Firefox Browser Blocks Anti-Censorship Add-Ons at Russia’s Request
Mozilla, the maker of the popular web browser Firefox, said it received government demands to block add-ons that circumvent censorship.
The Mozilla Foundation, the entity behind the web browser Firefox, is blocking various censorship circumvention add-ons for its browser, including ones specifically to help those in Russia bypass state censorship. The add-ons were blocked at the request of Russia’s federal censorship agency, Roskomnadzor — the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media — according to a statement by Mozilla to The Intercept.
“Following recent regulatory changes in Russia, we received persistent requests from Roskomnadzor demanding that five add-ons be removed from the Mozilla add-on store,” a Mozilla spokesperson told The Intercept in response to a request for comment. “After careful consideration, we’ve temporarily restricted their availability within Russia. Recognizing the implications of these actions, we are closely evaluating our next steps while keeping in mind our local community.”
“It’s a kind of unpleasant surprise because we thought the values of this corporation were very clear in terms of access to information.”
Stanislav Shakirov, the chief technical officer of Roskomsvoboda, a Russian open internet group, said he hoped it was a rash decision by Mozilla that will be more carefully examined.
“It’s a kind of unpleasant surprise because we thought the values of this corporation were very clear in terms of access to information, and its policy was somewhat different,” Shakirov said. “And due to these values, it should not be so simple to comply with state censors and fulfill the requirements of laws that have little to do with common sense.”
Developers of digital tools designed to get around censorship began noticing recently that their Firefox add-ons were no longer available in Russia.
On June 8, the developer of Censor Tracker, an add-on for bypassing internet censorship restrictions in Russia and other former Soviet countries, made a post on the Mozilla Foundation’s discussion forums saying that their extension was unavailable to users in Russia.
The developer of another add-on, Runet Censorship Bypass, which is specifically designed to bypass Roskomnadzor censorship, posted in the thread that their extension was also blocked. The developer said they did not receive any notification from Mozilla regarding the block.
Two VPN add-ons, Planet VPN and FastProxy — the latter explicitly designed for Russian users to bypass Russian censorship — are also blocked. VPNs, or virtual private networks, are designed to obscure internet users’ locations by routing users’ traffic through servers in other countries.
The Intercept verified that all four add-ons are blocked in Russia. If the webpage for the add-on is accessed from a Russian IP address, the Mozilla add-on page displays a message: “The page you tried to access is not available in your region.” If the add-on is accessed with an IP address outside of Russia, the add-on page loads successfully.
Supervision of Communications
Roskomnadzor is responsible for “control and supervision in telecommunications, information technology, and mass communications,” according to the Russia’s federal censorship agency’s English-language page.
In March, the New York Times reported that Roskomnadzor was increasing its operations to restrict access to censorship circumvention technologies such as VPNs. In 2018, there were multiple user reports that Roskomnadzor had blocked access to the entire Firefox Add-on Store.
According to Mozilla’s Pledge for a Healthy Internet, the Mozilla Foundation is “committed to an internet that includes all the peoples of the earth — where a person’s demographic characteristics do not determine their online access, opportunities, or quality of experience.” Mozilla’s second principle in their manifesto says, “The internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.”
The Mozilla Foundation, which in tandem with its for-profit arm Mozilla Corporation releases Firefox, also operates its own VPN service, Mozilla VPN. However, it is only available in 33 countries, a list that doesn’t include Russia.
The same four censorship circumvention add-ons also appear to be available for other web browsers without being blocked by the browsers’ web stores. Censor Tracker, for instance, remains available for the Google Chrome web browser, and the Chrome Web Store page for the add-on works from Russian IP addresses. The same holds for Runet Censorship Bypass, VPN Planet, and FastProxy.
“In general, it’s hard to recall anyone else who has done something similar lately,” said Shakirov, the Russian open internet advocate. “For the last few months, Roskomnadzor (after the adoption of the law in Russia that prohibits the promotion of tools for bypassing blockings) has been sending such complaints about content to everyone.”
People are getting upset about this, but it only applies within the country where Roskomnadzor has authority, and it's temporary pending further review.
Slow down your condemnations. Mozilla, as a law-abiding organization, must at least acknowledge the requests of a regulatory agency within its own country. Whether you agree with their requests or not, Roskomnadzor has governmental authority in this context within Russia.
Stop jumping to conclusions, actually read the article, and put the fucking pitchforks away.
Remember when China told Google to censor web search results and Google said, "No. How about we show those search results with notes that they were censored and why since the sites will be blocked anyway?", and China was like, "You can't show them at all.", and Google said, "Fuck you. We'd rather lose access to the Chinese market than violate our principles.", and instantly shut down any service in China that would require censorship or disclosing private data and closed all Chinese offices working on any of those technologies?
