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posted by martyb on Saturday April 13 2019, @05:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the let's-talk-about-it dept.

Packt reports that Gab's Dissenter browser extension was removed from Mozilla's Firefox add-ons on April 10th (people already using it can continue to do so), and was booted from Google's Chrome browser the next day. Gab pitches itself as an anti-censorship social media platform that only prohibits speech that is illegal. Their Dissenter browser extension and associated website allow people to share comments about any webpage, giving users the ability to share comments on articles, videos, etc., regardless of whether or not the website hosting the content has a comments section. Mozilla's rationale for the ban was that Dissenter was being used to promote violence, hate speech, and discrimination, but they failed to show any examples to bolster that claim. Gab plans to develop their own browser in response.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @07:55PM (16 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @07:55PM (#829059)

    "Mommy! Firefox and Chrome are being mean to me! They won't let me bring my toys into their houses! Make them stop!"

    I note in TFS that Google and Mozilla have not *blocked* use of the Gab plugin. Rather, they removed it from their addon/plugin repositories.

    There's a big difference between not hosting and distributing a plugin and blocking its use. While Google/Mozilla are doing the former, they are most certainly not doing the latter. This isn't censorship. It's a corporation making a determination as to how it wants to use its resources.

    All of you complaining how this is censorship or criminal or just plain wrong would scream bloody murder if they were *required* to host content from the ACLU, SPLC, BLM, DNC or any number of other sites.

    I'd also note that the EFF's HTTPS Everywhere [eff.org] plugin is not hosted on Google's or Mozilla's plugin repositories either. But that doesn't stop the EFF from distributing the plugin or block its use on Firefox or Chrome.

    You can piss and moan all you want about private companies deciding what content they want to *host* on their servers, but that doesn't mean that such companies aren't entitled to do so.

    As long as the Gab plugin meets the *technical* requirements of plugins for Firefox and Chrome, it will run without issue in those browsers.

    Just a bunch of whiny little bitches.

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  • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Saturday April 13 2019, @08:11PM (5 children)

    by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 13 2019, @08:11PM (#829073) Journal

    It is loaded as a developmental temporary addon. You close FF and go back in, you have to manually go reload it each time. That's definitely stopping the average joe from using it.

    Similarly if your car wouldn't navigate to your local polling place if you voted in the primary of the wrong party.
     
    The company isn't keeping you from going to the polls, cry moar! They're just a company deciding they don't want you using their product. You could always switch to airplane mode and download and use offline maps so it couldn't check your history, so it isn't stopping you from navigating right?

    --
    В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @08:18PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @08:18PM (#829080)

      It is loaded as a developmental temporary addon. You close FF and go back in, you have to manually go reload it each time. That's definitely stopping the average joe from using it.

      That sounds like a technical issue, not a policy issue.

      As I mentioned, the EFF doesn't seem to have those problems with HTTPS Everywhere [eff.org]. Why should it be any different for the Gab plugin?

      • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Saturday April 13 2019, @08:37PM (2 children)

        by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 13 2019, @08:37PM (#829095) Journal

        Might be. The EFF process is an actual installer of some kind.
         
        The GAB process is loading the plugin yourself from about:addons. It may be that GAB will come out with an installer similar to the EFF one and just hasn't had time yet, or that there are other constraints. TBD.

        --
        В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
        • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday April 13 2019, @11:43PM

          by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Saturday April 13 2019, @11:43PM (#829167) Homepage Journal

          The GAB process is loading the plugin yourself from about:addons. It may be that GAB will come out with an installer similar to the EFF one and just hasn't had time yet, or that there are other constraints. TBD.

          You got me curious, so I tested on a fresh install of Firefox (v.66.0.2-1) on XFCE (Fedora 29).

          I was able to successfully install the HTTPS Everywhere extension both directly from the website and from a downloaded copy of the extension.

          I was asked whether or not I wanted to allow the extension to install and if I would allow the extension to use certain permissions. Other than that it was a smooth install.

          When I tried to install the Dissenter plugin, I downloaded the zip file, but was surprised to see that there wasn't a .xpi file inside. So I used instructions on the download page and was able to do a "temporary" install of the extension. As you mentioned, such an install did not survive an exit and restart.

          I found that a little strange, so I investigated the format of '.xpi' files and found out that they are just '.zip' files renamed. So I renamed the dissenter zip file to '.xpi' and attempted an install from file. Firefox came back with an error that the archive was corrupt.

          I know that isn't true, as I was able to do the temporary install from the unzipped contents of the downloaded zip file.

          I'm not a browser extensions developer and I'm not familiar with what should/shouldn't be included in a .xpi archive. However, it seems me that something is off in the dissenter archive prevents installation as a normal plugin.

          Somehow, EFF is able to generate a zip/xpi file that loads just fine, but dissenter is not. Is this a digital signature issue? A packaging issue? are there flags in the manifest.json file that restrict installation to debug installs?

          Comparing the manifests, HTTPS Everywhere seems to have a bunch more entries which include requested permissions and other stuff than dissenter. Neither file appears to have any reference to digital signatures or debug/production versioning.

          Honestly, I'm not interested enough to check more thoroughly, but I wonder if that's a technical issue rather than a policy one.

          Perhaps someone with more knowledge about this than I have could explain what's going on here.

          --
          No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
        • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday April 13 2019, @11:48PM

          by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Saturday April 13 2019, @11:48PM (#829169) Homepage Journal

          Might be. The EFF process is an actual installer of some kind.

