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Mozilla Bans Popular Firefox Add-On That Tampered With Security Settings (softpedia.com)

Posted by timothy on from the you-crossed-the-line-but-then-erased-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla has banned the popular (250,000+ installs) YouTube Unblock add-on that allowed users to view YouTube clips blocked in their country. The reason for this move is because the add-on was caught disabling a Firefox security setting (code signing) which the allowed it to silent-install another add-on, which Avast (antivirus software) was detecting as malware. Earlier in 2015, the same plugin was again caught cheating when it was using an self-contained update system that was bypassing Mozilla's add-on review process.

64 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. Good on Mozilla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Please publish the names of the authors, so we know not to ever install anything written by them ever again.

    1. Re:Good on Mozilla by Tharkkun · · Score: 1

      Please publish the names of the authors, so we know not to ever install anything written by them ever again.

      Better yet. Stop trying to police addons we want to use in our browser.

  2. Re:Let THE USER Decide by epyT-R · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, on the one hand, it's good to know that there was possible bad behavior, but on the other, the trend of vendors locking down their ecosystems is hurting those who do not wish to accept whatever they're willing to push through the needle.

  3. Re:Let THE USER Decide by Kremmy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What, are you a malware author or something? Remove this backdoor garbage from official add-on repositories.

  4. Security design-flaw in Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It should not have been possible that an add-on can change security settings to begin with.

    1. Re:Security design-flaw in Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why not?

    2. Re:Security design-flaw in Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What if you WANTED that add-on to change the security settings?

      If a addon cant change security settings then people will be complaining that firefox has things blocked off that can't be changed.

      People are lazy and will use addons to change simple stuff. Look at the ones to disable webrtc. All it takes is typing in "about:config" and double clicking on a entry but all the people who use those addons show people like the convenience of addons to change the settings for them.

      You shouldn't blame firefox for giving addons makers/users more control when the an addon maker abuses that control. Blame the maker of that addon!

    3. Re:Security design-flaw in Firefox by softnewsit · · Score: 1

      Code signing will not be a "turn off/on" settings in upcoming Firefox versions. It is under testing, so it still allowed users to disable it because it did not get to "test & sign" all existing addons

      --
      Go away!
    4. Re:Security design-flaw in Firefox by bloodhawk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Then the user should be asked and CONSENT to changing the security setting. Allowing any addon to do this without the users knowledge is most definitely a design flaw.

    5. Re: Security design-flaw in Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Security relevant settings should of course be changeable. But they should only be changed by the user, and only via native browser UI, or maybe by explicit opt-in permission from the user via native browser UI. I say maybe because is already dangerous to let users grant that kind of permission. Firefox is for the general population, people who have been trained to give anything they install sweeping permissions without even reading the boilerplate.

    6. Re:Security design-flaw in Firefox by joboss · · Score: 1

      What you're saying is why Firefox basically sucks. They go too far for security and forget about diminishing returns. You can't deal with a stupid user and the longer you over guard them from their stupidity the longer they stay stupid for. You can never say never. There are reasons an addon might need to override "security". Security is not a magic word for something unobtrusive. It means crippling and limiting everything that might be abused, if not simply removing it. You can't say there is no legitimate use for those things. Security comes at a price, it means making sacrifices and sometimes too many. It is a lost cause to try to make add on development super secure. However the API should be written in a way which makes auditing of add ons relatively simple. Focus on making the risk manageable, not impossible. Otherwise you're making nearly everything else impossible as well. I have the same problem using FireFox for non-standard roles and have had to role out my own modified version with patch security handling because otherwise FireFox is a lemon and we can't do what we need to do. It has some other problems as well such as many of the up and coming APIs, solutions, etc being immature, not widely used, lacking documentation or up to date documentation, unfriendly to developers outside of the FireFox sphere, etc. They don't have enough contributors and have a lot of large but incomplete or unpolished or mangled or poorly abstracted systems.

    7. Re: Security design-flaw in Firefox by BronsCon · · Score: 1

      let users grant that kind of permission

      was, I think, referring to

      maybe by explicit opt-in permission from the user

      which would imply the user granting an add-on the ability to change the settings on their behalf. I think AC was pretty clearly agreeing with you that the user should be allowed to change the settings themselves when they said

      Security relevant settings should of course be changeable.

      and

      But they should only be changed by the user, and only via native browser UI

      You must have seen these remarks; you directly quoted each of them.