What a time we're living in.
It is a good stand from google but...
In the end it was all censored, since google wasn't even there anymore, and China was left with a huge market opportunity for their own internal companies to serve their internal market instead of a foreign company. The Chinese people ended up worse off, Google ended up worse off, Chinese censorship won, Chinese tech companies won.
So still sucks either way. With firefox not being banned Russians can still load up the extensions, just have to get them from other sources.
Thanks for the reminder.
LOL. It's quite easy to sideload Firefox add-ons and I'm pretty sure these add-ons are already available elsewhere, through IPFS, Tor, or even a Telegram bot.
That might not be so easy for random schlubs who don't even know how folders work.
Which means that now, for example, Republicans can file to have any extension that "provides or facilitates woke content". To put forth one (1) such case.
Idiot laws are idiot and must be fought at every point, in particular if you have more power than one (1) mere citizen. What Mozilla is doing is just announcing to the world they're open to spreading their legs before the MAGAs.
Insert Nick Fury "I recognize the council has made an ass-stupid decision".
Also the fact they didn't tell anyone until people started asking questions... This isn't a "good faith, temporary" action. It's a "let's hope no one notices us doing bad shit" action.
I think US First Amendment protections are much stronger than Russia's equivalent.
True, but neither that nor anything else has stopped republicans and conservatives from pushing crap after crap until it slips in (or rather, is let slip in, given the Supreme Court the US has over there).
Pretty much same. Maybe even stronger on paper, since it's second part of constitution(rights and freedoms), that can't be changed like parts 3-8 as in 2018, not some amendment. Buuut constitution doesn't work. As a lot of other laws.
🙋♂️ I have a question.
My pitchfork is meant for Roskomnadzor, not Mozilla. Do I still have to put it away?
Hmm, they're a government agency similar to the FCC in the US. Leadership is probably staffed with Putin loyalists, but most of the employees are probably just people doing their jobs.
So... I guess as long as you're careful with where you point the pitchfork?
So they only block the addons where they are needed, oh and they also only block them temprary, while they are needed?
Yeah, great!
Wooo....
They don't block them. They stopped distributing them in Russia.
They are not disabling installed addons and you can always install addons from a file in Firefox.
Yes it will be more difficult to install and more risky to get a tampered version of the extension but if they did not comply the same problems would exist and extend to the actual browser.
I supposed that as long as Mozilla just stopped distributing those add-ons rather than block them (i.e. they can still be side-loaded) it's complying just about as much as they have to.
Even better if they keep the listings in the Mozilla add-on store but for Russian IPs do not allow downloads and instead have some text explaining why they were forced to not distribute those add-ons in Russia.
Depending on the legality of the whole situation they might have held of from doing anything until there was a proper Court Order from a Russian Court but that's about it.
Ultimatelly Mozilla as a whole being blocked in Russia wouldn't be any better than Mozila not distributing those add-ons themselves in Russia anymore, since the result when it comes to people being able to use those add-ons would be the same.
Given it's size in the browser market I don't think that Mozilla not being available in Russia anymore would trigger the kind of pushback against Roskomnadzor in Russia that we many seem to hope it would and absent that there were really no good options here.
There is difference between complying and rushing to comply before it's officially banned by court.
TIL that Mozilla is a Russian company.
But seriously why the hell would Mozilla be obliged to acknowledge this request? Do they have offices in Russia?
Roskomnadzor has regulatory authority in Russia. Roskomnadzor has the legal authority to regulate communications technology within Russia. They are completely within their rights to enforce this within Russia, regardless of what people living in other countries think about it, and organizations operating within Russia are legally bound to abide by the Russian government's regulations within Russia, just as they are in every other country.
Sure, and they can regulate it by blocking access to Mozilla. That’d be within their authority.
That doesn’t mean Mozilla has to answer to them. Mozilla would be within their rights to ignore Roskomnador.
Whether they should is another matter but they don’t have to respond.
If Russia blocks security updates, that's worse for Russian users than having to go to GitHub to install a plugin.
They still have to go through court. Mozilla is proactive here.
Are you implying that if my office isn't in a certain country, that means my software doesn't have to obey that country's regulatory agencies?
That's kind of the Russian law, yes. Russians can even hack people and steal all their data and money as long as they're not Russians or in Russia. It's a legit business model over there.
I mean… yes? Generally laws only apply within the borders of their jurisdiction.
What, are the Russian police going to come to the US and arrest the CEO of Mozilla Corporation?
The laws of a country apply to the activity of a company that is operating within that country, regardless of what that company considers its home country.
