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It's being reported on HackerNews that the Pale Moon Browser is blocking the AdNauseum extension, an ad blocking extension designed to obfuscate browsing data and protect users from tracking by advertising networks.
The main story link is to the Pale Moon Forum which summarises the issue as follows:
After investigating the AdNauseam extension's behavior and the results for web publishers, the extension has been added to the Pale Moon blocklist with a severity level of 2 (meaning you won't be able to enable it unless you increase the blocking level in about:config to 3). For those unfamiliar with this extension: it generates false ad "clicks" to ad servers in an attempt to generate "noise" for the ad networks in a protest against the advertising network system as a whole.
While the premise behind this is similar to poisoning trackers with false fingerprints (which we are proponents of, ourselves), and we normally let users decide for themselves what they want to do with their browser, we are strictly against allowing extensions that cause direct damage (including damage to third parties). There is a subtle but important difference between blocking content and generating fake user interaction.
[...] Because this extension causes direct and indirect economic damage to website owners, it is classified as malware, and as such blocked.
From the forum threads this decision has been slightly controversial with some users.
If you're not familiar with Pale Moon, it is an Open Source web browser, forked from a mature Mozilla code release, and has been covered on SN before.
[Update: Added text re: blocking level; bolded text that was bold in the original posting. --martyb]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Virindi on Monday August 28 2017, @06:12PM (5 children)
By this definition, I do "economic damage" to, say, Microsoft when I decide to use Linux rather than Windows. Have I committed an injustice, tort, or crime against Microsoft? Is Linux "malware"?
This is silly. If a user chooses to run this extension knowing what it does, and it does just what it says, the only person responsible is the user.
Now, if you assume for a moment that sending a fake ad click were a horrible crime, it would still not make the extension "malware". Tools which merely have the possibility of being used for crime are not automatically criminal (or "malware"). By that standard, Pale Moon itself is malware since there are plenty of crimes and attacks that could be performed with any browser. An extension that sends fake ad clicks could certainly be used for legitimate purposes even in that scenario.
Going the way of criminalizing tools is the path of doom, and software is no exception. The same argument could ban your favorite *nix, terminals, compilers, debugging tools, etc. "ping" is a hacking tool! It's malware! Ban ban ban!!
So what IS malware? Simple: software that acts against the user's interest without the user's permission. This extension seems to do neither.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday August 28 2017, @06:46PM
I agree.
Let me add more argument in support.
If I were NOT to use an ad blocker and see the ads, and then click on every single ad, just out of spite, have I committed a crime? Does intent matter?
If I have not committed a crime, then why does it become a crime if I automate the process for my own convenience?
Maybe advertisers have caused at least as much economic damage by letting ads run completely amok. But I suspect advertisers are completely blind to the harm they inflict upon others. After all, it's just an ad. I could argue, after all, it's just a click on an ad. But if you spam me with a hundred ads on a single page, then why complain about a hundred clicks?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Virindi on Monday August 28 2017, @07:46PM
I'd like to add a bit to my comment as well.
As someone who at times has been a software developer, I use that definition ("software that acts against the user's interest without the user's permission") as a moral imperative as well. When you run my code on your device, you are implicitly placing trust in me that I will not turn your machine against you and that I will respect that it is your machine. Thus when developing a feature, I think we must always ask ourselves, are we acting in the interest of the machine owner? Are we genuinely doing what we think they would want us to do, if they knew all the facts that we do about the situation? Or are we turning someone else's machine to our selfish desires, or causing it to turn on its owner?
This moral code does not preclude things like automatic updates when they are genuinely intended to help the user. As an example, it would preclude pushing an update without consent designed to add restrictions to how a user may use an existing feature (say, so that we could sell them a new product). It would also prohibit code which prevents the user from running a particular extension (or tries to make it more trouble than it is worth) because we don't like it even when the user's clear intent is to use it.
I understand that this moral code of software will fall away for a lot of people because they have no choice but to feed their family. But, at least we could keep high morals in free, open source, and/or noncommercial software.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @08:25PM (1 child)
I think that this extension blocking could actually cause Pale Moon itself to be considered "malware" under your definition.
Based on the linked to forum discussion, a lot of Pale Moon users do not consider this extension blocking to be in their interest.
These users also didn't ask for this extension blocking to happen, and don't consent to it happening.
So if Pale Moon is not doing what users do want it to do (ie allowing them to use whatever extensions they want, without being blocked) and is doing what the user's don't want it to do (ie blocking extensions that the users want to use), then I think it does fit the definition you gave.
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Wednesday August 30 2017, @01:38AM
Seems reasonable. Unfortunately, among many browsers, PM may be the least of many evils.
Blocking extensions that do what they say is definitely not something I would do in my own software if I had the choice, but I do need a web browser and all the useful choices seem to come with a pile of BS attached. Right now I am using a build of FF that comes with "Pocket" and I am not happy about that either (though it seems Mozilla genuinely intended for Pocket to be useful for users so that is a different category).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @08:38AM
Actually you do indirect economic damage to uncounted parties when you install Windows, given that Windows is still the main host of malware. ;-)