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    8. Re: Security design-flaw in Firefox by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Make up your mind!
      First you say that security relevant setting should be changeable then you say it's dangerous to let users grant that kind of permission.

      And?
      Users should be able to do dangerous things if they so choose.

    9. Re:Security design-flaw in Firefox by chefmonkey · · Score: 2

      Well, sure. The issue is that add-ons have historically been loaded into the same security context as the rest of the browser code, which means they could literally do anything. The recent move towards having a better-defined API -- one that would prevent the kinds of things you think should be prevented -- is being done in large part to make this a far more tractable problem to deal with.

      Of course, as soon as there's any noise about preventing add-ons from doing literally anything they want to your computer, Mozilla is painted as control-freak fascists out to destroy Firefox forever. So it's kind of a rock-and-hard-place situation.

  5. Tor Browser + youtube-dl is a great work around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    and youtube-dl makes this simple so you don't use insecure flash or html5. youtube-dl supports a ton of sites with videos and always downloads the best quality version of the video.

    don't download the older versions of youtube-dl in your Linux repository, instead, just download the newest version @ youtube-dl website:

    http://rg3.github.io/youtube-d...

    1. Re:Tor Browser + youtube-dl is a great work around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I previously used youtube-unblock before to bypass georestriction. using tor browser will let me access youtube *sitewide* block (block from national isp filter, company filter, etc...) but it will be a test of luck if you are trying to browse/download *georestricted* video (ex: many japanese youtube will restrict their access to japan users--japan ip-- only). As much as youtube-unblock is grayware/malware, I don't think it is not replaced by Tor browser (+ youtube-dl or so).

  6. GJ by ZeRu · · Score: 2

    When I read the first sentence, I thought to myself that reasoning behind this was some corporate/copyright bullshit. But looks like Mozilla did a good job on this!

    --
    If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
  7. Re: Let THE USER Decide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    "The add-on remains available through its homepage."
    The user still can decide. Mozilla only removed it from their add-on marketplace, which is IMO the correct action and certainly not any kind of overreach. That's like saying Google is wrong for banning Android apps from the Play Store which root your phone - it's not, they have policies and those apps knowingly violated them; if you still want those apps side loading is available.

  8. I didn't realise this add-on existed... by 91degrees · · Score: 2

    Now I want it. Except without crippling my security.

    Is there an alternative?

    1. Re:I didn't realise this add-on existed... by jrumney · · Score: 2

      Is there an alternative?

      Newsflash: people who write ad-ons that do not respect the rights of publishers most likely have no respect for your rights either. If you still want alternatives, tread carefully.

    2. Re:I didn't realise this add-on existed... by cdrudge · · Score: 3, Interesting

      people who write ad-ons that do not respect the rights of publishers most likely have no respect for your rights either.

      So authors the various ad blockers, NoScript, Ghostery, etc aren't respecting your rights when they also don't respect the publisher's rights, blocking all the crap the publishers include? How am I suppose to live with myself and sleep at night violating the publisher's right to violate me?

    3. Re:I didn't realise this add-on existed... by cdrudge · · Score: 1

      Yeah. Violate me. As in my right to privacy, right to be or not to be tracked, right to not be exposed to potential security issues, etc.

    4. Re:I didn't realise this add-on existed... by Tharkkun · · Score: 1

      "violate" you? come on, you aren't being raped or anything, dial back th froth a little.

      You sound like Bill Cosby.

    5. Re:I didn't realise this add-on existed... by chefmonkey · · Score: 1

      Hrm. If there were only some way to search for that kind of thing...

      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-...

    6. Re:I didn't realise this add-on existed... by KGIII · · Score: 1

      There are many, many ways to use a VPN. This is even do-able in just the browser itself. If one's goal is to bypass geolocation restrictions, and isn't really all that security minded, then one need only look at the many services offered. Many of them are free. Some of the free ones have various restrictions, such as bandwidth restrictions. Needless to say, there are ways around those restrictions - such as multiple accounts. I guess, I'd rather call those "proxies" instead of "VPNs" as they're not really a VPN for the whole system. I think proxy is a more accurate term but nobody asked me.