That’s kind of an important detail there… as far as I know Mozilla does not operate within Russia.
Do they distribute a Russian version of their software to Russian citizens?
Does it matter, unless there’s an agreement that says the US (or some other place where Mozilla actually operates) will enforce Russian law?
Of course it matters. Firefox will be blocked in Russia and could be considered illegal to use within Russia. Guess why Mozilla is doing what they're doing here. It's better for Russians to have access to Firefox than not, and if done right it could still allow for those censorship avoiding addons in some way, which is what we all want. If Firefox is blocked and illegal in Russia, the situation for those trying to avoid the censorship would be much worse.
Is it?
If it can help them get around the censorship, absolutely.
But it can't. That's the entire point. Removing the tools to do so. It's the exact same either way except Firefox is bending a knee in one case
Not hard to predict that Russia would block Firefox downloads where possible from the Russian Internet. Did you really not consider that?
Edit: lack of response indicates you didn't because you didn't actually care about anything but faux outrage
TIL it's better to withdraw Firefox from Russia completely than to comply with their shitty regulators
Imo yes it would, because then it wouldn't be hidden censorship, it would be noticeable to even the average joe and ways around it would become more widespread.
No browser should be censoring any content, if a country wants to block something they should be forced to do it themselves, which would be more visible to the public.
The browser doesn't censor anything.
People like you don't care about unintended consequences. You don't even consider that they could exist
Withdraw like Durov withdrawed telegram. He did withdraw, right? Right?
Also it seems they blocked addons before court decision.
I'm referring to Firefox being banned which they obviously would be. Since they would be choosing to be banned I said withdraw because I mistakenly thought people could figure out obvious consequences
Banned though legal system or banned because rkn can? If first, then Mozilla should not have done anything before court decision. If second, then Mozilla should not have done anything because it made easier for rkn to ban them.
I don't pretend to know how the Russians do shit internally but we do know for sure they will censor things they want to if at all possible. The means to do it aren't all that important because they will find a way.
If Mozilla refused to comply, Russia would block Firefox from their Internet, thereby completing the monopoly status of chrome in Russia which is bad for a lot of reasons.
You can pretend to understand everything and that principles are more important than reality if you want though.
You realize that Pu needs browser to compete in who is more enthusiastic in censoring internet? And this ignoring importance of Firefox in state stuff. FSTEK doen't like Chrome either.
Search for Roscomsvoboda and tor. They won it, tor was unbanned. For some time.
That's what I've been scratching my head about too. What leverage does Russia have to force them to do this? What consequences could they impose for non-compliance?
Does Mozilla own property in Russia? Sell it or write it off, then ignore the censorship request.
Do they have employees who live or have family in Russia? Either fire them or help them move, then ignore the censorship request.
None of the above? Perhaps it is we who need to fire Mozilla then.
Mozilla is making a mistake in my opinion, should've never started obeying terrorist Russia. I have a feeling that's going to hurt them more than just getting their browser blocked in Russia. They should've stood up for their values instead of caving...just sayin
This is not equating one to another, but the US invasion of Iraq is how much less terrorist? And how much less terrorist is what some US allies do, like Turkey and Israel? And how much less terrorist is surveillance in western countries?
(Please don't comment with "whataboutism", there's a reason this word is used only in politics, cause everywhere else it's assumed rules should apply equally.)
Also escaping Russian censorship is becoming less valuable the way the global Web has become, TBH. Why escape a propaganda and stupidity ridden space for a vaster propaganda and stupidity ridden space?
That said, it sucks, I've just gotten used to such addons as in the title a few months ago instead of having a separate profile with Tor.
Where the fuck Iraq came from?
Same thought Yandex progrrammers. Now Yandex is biggest source of propaganda on the Internet.
From unprovoked invasions.
Yandex just aggregates Russian media, which obviously conform. I don't know what this was about, though, it's incomprehensible.
Google just aggregates American media. Do you see mistake here? Even when talking about only Yandex News, first they blocked "unwanted organizations" that did have media license(like Novaya Gazeta), then they increased weight of TASS, and it ended in entire news is "Putin caught pencil".
And this ignores main Yandex' product - Yandex(the search engine). It bans all pages that contain both Pu and words "краб"(crab), "пиздабол"(liar), "плешивий"(bald), "бункерный дед"(bunker old man), "главный вор"(head thief) and "хуйло"(huilo, I don't need to explain, georgians and ukrainians can do it better than me).
There's no mistake here, only by aggregating the conformant Russian media you'll get the same results.
Also Yandex has been, one can say, captured by people different from those who created it in the first place and led it for many years.
