What to do about Junk Firefox Ad-Ons??

Robanybody · Post by **Robanybody** » November 6th, 2006, 3:39 am

Mr Shaver, Addons will not be 'a special place in the Firefox software ecosystem' for very much longer, if you carry on like this.

I reject the idea that giving reviewers clear guidelines of what an acceptable extension should be, will gravely add to the length of time for the review process. Quite the reverse.

I reject the idea that bad extensions should be allowed to sort themselves out by bad comments alone. Not only is this an abdication of responsibility, but a totally worthless idea, bearing in mind that there is no current Addons moderation being used to stop repeated 'good comments' from even the same users. Far from bad extensions getting bad reviews, they are getting good reviews! due to vested interests.

Once upon a time, Addons had a credible reputation. This is fast ebbing away. I would suggest, that you are now fast becoming part of the problem and not the solution.

Put simply, forget the agonising waffle and your endless vacillating, if you haven't got the cajones to do the job properly, stand down and give way to someone who has.

venus_de_mpls · Post by **venus_de_mpls** » November 6th, 2006, 10:25 am

While on hold for what seemed an eternity I decided to peruse addons.mozilla.org and count the number of Conduit/Effectivebrand toolbars. The count is probably off by a few I missed but I came up with 72. That is a hell of a lot of "anonymous statistics gathering" being done. Not one of those toolbars seemed necessary to me. Then again I am sporting the very latest in tinfoil hats, so I'm probably not the best judge.

dk70 · Post by **dk70** » November 7th, 2006, 3:39 am

Well if https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3753/ can pass I think it is waste of time to complain. Cnet probably will survive but still.

Phantoms · Post by **Phantoms** » November 7th, 2006, 5:36 pm

My comment from the Torrent Search addon was also removed. I guess if you have something bad to say about it, you should keep it to yourself.

Phantoms · Post by **Phantoms** » November 7th, 2006, 5:39 pm

I like the description from the Radioman toolbar:

RadioMan is safe, spyware free and does not spy on your browsing habits. RadioMan collects anonymous usage data on the extension and nothing more. RadioMan privacy policy can be found at http://radiomantoolbar.ourtoolbar.com

But reading the comments, this appears to be just another conduit toolbar. I think all extensions should be required to honestly state what they do in their descriptions, any info that is collected, etc. If found to collect or pass on more data than stated in their description, they should be removed.

dk70 · Post by **dk70** » November 7th, 2006, 7:17 pm

They are required - search "radio" and you see same statement over and over. All comes from toolbar factory Conduit http://conduit.com/privacy/ConduitPrivacy.aspx Where is the documentation they are wrong and comments can get away with use of SPYWARE claims? May be think about that before you post. When accepted relate to extension itself not random thoughts about internet security - unless of course you have found statements to be false. Then you can repeat comment on all Conduit toolbars because they are identical about this.

Check how Google Analytics tracks your moves on many many sites. Knows how much time you spend on which topic etc. There is tracking going on every where, also on forums even. Are you suffering? Users of GA must make visitor aware of they are being watched or Google can take it down, hardly anyone does that. Not an issue. Tracking is not considered damaging today. Much of internet make heavy use of it.

The Grabber I linked to might not have privacy issues worth looking at but belongs on a crack site. Use of other extensions could violate whatever, lets say a video downloader, but this only has 1 purpose which is to sneak around paid membership at Webshots.

old zmanzero · Post by **old zmanzero** » November 7th, 2006, 11:22 pm

venus_de_mpls wrote:While on hold for what seemed an eternity I decided to peruse addons.mozilla.org and count the number of Conduit/Effectivebrand toolbars. The count is probably off by a few I missed but I came up with 72. That is a hell of a lot of "anonymous statistics gathering" being done. Not one of those toolbars seemed necessary to me. Then again I am sporting the very latest in tinfoil hats, so I'm probably not the best judge.

you hit the nail on the head. these addons are a commercialization effort to sap fx, open source, and the freedom of the web. they are not to be tolerated and should be removed from the site. they buy the oceanside condo of some people and should have no business involved in fx.

