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from the random-plugin-included-for-free dept.
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow9228
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.
The extension, called Looking Glass, is intended to promote an augmented reality game to "further your immersion into the Mr. Robot universe," according to Mozilla. It was automatically added to Firefox users' browsers this week with no explanation except the cryptic message, "MY REALITY IS JUST DIFFERENT THAN YOURS," prompting users to worry on Reddit that they'd been hit with spyware.
"I have no idea what it is or where it came from. I freaked out a bit and uninstalled it immediately," one user wrote on Reddit.
Without an explanation included with the extension, users were left digging around in the code for Looking Glass to find answers. Looking Glass was updated for some users today with a description that explains the connection to Mr. Robot and lets users know that the extension won't activate without explicit opt-in.
Mr. Robot is a TV series about hackers airing on USA Network.
Source: https://gizmodo.com/mozilla-slipped-a-mr-robot-promo-plugin-into-firefox-1821332254
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday December 18 2017, @05:36AM (2 children)
Back when I was but a lad software cost money.
Sure there was piracy but even so there were many prosperous software companies.
Many such companies offered free tech support.
There's so much gratis software these days that it must be very difficult for paid software to gain traction.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by joshuajon on Monday December 18 2017, @07:56PM (1 child)
And yet the software industry is bigger and richer than ever, expanding at unprecedented rates. Sure, support isn't free any more - that's where many of these companies make the bulk of their income: recurring license fees.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday December 19 2017, @12:07AM
I am convinced that the reason ads are so frequent and so unpleasant to look at is that there are too many websites.
For decades now the total amount spent on advertising has been close to 2% of the GDP.
But everyone wants to make money by posting ads on their sites.
When they find that ads don't earn them much money they publish even more ads. When product and service vendors find their ads are ineffective they increase their visibility - that is, they make them more glaringly obvious.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]