Search engines do that. Search engines in countries with thermorectal (if you want cultural references about Russian politics) legislature do that even more specifically. Because you don't do things that'll get your business shut down and yourself put in jail. When normies get ordered by the state to do something, they usually comply.
Also obviously It's a very weird PoV to consider yourself a better person than someone who has complied with such demands, when the same demands simply hadn't been presented to you.
I happen to speak Russian, so you don't need to translate these terms to me, LOL. Still they address just one man, it's pretty clear that if he dies 15 minutes from now, no significant change will happen in Russian internal or external policies.
It is more reference to police violence, but ok.
*unless it is creates hazard for compliant, because then normies are so noncompliant, that goverment creates law that punishes not helping goverment to enforce it.
External will change. There is only one person that started war, that benefits from war the most and keeps it going. "Achieves internal goals through means of external policies".
It doesn't work like that.
Without him it would be impossible to start war.
Can you explain why you think that? It's nonsensical.
So the whole AP (an unregulated even formally organization of many thousands of people, many of whom have been in that clan before Putin) in your opinion doesn't affect what the Russian state does, only this one person with unknown power in their system decides everything?
You really think he alone made that decision without their general consent?
Article(in Russian obv).
Here's part of leaked rewrite file:
Even if we were to agree in all your points: This is about censorship.
My answer was about the word "terrorist", which is used correctly, but I was very unsure of the author using it correctly in many other cases.
Actually asking, how has Firefox complied with American censorship?
Seems unconnected to my comment.
You're calling this Russian censorship, and saying the rule should be applied equally.
That was about whataboutism and I was talking about calling Russia terrorist.
Did you really not understand that or you think it's somehow smart to pretend? Just asking.
100% honest answer, it seems like you're maybe thinking something that doesn't completely line up with what you wrote.
Since russia is a terrorist state I dont really understand why even communicate with them in the first place
This is an unpleasant dilemma. What is the other option? Stick to their principles and let Russia ban Firefox? It's not ideal but people in Russia can still install add-ons from file.
With the same logic, nothing is stopping people to download firefox from alternative sources 🤷♂️ There would be losses in market share (in Russia) had they refused to play along, but now Mozilla spread it's buttcheeks for governments to impose themselves. Once again, it's mostly about the money.
Do you have evidence or is this pure speculation?
How and why should Mozilla get money from Russia? Isn't it more plausible if Russia were blackmailing Mozilla?
I’m guessing via search engine defaults for that region
(I Don’t actually know if they have a monetary agreement with yandex)
I did not mean that they get paid by governments... loss of revenue comes with loss of market share. You're not likely to pay for Mozilla VPN if Mozilla cannot offer their services in your country.
You're forgetting about security updates, which would also be blocked. It's definitely more of a problem if the whole of Mozilla gets blocked than some plugins that have workarounds and alternatives.
Agreed - rather give the people there the ability to install this themselves than have them try to block Firefox overall.
The problem is, Mozilla is not doing that. The ability install xpis is censored (oh the irony) in retail Firefox.
Is this all true for addons available from Mozilla's add-on site?
PS: Mozilla had to limit installing addons because lots of companies installed malicious addons into browsers of their users, often without knowledge or informed consent of their users.
Never knew that; this is special of Mozilla.
You keep posting that but it is wrong. Ignoring that disabling installation of unsigned extensions is not censoring, you can install signed extensions via file in every version of Firefox, not only the developer one.
Stupid artificial outrage
It's not that we want to communicate with the state of Russia, it is so citizens of Russia can see real and true information from the inside and out.
Doesn’t seem to help though
Couldn't hurt. It's about the principle of freedom.
History doesn’t really suggest that Russian people think much of that principle. They seem to enjoy living under strong men authoritarian rule.
1917
It's not about what they enjoy, it's about what they deserve. People deserve the truth, whether they like it or not. That's what I believe.
You would be right at home in Russia then
🤨 I think we're not getting through to each other...
I mean you sound like you watched too many Superhero movies lately with your pathetic screed about what "you believe" LMAO
Believing in the basic human right to freedom and truth is pathetic now?
Let me guess, "believing in something" is "gay" too, am I right?
Quit now before you embarrass yourself further. This is too much cringe.
How old are you? Around the Marvel fan age 12-35?
I'm 37. I've always hated superhero movies. More into horror and space/sci-fi.
Are we done here with you trying to berate me? You're not showing your best colors here, you know. These ad hominems are giving me second-hand embarrassment.
What the actual fuck Mozilla
Their choice is to either block access to a set of add-ons from Russia or to get their whole infrastructure blocked by Roskomnadzor.
Officially, the world is taking the second option in general.