          My apologies. I didn't address this in my last comment. It doesn't appear that such is the case.

          As I mentioned, plugins are .xpi files, and .xpi files are just renamed .zip files. The download link at EFF is a direct link to the .xpi file. There is no "installer," except (AFAICT) details in the manifest.json file inside the archive.

          It's not at all clear to me what the story is with that.

          --
          No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @09:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @09:47PM (#829126)

      The really nasty part about it is it won't automatically whitelist a plugin you have manually installed AND it won't run a plugin unless it is BOTH signed and whitelisted, as far as I can tell. I am still uncertain how to manually add a whitelist entry as well. I think it is a json formatted attribute in the about:config page that is a little ugly to edit by hand in a single line text field.

      Mozilla really doesn't want to make Firefox user friendly to anyone who needs to operate outside of their walled garden. And I say this as someone who has to run specific older versions of firefox because their newer binaries will not work on older distributions and the source code has gotten so big that I need an extra 8-12GB of disk space, plus 4 or more gigs of ram just to compile and link the bloody thing.

      Personally I would love to see some ACTUAL ESR releases where they support a browser for 10 years with only security fixes. Sadly without being logged in AND on their developer list you can't even see half of the CVE bugs on their bugtracker, meaning unless you want to try and sift through git bisects by hand to find every CVE fix that applies to your browser version, it will be next to impossible without also getting the mess of new (mis)features and privacy violations they add with every new version of firefox today.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 13 2019, @08:17PM (9 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday April 13 2019, @08:17PM (#829079) Journal

    Firefox and Chrome have made it more difficult to run unofficial extensions over the years, and will probably continue to do so.

    The HTTPS Everywhere page notes:

    Note: If you install the standalone .crx (i.e. not from the Chrome Web Store), and you are using Windows, Chrome will automatically disable the extension on each restart. You may be able to work around by using developer mode. See this issue.

    Even if the workarounds are successful, it could have the immediate effect of confusing and driving away non-technical users. And Mozilla or Google can disable it at any time, forcing you to use another browser.

    Mozilla has not revoked the add-on’s signature, so Dissenter can be distributed while guaranteeing that the add-on is safe and can be updated automatically.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday April 13 2019, @08:19PM (5 children)

      by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Saturday April 13 2019, @08:19PM (#829082) Homepage Journal

      Yet another reason (as if we needed more) not to use Chrome.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @09:47PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @09:47PM (#829127)

        It's good if nazis use chrome so they will be tracked more easily. We don't want to suddenly wake up to WWIII with these fifth columners behind our back.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @10:16PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @10:16PM (#829141)

          It's good if nazis commies use chrome so they will be tracked more easily. We don't want to suddenly wake up to WWIII with these fifth columners behind our back.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @10:45PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @10:45PM (#829148)

            So you're a Nazi? Thanks for sharing!

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @11:27PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @11:27PM (#829161)

              No, I'm an an anti-collectivist, liberal individual.

              • (Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 15 2019, @05:56AM

                by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday April 15 2019, @05:56AM (#829686) Journal

                And the only one with that particular set of My Little Pony wallscrolls and that size collection of fedoras, no doubt. Oh, sorry, they're *trilbies,* not fedoras, aren't they?

                You are a unique and special snowflake. As in "short bus" special.

                --
                I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday April 13 2019, @08:37PM (2 children)

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday April 13 2019, @08:37PM (#829096) Journal

      Over the arc of my career I have had the opportunity to measure the rate at which the general public internalizes new tech and communications media. Texting debuted on big platforms in the mid-90's. It took off instantly in Europe and Asia, but it took a further 15 years for it to really hit the big time with the American public.

      The same thing was true with social media. Anybody here remember Geocities or Yahoo Groups? The tech was there a long time ago, but again it took 15-20 years for the American public to get up to speed. Meantime, many iterations have come, risen, crashed and burned (eg. Meetup.com, MySpace.com, Friendster, etc).

      I remember when I graduated with my Bachelor's and was considering graduate study, I thought about undertaking sociological analysis of the impact of the Internet because its revolutionary potential, its ability to challenge governments and established powers globally seemed clear. But it's only now, 25 years later, that it's really coming about.

      Privacy and security and de facto defense against censorship will, I believe, follow a similar timeframe. This latest round of shenanigans will accelerate everything a bit, maybe, but it's gonna take a while for those things to become a widely accepted reality.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Pino P on Sunday April 14 2019, @02:56AM

        by Pino P (4721) on Sunday April 14 2019, @02:56AM (#829215) Journal

        Texting debuted on big platforms in the mid-90's. It took off instantly in Europe and Asia, but it took a further 15 years for it to really hit the big time with the American public.

        Might much of that have to do with how American carriers chose to price the service compared to carriers in Europe and Asia?

      • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday April 15 2019, @11:13AM

        by aristarchus (2645) on Monday April 15 2019, @11:13AM (#829756) Journal

        I appreciate Phoenix666's experience, but it beggars the practices of leaving inscribed stones close to the peaks of Mount Olympus, or other high places, as a means to meet chicks. Of course, a lot of them were Centaurs, or at least portrayed themselves as Centaurs, or the God Priapus. But then, I think blocking Priapus is called for these days, and is called "Priapus blocking".

        So many perverts, so few young girls on SoylentNews! Yes, I know it must be hard! Can I suggest the "Red Pillar" solution?