 17 05:34 UTC] No.15937928[source]▶
I personally am fine with using Firefox (though after Looking Glass I've disabled the setting to allow experiments).

IIRC the person that advocated for Chromium (instead of a third-party Firefox rebuild) base it on performance (they were dubious Quantum is actually better, I personally find it fast enough except when loading Facebook), as well as the alternative versions of Firefox not keeping up with the official version. Also, supposedly Chromium (as opposed to Chrome) settings are reasonably privacy-friendly out of the box.

They did recommend installing uBO-Extra in addition to uBlock Origin on top of Chromium, which is revealing -- with Firefox, there is not even a need for uBO-Extra.

My original point (which I didn't elucidate clearly enough) is that this Looking Glass experiment is resulting in unwarranted backlash against Mozilla -- whereas from the standpoint of preserving an open web and protecting user privacy it's actually one of the better players.