When did that ever happen? GitHub cooperates with Roskomnadzor, Apple cooperates with Roskomnadzor, Google cooperates with Roskomnadzor.
Don't remember GH cooperating with rkn, but others did it for money. And still do.
Well, time to refresh your memory - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_GitHub scroll down to the section about Russia.
Huh. Lol.
Every piece of software that's available in Russia or China has to comply with their laws. Their laws are fucked up. This is also very easy to circumvent.
I see a lot of gentle replies. I wonder if they would have looked the same if the browser in question was Google Chrome. The issue is that you can't win this game. They ask you one thing, then another, then another, until you either fully comply or stop cooperating, and they block you anyway. That's a reputational hit for the company and its product, whose only competitive advantage was its reputation.
I mean, I'm not ditching Firefox over this.
Well said and a good reminder to keep our loyalties / fanboyisms in check
Mozilla fanboy here, this feels like an absolute diversion from the mission. They should have at least notified the community and devs some how, delayed the best they could, and then ban them to prevent being censored too. They better fight it or at empower someone that can (both technical circumvention attempts and legal rectification).
It's a handful of addons (open source, available to be added via files) rather than the whole browser that are now available in Russia. Seems better to cut loss there and remain available as long as a workaround exists I'd think?
We’ll keep using Firefox until they finally realize it’s a bad practice to trust a company.
So what they're essentially said is that they're gonna follow the rules for now to not be insta-banned, but will consider how to act next given the time they have received.
Which is why it's important to tell Mozilla it really is a bad choice to follow Russian censors.
Disgusted (mostly at the Russian government), but not surprised. There was no good option for Mozilla to take with respect to this—it was either block these add-ons in Russia, or have the entire browser blocked in Russia, and I'm not sure which would do the most harm in the end.
I think k long game would have been to stick to their values and have it blocked in Russia. Would be good press for them and people in Russia frankly need to get more pissed off. Maybe this would help a little.
Russia would just go ahead and ban Firefox while saying things like "Firefox is US spyware".
FSTEK would not be amused.
I hope their values are not "get some good press".
Firefox being banned (or even chrome) won't change the outlook of Russians more than... fighting a friggin war (and doing badly).
You can still get the plugins via other means (getting them from somebody who already had them, getting a non flagged vpn to access the store).
In this context it's better for Firefox not to be the illegal unpatriotic software.
But enraged commenters without any idea how shit works don't agree. So there! /s
Welcome to the lowest common denominator.
It's an infuriating world.
It sure is. The less these fucks know, the more convinced they are that it's cut and dried and that they know everything
They could have waited untill court decides to block. They are being proactive here.
Dammit, Firefox! You was the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the anti-privacy, not join them! You were to bring security to the internet, not leave it in neo-naZi's propaganda.
They were never really the chosen ones, just the most well known GECKO browser.
It was clear what has happened since XULRunner and alternative Gecko browsers became unwanted.
Like now WebKit is sometimes the basis for alternative browsers for people who need something patient and usable. Or QtWebEngine, but that's Chromium.
Before they did this, Gecko was the one to be picked the most for such usage.
That is really pathetic...
Contributing to Russian oppression and fascist agenda.
Why? Do they have employees that live there?
Probably, or employees’ families maybe?
“That’s a nice little nephew you got there, it would be a shame if something happened to him “.
Better than Firefox being blocked in Russia. Addons can be added from files anyway.
And they can be renamed, so the authorities will need to play whack-a-mole.
Wait, they complied to Roscomnadzor? This is so stupid. It's literal Big Brother.
Долбоёбы.
Wait. Are they first to comply?
Wow, wtf Firefox? Not even Chrome is blocking some of the add-ons...
Guess enshittification is starting to creep into Firefox now too
Think about it, pretend you are the Mozilla CEO. You get a
requestdemand from Putin that you block these addons, and you have two options. A) Make a stink and stick to your principles, of which Putin has none, and so you get Firefox banned in Russia altogether. Now, Russians who want to use it cannot, and are forced to use other browsers that Putin can control. or B) Comply with the request, knowing users can still load extensions from the side.Only one of these two options leads to the possibility of Russians being able to use Firefox with these addons, and it's B.
Oh and fuck Putin, just because.
people who were using these addons probably had them installed already, so it'll only affect new users
They chose to comply with the request and become one of the browsers Putin can control. Not sure how Mozilla gets credit for anything good here.
I guess there isn't a good path here. There never is when Russia is involved. I guess just less bad maybe, I dunno
Firefox was pretty great in 2003 ;-)
When should an organisation stop complying with totalitarian governments? First they stop the extensions.
