Mozilla Slipped a “Mr. Robot” Promo Plugin into Firefox and Users Are Pissed

Megalith

Megalith

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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. “Looking Glass” was intended to promote the season 3 finale of Mr. Robot that aired Wednesday, but the whole media stunt has failed miserably.

If Mozilla is positioning itself as the privacy-conscious alternative to Google, Microsoft and others, then installing an extension without asking users first doesn’t feel right at all. It doesn’t help that the extension seems to come from Mozilla’s Shield project, which is the company’s platform for testing new features in Firefox with a subset of users who opt-in to giving these types of things a try.
 
Megalith said:
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. “Looking Glass” was intended to promote the season 3 finale of Mr. Robot that aired Wednesday, but the whole media stunt has failed miserably.

If Mozilla is positioning itself as the privacy-conscious alternative to Google, Microsoft and others, then installing an extension without asking users first doesn’t feel right at all. It doesn’t help that the extension seems to come from Mozilla’s Shield project, which is the company’s platform for testing new features in Firefox with a subset of users who opt-in to giving these types of things a try.
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People don't enjoy things slipped in without being asked?
 
I don't have this plugin installed. Smear campaign or what?
 
People don't enjoy things slipped in without being asked?
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Most of my girlfriends did. I mean I might have got bitched slapped with a dildo a couple of times when I tried to do something sneaky with it, but most of them said, "bring it".
 
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Never appeared on any of my FF installs. Did they pull it? Maybe was removed before I could check.
 
This headline has me shocked. Not that Mozilla is a terrible company that advertises one thing and then does the opposite by selling out its gullible users, but that people actually use Firefox still in late 2017.
 
bigdogchris said:
Explains why I didn't receive it. I always turn that stuff off.
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Ditto. Seems rather ironic that it's discovered by users, who in my mind, would usually turn it off in the first place.

Still not a good look for Mozilla though.
 
Kwaz said:
People don't enjoy things slipped in without being asked?
Click to expand...

That's basically the question Windows 10 asks every time it boots and then goes looking for updates. :D
 
I think it is clear that Chrome, Firefox and Edge, to name a few of the better known browsers, have essentially the same vulnerabilities and issues.
However, their positive values are up for interpretation depending objectively on the usage scenario and subjectively on the user's beliefs.

So, another flaw doesn't really change anything. Negative hype on the other hand...
 
None of my computers have this, but I don't allow auto-installing anything so that might be why.
 
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