this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
444 points (94.0% liked)

Firefox

17937 readers
37 users here now

A place to discuss the news and latest developments on the open-source browser Firefox

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Mozilla recently removed every version of uBlock Origin Lite from their add-on store except for the oldest version.

Mozilla says a manual review flagged these issues:

Consent, specifically Nonexistent: For add-ons that collect or transmit user data, the user must be informed...

Your add-on contains minified, concatenated or otherwise machine-generated code. You need to provide the original sources...

uBlock Origin's developer gorhill refutes this with linked evidence.

Contrary to what these emails suggest, the source code files highlighted in the email:

  • Have nothing to do with data collection, there is no such thing anywhere in uBOL
  • There is no minified code in uBOL, and certainly none in the supposed faulty files

Even for people who did not prefer this add-on, the removal could have a chilling effect on uBlock Origin itself.

Incidentally, all the files reported as having issues are exactly the same files being used in uBO for years, and have been used in uBOL as well for over a year with no modification. Given this, it's worrisome what could happen to uBO in the future.

And gorhill notes uBO Lite had a purpose on Firefox, especially on mobile devices:

[T]here were people who preferred the Lite approach of uBOL, which was designed from the ground up to be an efficient suspendable extension, thus a good match for Firefox for Android.

New releases of uBO Lite do not have a Firefox extension; the last version of this coincides with gorhill's message. The Firefox addon page for uBO Lite is also gone.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] LWD@lemm.ee 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Okay, we are making some progress. You and I both agree that Mozilla has changed into an advertisement company. Can we both also agree that this means they have a conflict of interest with advertisements now?

Do you also understand that it's important to reassess someone's opinion on something after the conflict of interest arises? For example, if a politician got a huge cash donation from a lobbying interest, would you actually be saying "well, the politician criticized the lobby once" and absolutely freak out if anybody said things needed to be reevaluated?

[–] abbenm@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I would emphatically reject that any progress is being made. I'll be moving on to other conversations.

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 0 points 1 month ago

So you wish to change in order to avoid admitting things change?