What if they request for Firefox to add site filters, or else?
What if China demands similar bans for extensions related to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet etc?
It can go on and on. Some baselines should not be negotiable.
They've added a temporary block while they decide what to do.
Same thought Yandex programmers before they turned it into biggest Putin's propaganda machine on the internet.
It has been since proton imo. only one person in my group is still on the base version of the fox, the rest of us have preferred forks.
is that something you know for sure? or has Google quietly complied with similar requests, without making a statement like Mozilla has here?
It's in the article
Did you read the article? No? Cmon. You should start doing that before drawing conclusions.
This is noted as a temporary block on the specific extensions ONLY within the country with regulatory power to ban Firefox. Russia.
Mozilla has stated this is temporary so they can have the breathing room to figure out how to navigate this. Since this goes against their principles.
It's either Firefox is banned in Russia, or they do this. Which causes more harm? That's a rough choice for them to need to make.
Mozilla is a for-profit company, "temporary" = "quiet permanent" especially coupled with the secrecy and attempts to keep things quiet.
Yea, no, this isn't going to be "temporary"
This comment aged like milk given they had already lifted the ban.
Yes, and I've already made a comment admitting as such in the relevant thread...and in the week since I made that comment Mozilla is in another scandal
This is proactive ban before court desicion.
Your biggest mistake is trusting the word of a corporation.
If it was a good faith action why would they do it in secret, why not make a post about it and informing everyone before hand about the situation?
For me, all evidence points to them hoping no one would notice and "temporary" would roll over into permanently.
Your biggest mistake was automatically assuming anything in corporation says is a lie, and projecting that into me.
All that matters is the track record.
Does the add-on work the same way in Chrome? Or does Google break it in a way similar to uBlock Origin with the WebExtensions v3 update?
God I'm getting sick of that word.
I'm sick of the concept it represents.
Besides, this instance isn't even enshittification anyway.
Enshittification is when a company makes the user experience worse to squeeze more money out of them. This is just government regulation.
Darlin', English, like any language, evolves.
Still Mozzila Corporation seem to be trying to earn more money by staying in the Russian market.
That's a stretch.
How else would you explain Mozilla's decision?
Not really, they're a for profit company with very little market share and as a result very little wiggle room to, say, be banned from an entire market region
They're protecting profits over people like so many other companies do. Mozilla Firefox is no savior, they'll protect their profits just like any other.
Protecting profits isn't the same as trying to squeeze more profits. If companies were enacting bad policy out of legitimate concern for their business (as is the case here), it wouldn't necessarily be an issue.
If they get kicked out of the Russian market then those extensions wouldn't be available there anyway.
Yeah me too, but can we not discuss it in a more nuanced and useful way than just shoving this word into every single post on Lemmy?
If things would stop getting shittier, then yes. I'm not entirely sure that it applies here so I understand your annoyance, but you're seeing "enshittification" everywhere because we're seeing the practice of enshittification everywhere. I applaud it being called out. We shouldn't be seeing higher prices for worse experiences, but that's the current trend. If you're tired of seeing the word, then it'd probably be a good idea to take a break from c/technology because I don't think it's stopping any time soon.
We're not, though. The word "enshittification" was coined to describe a very specific kind of shittiness, not just a general "I don't like this development."
Now that the word is being used in the more general sense, though, we've lost a useful way of referring to just that very specific kind of shittiness. We already had plenty of ways to say "I don't like this development" so this is a net loss for the descriptiveness of language.
I think we see it so much because kids on the internet think it's fun to say. It's dismissive and stifles meaningful conversation.
I think it describes a phenomenon we've seen repeated over and over almost without variation. Every single internet service slowly gets shittier as they switch from investment to returning investment. Everything going back to MySpace and Yahoo Spaces went from awesome to abandoned as soon as they started trying to monetize the platform they built. It's fair to have a word for that and observing the inevitability.
Does it do any good if it is inevitable? I don't know. The Fediverse seems to be a direct reaction to it, and I'd like to see more.
I don't disagree that the word should exist, I'm saying it's become overused to the point of becoming meaningless. Take this entire thread, for instance. This is not enshittification - yet, here we are.
Alright. It's fair to point out that it's not applicable. People do that shit, though. But if it wasn't so damn applicable all the time, you probably wouldn't notice and be sick of it.
I'm already two martinis into my evening, so I'm done worrying about it. Cheers, mate.
Fair points all around. Have a great evening!
im not TOO surprised.
they're a non-profit company after all. they're not political activists etc.
that said, it hardly matters, because its open source.
They can either lose the Russian market entirely or capitulate to this demand, I think it's pretty obvious what they're going to choose. Mozilla may be an NPO but it still needs revenue to survive.
