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Mozilla Slipped a 'Mr. Robot'-Promo Plugin Into Firefox and Users Are Pissed (gizmodo.com)
MarcAuslander shares a report from Gizmodo: Mozilla sneaked a browser plugin that promotes Mr. Robot into Firefox -- and managed to piss off a bunch of its privacy-conscious users in the process. The extension, called Looking Glass, is intended to promote an augmented reality game to "further your immersion into the Mr. Robot universe," according to Mozilla. It was automatically added to Firefox users' browsers this week with no explanation except the cryptic message, "MY REALITY IS JUST DIFFERENT THAN YOURS," prompting users to worry on Reddit that they'd been hit with spyware. Without an explanation included with the extension, users were left digging around in the code for Looking Glass to find answers. Looking Glass was updated for some users today with a description that explains the connection to Mr. Robot and lets users know that the extension won't activate without explicit opt-in.
Mozilla justified its decision to include the extension because Mr. Robot promotes user privacy. "The Mr. Robot series centers around the theme of online privacy and security," the company said in an explanation of the mysterious extension. "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."
Mozilla justified its decision to include the extension because Mr. Robot promotes user privacy. "The Mr. Robot series centers around the theme of online privacy and security," the company said in an explanation of the mysterious extension. "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."
Don't forget disabling all existing privacy extensions. Oh, and mails you get from Mozilla are pure gold: "Keep trackers off your trail" blah blah "evade tracking technology" blah blah "https://click.e.mozilla.org/?qs=e7bb0dcf14b1013fca3820..."
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Presumably only Mozilla has access to this sort of system. But then again, that's just an assumption of mine.
You can turn this off in the Privacy section: "Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla", and under that "Allow Firefox to install and run studies".
It's the latter one that allows those experimental add-ons to be added and run. I had those both enabled, because I thought that Mozilla would be responsible in how it used them. Obviously, I was mistaken. So, at the very least disable the latter if you don't want more mysterious add-ons showing up. As soon as you uncheck that box, the add-on disappears.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
If you hadn't enabled telemetry and studies, you wouldn't see it. Also, given that it's some sort of marketing tie-in to Mr. Robot, it might very well be US only.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
The extension was able to be installed if you had the "Firefox Studies" checkbox selected. To prevent Firefox Studies from installing extensions on your behalf:
It seems to be a trend. I installed Chrome on a Linux partition and almost immediately, Yahoo tried to install their plugin into that browser.
Not forgetting Canonical's spyware which sent your local search queries for command options to their servers. It's anonymized they claim - well it isn't if your ISP decides to do a man-in-the-middle attack and deep packet inspection with your data.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/201...
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads