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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.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday April 13 2019, @11:43PM
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