Was casually reading through Firefox release notes for version 115, and in “Changes” section there is an introduction of a new back-end feature that restricts extensions behavior

We have introduced a new back-end feature to only allow some extensions monitored by Mozilla to run on specific websites for various reasons, including security concerns.

This feature is obviously still under development, but it already forced people to look for fixes. This suggests the user-unfriendliness of this feature, which may be related to the goals that the infamous Web Integrity API is seeking: partly, controlling and limiting extensions, which are there for the community(!)

I, of course, understand that this update dates back to 4th of July 2023 - some time before this DRM-the-web thing exploded, but still it contradicts things that Mozilla stated in opposition of Google’s plan to hijack [even more] the internet.

How long before the YouTube page will be too private, sensitive and important to allow uBlock Origin from running on it? Will Mozilla decide that youtube.com is “quarantined domain” or will it accept suggestions from its monopoly colleagues?

This feature bug can be fixed by going to about:config and setting “extensions.quarantinedDomains.enabled” to “False”. For now.

Not trying to make a fuss and/or cause a hysteria, just pointing out that such a thing was introduced and slipped under the radar (haven’t seen a discussion about this on the internet). Mozilla may have other intentions for it, but it doesn’t look like something made truly “for the people, not for profit” as some of Mozilla’s slogans state.

Will be happy to discuss.

EDIT: “uBlock” > “uBlock Origin”

  • @shrugal@lemm.eeEnglish
    6•11 months ago

    Please chill. Just because there was a really bad proposal doesn’t mean everything coming out of browser companies is evil, especially Mozilla of all people. Specifially read this part on the page you linked:

    If you are aware of the associated risk and still wish to allow add-ons disallowed on a site by Mozilla, you can do so from the Configuration Editor (about:config page)

    So this just disables some extensions by default, but you can still enable them if you wish. That sounds very reasonable to me!

    • @GrievingWidow420OPEnglish
      3•11 months ago

      I understand. Just saw some similarities and thought of the worst. I repeat: I trust Mozilla (non-profit) muuuuuch more than I trust Google (for-profit), for example, but still not enough to exclude doubt. I personally like this quality in me, but I can see how, sometimes, it may lead to a misunderstanding like this post right here. Just wanted to have some external opinion on this, and make people who didn’t notice it notice it.