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by bigiain 2797 days ago
Sure - it was a dumb move on Mozilla's part.

But keep in mind that while it was pushed out into people's browsers in a stupidly-lacking-in-foresight fashion, it still required use activation before it'd do anything...

I'm at least four nines sure Google have got worse privacy-eroding code in Chrome that does way worse things that flip some text upside down after you specifically activate an add-on...
2 comments
addicted 2797 days ago
Like logging you into Chrome when you log into GMail.

This one hit me hard. And that was after I knew about it. I logged into Gmail on Chrome on my personal computer, without realizing I had been logged into Chrome itself, which then ended up mixing my personal browsing history with my work account, something I’ve tried very hard to avoid.

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Karunamon 2797 days ago
As I tell everyone that tries to defend this, it's not about what the plugin did or didn't do. It could have literally been a copy of about:blank, it changes nothing.

The entirely justified outrage was its purpose for being put there (which boils down to advertising) and the lack of consent for its being put there. That's it.

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Dylan16807 2796 days ago
Doing nothing is not advertising. The only way for this to be used in advertisement was from Mr. Robot fans to Firefox.

> lack of consent

Pretend it was a copy of about:blank when you answer this question: What makes this different from the giant pile of patches merged into each release of firefox that you don't read?

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Karunamon 2796 days ago
How many of those Firefox patches are advertising references to then-popular media as opposed to new features, security fixes, and so forth?

Again. Purpose.

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Dylan16807 2796 days ago
That's not answering why it would be wrong even if it was about:blank.
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Dylan16807 2796 days ago
(I'm making this a separate post because I don't want any distractions in the other one.)

If they had done it correctly, it would have been invisible and it would not have advertised anything to firefox users. That is the purpose. It showing up the way it did was an oversight.

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bigiain 2797 days ago
Agreed.

(At the same time, how much of the automated Chrome updates end up being audited for their "boils down to advertising"ness?)

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