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.
So much for capitalizing on Chrome’s missteps when it comes to ad blocking I guess
Regarding ad blocking: this isn’t the first time Mozilla has been a little weird recently.
As the other commenter noted, this is kind of a nonsensical article. I am not by any means a fan of Mozilla’s decision on Ublock, it seems egregious and indefensible. But the convoluted logic of making Manifest V3 about Mozilla is completely emptyhanded, and there’s no rhyme, reason, logic, or precedent suggesting we should make anything of their absence of a statement.
Also, this is especially nuts because Mozilla HAS in fact criticized Manifest V3! They just happened not to have done so within a particular randomly selected window of time.
There are actually two very specific events that occurred after 2022 which are crucial to note.
In May 2023, Mozilla purchased FakeSpot and permanently retained the policy that allowed them to sell private data to advertisement companies
In June 2024, Mozilla purchased Anonym and took it on as an official advertisement subsidiary
The fact that Mozilla hasn’t talked much about ad blockers since then is, I think, significant.
Your own 2023 article doesn’t say anything about policies allowing Mozilla to sell private data, and Mozilla’s own website openly and proudly claims they neither buy nor sell their users’ data.
And Anonym is a company purpose-created to try to transform the advertising industry into a more privacy-respecting industry. Its mission could not align more with Mozilla’s. They in particular developed PPA, the feature Firefox was getting so much bad press about last week - and which ended up being none of the things the dozens of articles posted about it claimed. It is, in fact, a complete non-factor when it comes to privacy risks, and its explicit purpose is to pivot the internet toward a significantly more private ecosystem.
There are lots of people claiming Mozilla is becoming an advertising company and is selling their users out. There’s some misleading evidence that even makes that superficially appear true. But it’s false.
When have they talked about ad blockers in the past, period? This is just a meaningless scare tactic. I don’t see them talking about arctic drilling either - should I be concerned?
From the same page you got your image from:
Mozilla says FakeSpot sells private data to advertisers in their own privacy policy. In case you were genuinely unaware:
From the same privacy policy you linked:
I don’t personally understand the disconnect between the parts we each posted, but there is a clear disconnect regardless.
And, regardless, this applies to fakespot.com. Not Firefox. Not even slightly Firefox. Firefox unambiguously has nothing to do with selling user data.
Edit: I’ve also gone ahead and sent an email to the address at the bottom of the policy asking for clarification on the issue.
You don’t understand it? It’s pretty clear that in California, they can’t get away with claiming they don’t sell your data, but in Nevada they can. They also clearly seem upset that they must declare that they sell your data, putting “sale” in scare quotes quite often.
Pretending Mozilla FakeSpot and Mozilla Firefox have no common denominator is wrong. They are both operated by Mozilla, and they both allegedly conform to Mozilla’s ethical principles. And if FakeSpot can clearly sell data, then that’s evidence that there is root at the rot of the corporation.
Surely you know better than to take the most charitable interpretation of carefully constructed legal speak.
The article you linked makes a big deal about literally nothing. We’ve known Chrome was going to drop MV2 for years. We also know Firefox won’t. There is nothing more they have to do or say about this situation. It doesn’t affect Firefox whatsoever.
“Suspiciously silent” is such a bullshit nothing accusation to make. It is so obviously trying to capitalize on how many users have been (justifiably) turning on Mozilla as of late.
I linked an article that was literally about how Mozilla could, but was not, capitalizing on Google Chrome’s missteps… And specifically laying the justifiable reasons that you alluded to. If somebody hasn’t been following Mozilla’s behavior, it might come in handy.
It’s not “handy.” It’s badly-written arrant clickbaity tendentious anti-Firefox garbage. Mozilla does plenty of stupid things. I do not understand this desire some people have to invent more. It appears that many of them have simply decided based on Mozilla’s now-discontinued efforts to improve social media that Mozilla is too “woke” and therefore the enemy, or something like that.
It’s a bit ironic because Steve Teixeira, who sprearheaded Mozilla Social, got fired after bringing to light the fact that Mozilla wasn’t an inclusive company. I’m a fan of inclusivity, and I agree that accusations of “woke” are meaningless, but I didn’t spot any in that article.