      I pay for a couple of them, actually. I use them for different things. I even have one at home that I run but that's for an entirely different reason and isn't actually used as often as it probably should be. There's a free one called Hola*** but I recall reading that they were selling their accumulated data, or something along those lines. If you're just using it for bypassing the restrictions then it might be an option for you to consider. There are many, many options. (My recollection of Hola was slightly off - I've included some more details at the bottom.)

      The most applicable one that I pay for is SurfEasy. SurfEasy is run by the folks who own Opera. I use it to see what the web looks like for other people as well as to appear to be from other places. It's a bit of anonymity in some regards and it used to work with my cell phone but doesn't actually work with it anymore because I've changed phones. So, I just use the browser extensions. I get unlimited data and I've yet to have a problem with it. There are probably hundreds of choices. There are probably hundreds of free choices. There are many, many paid choices.

      You can just use regular old proxies if you want. There are proxy lists all over the place. As you're not (I hope) planning on doing secure things through it then that's an option. If you're just browsing content that's restricted because your IP address indicates you're from the wrong area then, by all means, I'd certainly consider that a reasonable risk to take. Obviously, you don't do banking on it. I'd not even log-in with a regular Google account on YouTube for this though I am not sure how they'd go about compromising an encrypted stream and grabbing personal information from it. It's still better safe than sorry and I suppose they might be able to do something with just the associated cookies? I'm not really sure.

      At any rate, there are lots of options out there. As you're just trying to view content, you can probably accept a few more risks concerning data interception. If you're using the free services then I'd make sure to use the more reputable companies if you're planning on doing anything that you want to keep truly private. Seeing as it probably doesn't matter that you wanted to bypass the restrictions for the BBC iPlayer, you're probably good to go with most any VPN out there that has an end-point in the UK.

      I'm a bit low on time or I'd go dig out a few links for you. Just search for "free VPN" or "VPN" or "proxy" at your favorite search engine AND check those same search terms at your browser's extension/add-on site. You'll find a whole bunch of services that offer this at low and no cost. Depending on how much you want to pay and what you want for security, there are a bunch of choices. Tor, for example, is not the appropriate tool for this job but VPN Gate is probably just fine for your needs.

      Here, I'll get you a link to the VPN Gate site. They're run by a university in Japan, free, and have lots of options - including many (most?) that work with Linux or any OS that is supported by OpenVPN. Depending on your OS, you may not even need any additional software at all. Anyhow, the link to this one:
      http://vpngate.net/

      Actually, a friend sent me a few links the other day...
      http://www.vpnbook.com/
      https://www.vpnme.me/

      And SurfEasy:

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    7. Re:I didn't realise this add-on existed... by KGIII · · Score: 1

      About that Ghostery...

      https://www.google.com/search?...

      I've long-since moved away and use uMatrix. It's completely open and, unless I'm missing something in the code (I've checked the source - I'm pretty sure), there's nothing amiss there. It's got a bit of a learning curve but it's slight and easily doable. If I can learn it, I'm sure you can. You can then get rid of anything and everything on a site. It's pure whitelist-based.

      I like to describe it as being akin to an old-school software firewall except limited to just your browser. However, as you can import and export both rules and settings, it makes it very portable. It's really nice and means you don't need to use NoScript and all the rest. Basically, unless you intentionally change it then anything not explicitly allowed is blocked. Once configured, it makes a handy tool. I've given my settings and custom rules sets to people before to get them started. I have the backup/import process sort of automated and mirror copies to a couple of private places online.

      It's the same guy that makes uBlock origin, I've emailed 'em a couple of times. They won't even accept donations, put it that way. You can see his GitHub page here:
      https://github.com/gorhill/uMa...

      You can actually do a lot of what you can do with uMatrix by just using uBlock. On top of that, he also makes another extension called HTTP Switchboard. For the most part, all three are very similar but have slightly different goals and slightly different interfaces. At this point, I've been quite happy with his work. Just to be on the safe side, I sometimes remember to grab copies of the source that way, if things go south, I've got a way to fork from before things went south or the option to keep using the older versions.

      All-in-all, there are tools out there that you can place a degree of trust in. It may take some research. I've no idea why you'd take my word for it but, if you want, my word is given that I both trust the uMatrix and uBlock code and author, for the time being, and am happy with the results. The best thing is that you can not rely on my word and just check the source yourself.

      I think it's important to note that I'm actually a bit skeptical. I can, and do, set up Wireshark or push things through a hardware firewall and check the logs for suspicious activity. I can say, with a reasonable degree of certainty, that I've never seen any unexpected or suspicious traffic which can be traced to either of those two applications. I have not examined or made much use of the third program, HTTP Switchboard, so I will not opine on it except to say that, at this point, I've no reason to distrust it because of having used his other applications and finding them performing as advertised and only as advertised.

      Here's a link to the source for all of his projects:
      https://github.com/gorhill

      Again, I only offer much of an opinion on the two and, as always, I encourage others to research and find their own solutions. In the case of Ghostery, specifically, you'd probably be better served seeking an alternative. For that, and to replace NoScript as there's no reason to run both, I recommend uMatrix. It even does HTTP referrers and whatnot. You can utilize blocking via HOSTS file inclusions and import them from multiple sources. I find them both quite handy, reliable, and trustworthy.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    8. Re:I didn't realise this add-on existed... by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      Yes... The first one wants "anonymised click stream data", and I'd rather not give permission without knowing what it it. Others seem to want me to sign up for something that all else being equal I'd rather not do.

      But it's possible that a slashdotter somewhere knows about a good alternative or can offer advice on which one to use.

      It turns out though, that you're right and I'm wrong. They don't. I just get a response from some sarcastic jerk.

    9. Re:I didn't realise this add-on existed... by jrumney · · Score: 1

      As I said, tread carefully. Adblockers to counter malware and obtrusive advertising are one thing, but not all ad blocker authors have your best interests at heart ("Acceptable Ads" anyone?).

  9. Re: I need a nubile girl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    127.0.0.1

  10. Re: Let THE USER Decide by LoneBoco · · Score: 1

    That's what will happen once mandatory addon signing is implemented.

  11. COB: Corporate Overreach Blocker has detected.... by TapeCutter · · Score: 2

    As the smartest guy on the internet you probably already have my patented corporate overreach blocker installed. As you probably know it has been banned from freedom hating corporate repositories, meaning my elite followers are forced to download it from my exclusive website. What you may not know is that I just finished uploading the new version. The new version of the banned plugin can now shrink corporate overreach from the most powerful multi-nationals in the world down to the size of Donald Trump's fingers. It's really important that you and all your loved ones download the latest version NOW!!!! - My corporate spy team are telling me that the censors at google are about to delist my website, not sure when that will happen, it could be hours or days, but when it does happen I will be forced to move operations onto the dark web.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  12. Re:Let THE USER Decide by William+Baric · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I agree, remove this backdoor garbage from OFFICIAL add-on repositories, but still allow me to install whatever the fuck I want. I'm seriously tired of how arrogant Mozilla developers have become.

  13. Re: Let THE USER Decide by DrXym · · Score: 1

    They could do that too. They have blacklist functionality which I'm sure includes the ability to block apks. And who's to say they won't use it if the add-on is a malware vector.

  14. Re:Let THE USER Decide by paulatz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The FA says you are still allowed to infect your pc with all the malware you want from the addon homepage. Did you try to RTFA but were stopped by ad popups?

    --
    this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
  15. Re: Let THE USER Decide by bickerdyke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The user CAN NOT decide if the probably unwanted stuff is slipped to him secretly.

    It would be different if the user was warned during plugin installation "Hey, we're going to mess with your browser security setting and will install stuff that would trigger your virus alert, but - just to avoid that confusion - we will disable your antivirus while we're at it. OK?"

    THAT would be "let the user decide".

    --
    bickerdyke
  16. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by johanw · · Score: 2

    Try a Firefox clone like Palemoon http://www.palemoon.org/ . The flexibility of Firefox but without the would-be Chrome UI crap.

  17. Re:Let THE USER Decide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Haha, ok, well, that's the end of Firefox, then. I've just read the signing process and nope, nope, nope. I used to write and maintain extensions for a local site I was involved with and there is no way in hell I'm submitting shit to them and waiting for them to approve what already works and my users already trust me with.

    Although I might just work out how to get everyone installing a developer certificate or recomend that they install one of the Firefox forks.

  18. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by fbobraga · · Score: 1

    DownThemAll is a must have add-on to me, and it's not available for Chrome (since long time, now): it was the primary cause that made me stick with Firefox over Chrome :P

  19. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by fbobraga · · Score: 1

    Opera is nice for offline reading

    I recommend Opera Mini over "normal Opera": it has a much minor size and memory footprint (by been very light, it works very well on old phones and tablets)

  20. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by arth1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Or you could just install Classic Theme Restorer, since palemoon isn't 100% compatible with firefox addons and made by amateurs.

    From a security point of view, Palemoon failed even at step one, installation. Its Linux installer *requires* that the system is set up for gratuitous sudo. Anything that asks for a system password during installation is something I will not install. And a system password that for an account that is set up to have root access for any command when the account password is given? No, just no.

    (And never mind that they can't be bothered to list the prerequisites either.)

  21. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by arth1 · · Score: 1

    I think downthemall.com is an unfortunate name. I thought it was for 14 year olds who wanted to hang out down the mall.

  22. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

    Why not Chrome? I know everyone claims it spies but nobody has provided any kind of Wireshark logs or further information to prove it.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  23. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by fbobraga · · Score: 1

    I think this naming problem is is a consequence of o major problem, that relates to all open-source community: poor "marketing" decisions (it's not natural?)

  24. Re:Let THE USER Decide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    A reputation built through a web of trust is the best possible system.

    A single centralised decider of who counts as trustworthy - particularly one so incompetent and obviously lacking in decent direction as Mozilla - is the worst possible system.

    So, you're the polar opposite of correct.

  25. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    Heh, I guess you're not a Windows user or you'd be pretty used to elevating to Administrator during installs!

    That is predominantly to allow writing to the registry and a few locked folders during installation. These days the number of applications which actually require to be *run* as administrator are near enough to zero that it's not an issue.

    However Linux never had this peculiarity in the first place. If you download a program that is standalone and doesn't have some deep hooks into the OS there's no reason you need elevated privileges on Linux, which makes me even MORE cautious when a Linux program asks for it.

  26. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by Alumoi · · Score: 1

    Hmm, could it be that because it logs you automatically on all google sites (search, youtube, ad network and so on)?
    With Firefox/Opera I can choose when I want to be logged in and when not.

  27. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

    They offer the source so you should DIY...isn't that the Linux way? The Palemoon team has ZERO to do with the Linux branch, its made by a volunteer using the source. if you don't like the way he does it? You are free to take the source and come up with your own installer.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  28. Re:COB: Corporate Overreach Blocker has detected.. by BronsCon · · Score: 1

    the censors at google are about to delist my website

    Your corporate overreach blocker can't block that? Garbage.

    --
    APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
  29. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by malditaenvidia · · Score: 1

    You're also free to use seamonkey, waterfox, iceweasel or any of the other forks that aren't 10 versions out of date.

  30. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by arth1 · · Score: 1

    Waterfox is available for Linux now? That's news.

  31. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by sexconker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It really is too bad that Windows doesn't really have a concept of an /opt directory or installing to user folders.

    It does.

    Programs that aren't written by morons should ask you if you want to install it for the current user only (no UAC required) or for the whole system (UAC required).

    For the user, HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software in the registry is like the opt directory.
    But so is %USERPROFILE%\AppData\. And in AppData you have Local, LocalLow, and Roaming.

    The %APPDATA% variable points to Roaming by default, while the Local directory is for shit specific to the PC (shouldn't roam), or is too big to roam. LocalLow is a "low integrity" directory. Allegedly things like plugins and add-ons should store their shit there and not be able to write to the Local directory.

    For the system, you have HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and %ProgramData%.

    The problems are:

    1 - Morons write programs and demand full access to the whole system regardless of whether or not they need it.

    2 - Morons write programs and store a whole mess of bizarre, indecipherable shit in the registry, in both HKLM and HKCU. Even when it's documented, it's fucking wrong (I'm looking at you, Adobe).

    3 - Morons write programs and store a whole mess of bizarre, indecipherable shit in the the various %USERPROFILE%\AppData\ folders and the %ProgramData% folder .

    4 - Morons write programs and store even more configs in the program's installation folder or other random places (like the Documents library).