Post by **James** » November 8th, 2006, 12:06 am

A couple extensions I ran into one time in a search on weather is the Casino Free Money Toolbar and HotWildMisty Toolbar.

I'm for the removal of these Conduit/Effectivebrand crap permanently or at the very least if they are to still be allowed on a.m.o, they are to be in a separate place and to not show up in searches and the new/updated lists.

Phantoms · Post by **Phantoms** » November 8th, 2006, 9:44 pm

These extensions have a much worse impact than just themseleves. They affect the credibility of all extensions. Users now have to worry if the extension they want will do something they don't and some will now decide it's not worth the risk! Good extensions will suffer because of it.

old zmanzero · Post by **old zmanzero** » November 8th, 2006, 11:47 pm

http://www.conduit.com/

it's obvious what is happening. i'll post that ^ link until i'm blue in the face. rubes are jumping on the bandwagon seeking profit and addons is letting them. they need a "quarantined" spot on addons like james said if they have a spot at all. and they do degrade the integrity of the extensions site.

periboob · Post by **periboob** » November 9th, 2006, 1:05 am

Its more than AOM's reputation on the line. Potentially everyone who recommends Firefox to their friends could lose credibility. The idea that dangerous extensions could slip into Firefox will make a lot of folks who would otherwise recommend it, much more cautious. And how many of us would use it without extensions?

VanillaMozilla · Post by **VanillaMozilla** » November 9th, 2006, 9:36 am

Has anybody communicated this to the Remora site?

Phantoms · Post by **Phantoms** » November 10th, 2006, 5:41 pm

I wonder how long the latest comment added to the torent search will last?

VIRUS INFECTED

by Thomas , Nov 10, 2006

Adware.Vurst.A as well as Adware.Spywarequake.G were detected by BitDefender as soon as I chose to install this add-on.

The fact that these junk toolbars remain and how fast negative comments get removed makes me wonder if conduit pays any advertising fees.

Anyone have contact info for the addons administrators?

dk70 · Post by **dk70** » November 10th, 2006, 9:26 pm

If you really want to get rid of these toolbars focus on facts, not comments. Rush over to Conduit forum and scream VIRUS, will take them 1 minute to prove you are wrong (false postive). http://www.virustotal.com/en/indexf.html http://virusscan.jotti.org/

Spyware, virus claims needs to be substantiated or effect could be opposite of intended.

Someone has to analyze the "dangerous" part of Conduit toolbars, list documentation and complain again. If they really did something malicious to local computer there is every reason to believe that would be known today. Also no chance they would get approved over and over and over - or are you suggesting Add- on site has become partner to spyware company? Get real. Just saying they are evil because some datamining is silly. Who cares, nothing new. Money/marketing involved somewhere? Who cares, nothing new.

From what Ive seen they have been rejected because of 1. Questionable (not evil) code which they fixed - in "cooperation with Mozilla" I believe they say on their forum and 2. "Extension author" forget to state privacy policy. Never a word about spyware, virus. Im not sure it helps anti-Conduit movement to keep saying those magic words. Put some meat on.

Should be easy to dismiss all of them if there were some rules/definitions of what makes an extensions. Perhaps it should be a problem author has no control over sourcecode, privacy policy? That should be obvious but then how can he represent extension? They should tell each of these "authors" to go elsewhere, use Conduits own gallery or the homepage each toolbar have. End of story.

Phantoms · Post by **Phantoms** » November 12th, 2006, 10:52 am

dk70 wrote: Also no chance they would get approved over and over and over - or are you suggesting Add- on site has become partner to spyware company? Get real. Just saying they are evil because some datamining is silly. Who cares, nothing new. Money/marketing involved somewhere? Who cares, nothing new.

I'm questioning if they have a so-called partnership, but since mozilla doesn't list it's partners, we don't know.