What happened to FVD Speed Dial?

[Baldape]

I opened Firefox today and I see that FVD Speed Dial has been disabled for some reason (stability or security). I mean its not even available on the Mozilla add-on website anymore. So whats going on?

[BobbyPhoenix]

It's blocked for violating Mozilla's policy. They have to change stuff, and resubmit it.

Why was it blocked?

This add-on violates Mozilla's Add-on Policies.

This add-on violates Mozilla's policies as search functionality provided or loaded by the add-on must not collect search terms or intercept searches that are going to a third-party search provider. The add-on has repeatedly violated these terms despite Mozilla explicitly pointing them out.
What does this mean?

The problematic add-on or plugin will be automatically disabled and no longer usable.

When Mozilla becomes aware of add-ons, plugins, or other third-party software that seriously compromises Firefox security, stability, or performance and meets certain criteria, the software may be blocked from general use. For more information, please read this support article.

Versions blocked: all versions.
Blocked on Nov 23, 2021.

[James]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... om/77.5.7/

one statement from Mozilla

In 2020, we became aware that the developer of the FVD add-on had begun intercepting search queries that were being sent to a third-party search provider, in clear violation of the Mozilla Add-ons Policies. After a repeated violation we again explicitly told them under which circumstances this type of data collection is not acceptable. At the time, the developer disabled the feature, and we continued to host FVD Speed Dial.

Recently we have become aware that the developer has re-enabled the offending functionality, which remains in violation of AMO policy. In light of these repeated offenses, we have blocked this addon.
While we regret the impact that this has had on some of our users, we believe that our commitments to user safety and the importance of user trust in Firefox and its surrounding ecosystem have obligated us to take this action, and we stand by this decision.

[hch]

I had dozens of Speed Dial entries. How can I recover these? Mozilla should have issued a warning that this would be happening.

[DanRaisch]

Isn't that what Mozilla has done with the text quoted above? Mozilla doesn't know which users have installed a particular extension so they have no way to notify actual users of problems with a given extension.

[BobbyPhoenix]

I had dozens of Speed Dial entries. How can I recover these? Mozilla should have issued a warning that this would be happening.

According to their replies on their Chrome extension they are aware of what happened, and are working on it. We just have to wait for a new version that doesn't violate Mozilla's policy with the search entries.