What to do about Junk Firefox Ad-Ons??

thyristor · Post by **thyristor** » December 8th, 2006, 7:48 am

Asa Dotzler is just so proud of this guy cause he has installed 200 extensions, many of them are Conduit toolbars.
Why the good publicity?
But the creator of adblock plus wrote a nice comment about it

links:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/arch ... sions.html
http://tech.cybernetnews.com/2006/12/06 ... -one-time/

old zmanzero · Post by **old zmanzero** » December 8th, 2006, 10:55 am

judging from the toolbars, he must have downloaded from the Privacy and Security section. he's sure got to be Private and Secure with that many conduit toolbars, wouldn't you think?

Amsterdammer · Post by **Amsterdammer** » December 8th, 2006, 3:00 pm

two administrators of www.erweiterungen.de (site for translated add-ons) have more: all inactive, a special profile for update-notifications only

but activated for this thread:

http://www.firefox-browser.de/forum/vie ... 250#327250 [172/86]
http://www.firefox-browser.de/forum/vie ... 749#327749 [212/66]

:x-mas:

old zmanzero · Post by **old zmanzero** » December 10th, 2006, 12:27 pm

my god almighty. i went to Privacy and Security and i see No Script on the first page. and i see no conduit toolbars. i have currently popped my eyeballs out of my head and i am rinsing them in windex. can someone confirm what i have observed?

DonGato · Post by **DonGato** » December 10th, 2006, 12:45 pm

13 extensions removed (Forecaster,Wikipedia Toolbar,MailMan,Torrent Search,RadioMan,MyOrkut Toolbar,BBC Bar,Dai.sy,Michad Computer Consulting Toolbar,Dating & Personals Toolbar,Australia-Radio Toolbar,SETI-HOME Toolbar,isr Toolbar)

I see 50 extensions per category but this show there are still some.

mightyglydd · Post by **mightyglydd** » December 10th, 2006, 12:48 pm

Yeah..But Torrent' and Wiki' are on page 2, (as of this minute) so we are STILL...... Private and Secure ?! Where did you get the Toolbar 'removal' data DonGato?

old zmanzero · Post by **old zmanzero** » December 10th, 2006, 12:56 pm

oh man, for the briefest second i thought they were gone... guess i'll go install that monkeyscript i have on 1.5* and look again, i haven't it on this 2.0... sheesh...

old zmanzero · Post by **old zmanzero** » December 10th, 2006, 1:04 pm

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/6509

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/4007

here ya go mighty.

old zmanzero · Post by **old zmanzero** » December 10th, 2006, 1:13 pm

DonGato wrote:13 extensions removed (Forecaster,Wikipedia Toolbar,MailMan,Torrent Search,RadioMan,MyOrkut Toolbar,BBC Bar,Dai.sy,Michad Computer Consulting Toolbar,Dating & Personals Toolbar,Australia-Radio Toolbar,SETI-HOME Toolbar,isr Toolbar)

I see 50 extensions per category but this show there are still some.

god almighty. thank you DonGato, i see them too now. sos. looks like this one isn't being filtered out -

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3813/

mightyglydd · Post by **mightyglydd** » December 10th, 2006, 1:58 pm

Please excuse my lack of PC savvy DonG and Zman,but what do you mean by '13 extensions removed'? I checked out the 'userscripts' links (thanks). Am I correct in that they just block viewing the Toolbars? Isn't the idea here to get them either listed in a Toolbar category, or thrown of AMO altogether?

DonGato · Post by **DonGato** » December 10th, 2006, 2:07 pm

Yes, that's the idea but AMO admins think it can wait for Remora, that is to be released sometime in the future (could be compared to Duke Nukem 3D most probably). It seems to me they don't want to go against the 'freedom of speech' figuratively speaking, so they don't want to limit nor judge what people post to AMO.

This thread now has no other purpose than make people aware of these issues with AMO but as AMO admins already said here they do don't care anymore about what is written here I doubt what you seek (some kind of organization for toolbars) will be handled here.

So, we're a bunch of worried people sharing our info and letting people know about it.

mightyglydd · Post by **mightyglydd** » December 10th, 2006, 3:27 pm

That pretty much sums up the situation....Well put ... Kind of depressing isn't it.

periboob · Post by **periboob** » December 10th, 2006, 3:47 pm

One depressing thread. Unfortunately, I suspect the discussion is a little over the heads of most users, particularly those simple folk looking for a quick one-button way to improve their surfing without any real understanding. I guess it is a to-be-expected way the world works, but I cant remember a more troubling issue about the trustworthiness of Firefox.

A question of the mechanics of repairs-- Firefox can be set to remind us when there is an upgrade to the basic program, and even any of our installed extensions. But is there a mechanism to notify, something like, "The XXX extension has been deemed unsafe, and should be deactivated or uninstalled--check here for explanation"? Or is the user who has installed one of the highly questionable extension/tool-bars going to be stuck with it until he happens across this thread.

DonGato · Post by **DonGato** » December 10th, 2006, 4:38 pm

First, AMO doesn't regard them as unsafe. It's some (most) of us that deem them a privacy issue.
Second, to answer your question... no there is no such mechanism AFAIK. The users have to find the information by themselves and decide what do do with it.

Don't get me wrong. I like freedom, but freedom is achievable when you have everything you need to exercise it. That said, the situation we had where there wasn't any warning about data collection and unique identification didn't give such needed information to exercise your freedom.

Anyway, did anybody see some mention in the press about these issues with AMO?
I would say no, so most people don't care about their privacy.

periboob · Post by **periboob** » December 10th, 2006, 5:16 pm

Privacy is one of those evolving words, has a lot of emotion to it, and means something different to everyone that uses it. Lots of folks seem to think that their ability to anonymously run red-lights is a privacy right that they are guaranteed. I am a little soft on privacy rights, dont much care who collects data on me, with this restriction: this data collection must be bilateral-- They want info on me, I get the same info on them. And, I get to know what they know about me, and what they are doing with the information. Most collectors of personal information want to treat info about me as their private IP, that they can sell at will. Which, in the words of a great press-secretary, is a "non-starter". I share those opinions with those few users who are less experienced than I am.

I dont know the real reasons of the press about their silence on this issue, but it may be a bit like my feelings--I want very much for Firefox to be a roaring success, because I love it. I dont want to see an indelible blot on the reputation for something that might be resolved in the near future. I dont want to scare off new users. But I have a reputation too, and I have recently been very careful about recommending Firefox to less skilled users. And I point other Firefox "recommenders" to this thread for their consideration.