    Any one of these things alone is annoying, but programs often do all 4. This makes figuring out configs even harder - does the registry override settings.ini in the program folder? Or perhaps the profile in %AppData% wins out. What about the settings in %ProgramData%? Which registry settings are in HKLM vs HKCU? Why isn't anything in %AppData% or %ProgramData% or even the fucking registry cleared out when I uninstall?

    It's a mess because developers are morons and Windows lets morons make a mess of things in several ways.

  32. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by sexconker · · Score: 1

    The mere fact that the address bar and search bar are the same qualifies.
    You can't type in an address without it being sent off to Google to deliver suggestions when they're the same bar.

  33. Danke, GEMA by Knuckles · · Score: 1

    n/t

    --
    "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
  34. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by HiThere · · Score: 1

    Even MSWind95 did that. When I installed Squeak and Python on MSWind95 there were no files installed outside the application directory, which I located in a custom place segregated from all system files.

    The problem isn't that MSWind doesn't allow that, the problem is that it doesn't (didn't?) require that.

    FWIW, I generally prefer /usr/local to /opt, but in either case the files should be those that you trust, and the locations should require root permission to allow installation. Files with any doubt as to their provenance should be installed in a place like /home/apps/ with write permission only to the apps user (not a real user) and execute permission as desired. If you can't control where it installs itself, don't trust it.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  35. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by HiThere · · Score: 1

    The last time I tried to use Seamonkey it wouldn't run. I didn't devote a whole lot of effort into trying to figure out why, but it did compile without errors (that I remember). I was trying to install it to use its html editor, but I found another one that looked like a fork and worked without problem. (Can't remember its name.)

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  36. Re:Let THE USER Decide by Tharkkun · · Score: 1

    I agree, remove this backdoor garbage from OFFICIAL add-on repositories, but still allow me to install whatever the fuck I want. I'm seriously tired of how arrogant Mozilla developers have become.

    I agree. They fuck with Java non-stop which I require for internal applications. Who cares if my Java is out of date when I use one specific browser on one applications. Stop disabling my shit Mozilla.

  37. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by lgw · · Score: 1

    I've been frustrated with the fact I can't use anti-container (a wonderful extension to downthemall) on Pale Moon. It's the only reason I keep a copy of FF around. Chrome is right out.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  38. Re:Let THE USER Decide by chefmonkey · · Score: 1

    You need to read more carefully. For the kind of add-ons you mention -- that is, ones not hosted on Mozilla's servers -- the signing process is automatic. You can even use a commandline tool to automate submission of the file for signing, and generally get a signed version back within a few seconds.

  39. Re:COB: Corporate Overreach Blocker has detected.. by lgw · · Score: 1

    But can your corporate overreach blocker do everything that hosts files can?

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  40. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by allo · · Score: 1

    And it will die in a few firefox releases. Mozilla deprecates (and removes) XUL and XPCom and addons as powerful as DTA will not be possible, the DTA author wrote he will probably need to discontinue it.

  41. Re: other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by fbobraga · · Score: 1

    A sad news to me :/

  42. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by beastofburdon · · Score: 1

    If you are installing into the standard directories then you must use root privileges. That is the way Linux is designed. If you want to install it in your home directory I guarantee that it will not require it.

  43. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by arth1 · · Score: 1

    If you are installing into the standard directories then you must use root privileges.

    Using root privileges to do something specific is not the same as granting a program gratuitous privilege escalation to root, or giving an installer a password.

    That is the way Linux is designed.

    No, it isn't. If the documentation states what it needs write permissions to, or the installation script reports problems and then rolls back, you can temporarily give the required access.
    Either through group permissions or ACLs.

    If it installs under, say, /opt/palemoon, it is FAR better to create that directory as root, and give the installing user temporary write access, and change the ownership/access of the directory afterwards. Similar for other directories it may want access to.

    sudo isn't needed for this. Or for much else that sudo is abused for.

  44. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons by beastofburdon · · Score: 1

    Let me get this straight. Are you saying that the install script is somehow giving the program root permissions that it can use after it has been installed? Otherwise in order to write to the /bin, /usr/bin, or any other directory that is not in your home directory you must have root permissions. You can temporarily give a user write permissions for a folder, but that also involves using root to give that permission.