Besides, it's open source. Anyone can pull it down and compile it without the fuckery, or download a binary from another source, or use a package manager that presumably would have a normal version for that distro.
Yeah, and you can install extensions even if they're not on Mozilla's addon store.
Are these only "just" pulled from the online catalog, or the browser itself blocks installation too from file?
If the prior, I don't really like this action, but my browser won't change because of it (for now?) and also Mozilla and Firefox served me well in the past almost 20 years since I use it, I trust these guys.
If the latter... that could be a different story.
ah okay, thanks, I missed this one.
Communication from Roskomnadzor should be censored straight to/dev/null.
So is this what Mozilla meant when they announced a privacy push back in February
https://fortune.com/2024/02/08/mozilla-firefox-ceo-laura-chambers-mitchell-baker-leadership-transition/
Maybe if all tech companies told Russia and China to fuck off, they'd all get banned in those two countries, further isolating their citizenry, in hope that those citizens would eventually get fed up and say enough is enough, through whatever means necessary.
I'm sure plenty of Russians and Chinese put up with their governments, but are they willing to become North Koreas?
Not likely from what I've read the majority of russians don't have flushing toilets. So the internet is probably a few notches down on the whole basic needs thing.
I hope the devs can tweak a few minor things here and there while leaving the most useful functions alone, change the name, slap a new logo on it and be back in business.
But I know nothing about how the censorship and the add-ons to circumvent it work and odds are it won’t be that easy.
Change of name should be enough for legal system.
Thank you for letting me know that :)
Just gonna drop this here.
https://www.waterfox.net/
Do I want Waterfox or LibreWolf?
Neither, as they rely on Firefox. Waterfox, while decent, does raise an eyebrow as it was bought out by an ad company. LibreWolf is only good as long as the underlying Firefox code it's built on stays as pliable as it is.
And before you ask, I dont actually recommend any browser. They're ALL shit. And I quite literally mean ALL.
So then what are you recommending to connect to the internet? curl? wget? netcat?
Librewolf. Don't listen to this moron
Waterfox is has been independent for almost a year now.
https://www.waterfox.net/blog/a-new-chapter-for-waterfox/
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Stanislav Shakirov, the chief technical officer of Roskomsvoboda, a Russian open internet group, said he hoped it was a rash decision by Mozilla that will be more carefully examined.
“It’s a kind of unpleasant surprise because we thought the values of this corporation were very clear in terms of access to information, and its policy was somewhat different,” Shakirov said.
Developers of digital tools designed to get around censorship began noticing recently that their Firefox add-ons were no longer available in Russia.
Roskomnadzor is responsible for “control and supervision in telecommunications, information technology, and mass communications,” according to the Russia’s federal censorship agency’s English-language page.
In March, the New York Times reported that Roskomnadzor was increasing its operations to restrict access to censorship circumvention technologies such as VPNs.
“For the last few months, Roskomnadzor (after the adoption of the law in Russia that prohibits the promotion of tools for bypassing blockings) has been sending such complaints about content to everyone.”
The original article contains 703 words, the summary contains 160 words. Saved 77%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Anyone have a recommendation for a better service?
You don't need one. It is easy to install an xpi in Firefox. The app store isn't necessary. I.e., no walled garden. I wouldn't blame Mozilla here.
[CITATION NEEDED]
The access to install xpis is (irony intended) censored in "retail" Firefox.
Myself, just installed soundfixer via .xpi on windows 10 Firefox.
There is also no such thing as a "retail" Firefox.
That’s plain wrong ? Last time I checked you can only do that on developer edition of Firefox otherwise you can only install it as a « temporary extension » that remove itself on next restart. Unless I’m missing something ?
For xpis that are on the store it's absolutely correct. Which is the case here. It can be downloaded once and redistributed in any way (sneakernet) and installed offline.
Maybe that's a Windows thing. I haven't done it in a while. I really just install ublock and ghosterly. Here's a link to the instructions: https://robots.net/software-and-applications/browsers-and-extensions/how-to-install-xpi-file-in-firefox/
Last time I checked it only made the extension temporary if the extension wasn't signed by the developer. If you made your own extension you need to use the developer signing tool on it before installing.
I just checked. Manage Your Extensions -> Install Add-on From File...
Super easy. Am I missing something here? I don't have any extra restrictions or steps at all. I have Bypass Paywalls Clean installed from a github build without any issue.
well okay, indeed I was wrong it seems tied to signing, however I thought Mozilla revoked that signature once it removed it from their store.
Librewolf or Mullvad browser
Librewolf's extension store has refused Russia's request?
Do they work with android ?
The closest thing to Librewolf on Android is Mull. Keep in mind that some of the settings are different.
Firefox?
This is only in the country that has regulatory authority, Russian, and is stated as temporary so Mozilla can figure out what to do about it.
Honestly it looks like corpo speak for "we're waiting for everyone to forget so we can sweep it under the rug".
Brave browser has been working great.
No. Brave is merely Chrome with extra steps. And it's associated with lots of "web3" / crypto scams.
I know about Brave. I just didn't want to crush the poor guys spirit.
Better to crush their spirit now, before it can be misled by lies; so that it can crash and burn and be reborn in the Fire of the Fox, as a Libre Wolf.
Or, if they prefer a more compact fursona, a Fennec.
Don't use brave if you care about privacy, they claim to be privacy focused but will sell you out the first chance they get (which they already did)
This comment section is a great example of the Dunning-Kruger effect playing out in real time
Yeh they enshitified starting quite some time ago, and with only sub-3% market share lmao.
If you like GECKO based browsers like firefox then try out Waterfox or others.
I think it's important to support the original Mozilla since they are the engine developers and need resources to make all other gecko-based browsers possible.
Currently though, it might make sense to make a switch, at least for now.
welp time to browser hop soon
Unfortunately there are no other options. Literally everything else is Chromium based and ruined by Manifest v3.
LOL
"switch to Firefox!" Yeah sure. What absolutely typical corporate cowards. Fuck Mozilla.
I'm not convinced this is "Fuck Mozilla" territory.
I'm genuinely curious why? I may have worded it strongly, but as a Russian, there are very few things as unethical to me as cooperation of any kind with the Russian government.
Would you be happier if they ignored the demands and possibly got Firefox banned in Russia? Because if so, it's not that we disagree over our views of the Russian government. Probably neither do Mozilla.
We have different priorities. I want the average Russian to be easily able to use Firefox, even if it takes more work to load some extensions. From where I'm sitting, you seem to want to cut off your nose to spite your face.
I'm genuinely curious why.
Yes, having a web browser banned is absurd and impossible to do in practice, it would be largely inconsequential overall, before you even consider the thousands of forks of Firefox.
Taking down extensions makes them much much harder to get because they are relatively obscure and are usually hosted in one place only - on the extension store, unless you're lucky and they have a binary on a GitHub.
I want the average Russian to be easily able to bypass censorship that blocks out truth in favor of misinformation of their government that gets people onboard with a war that's killed tens of thousands.
What browser they use to do that I care much less about, not that they'll be able to block Firefox or it's thousands of forks from every page that hosts builds, installers or even OS ISOs with package on disc, but whatever one they have the extensions need to be available on the store - otherwise they can be extremely hard to find.
I think we simply disagree about the effect of taking down an extension vs "blocking" a browser may be.
I stand corrected, I see your argument about the comparative difficulty and effect of banning a browser vs an extension. The discoverability of the extension alone is a big point.
Not sure I agree with how you seemingly downplay the damage banning the browser could cause and fail to consider consider other ways people could organize to distribute extensions (even as you mention various ways to get Firefox, I'm a bit confused on this one). Others have already talked about this in the thread, so I won't repeat it here.
With all that said, it appears we were both fools. Mozilla has returned the extensions already. It was neither about protecting Firefox in Russia, nor a case of "Fuck Mozilla."
Fair enough!
On the browser bit, my reasoning is very simple: idk about you, but I don't have extensions downloaded anywhere. If ublock origin were to disappear, and I needed to install it on a new computer, I would be kinda screwed!
Unless the browser stores a copy somewhere that can be used for installing it again on another machine that I could send. I don't actually know, but I would assume not, I would wager most people don't know and would assume that it does not. (Actually I think Firefox might have used or still does just download .crt files and then install them? Chrome definitely does not work this way)
What I do have is an installer of Firefox on at least 3 different computers though, smack dab in the Downloads folder because I am lazy and do not clean my downloads folder and don't really use it after initially setting up the OS, so if mozilla.org would be gone tomorrow, it would basically not affect me now or ever, there is no "organising" necessary.
Not to mention there are countless websites who will store binaries for something that's as popular as Firefox also, and it's very unlikely roscomnadzor would block all of them also, compared to some obscure only regionally relevant extension. And that's before we even get to forks of Firefox on GitHub...
And then of course, there will always be a Linux compiled binary in the Debian installer also, and the package repo, so the entirety of Debian would have to be blocked too, along with basically every other Linux distro, and I doubt roscomnadzor knows what that is.
Blocking people from using a browser as such is utterly impossible. An extension can on the other hand become difficult enough to get that most people simply don't bother.