Mozilla's massive lapse in judgement causes clash with uBlock Origin developer
Software developers who publish their products on third-party stores face all kinds of problems sometimes. From rejected apps or extensions to removed products or unjustified claims about them.
Raymond "gorhill" Hill, maker of the world's most popular content blocker uBlock Origin received two emails from Mozilla recently about his Firefox add-on uBlock Origin Lite.
Good to know: uBlock Origin Lite is a Manifest V3-compatible version of the content blocker. It is less powerful, but since Google is disabling Manifest V2 support in Chrome, it is what will remain from uBlock Origin for Chromium-based browsers.
Mozilla says that it has reviewed the extension and found violations. The following claims were made:
- The extension is not asking for consent for data collecting.
- The extension contains "minified, concatenated or otherwise machine-generated code".
- There is no privacy policy.
As a consequence, Mozilla disabled the extension on the Firefox Add-ons Store.
Hill refuted all three claims that Mozilla made on the GitHub repository stating that the extension is not collecting any data, that there is no minified code in uBlock Origin Lite, and that there is a privacy policy.
He admitted further that he does not "have the time or motivation to spend time on this nonsense" and won't react to the allegations made or appeal the decision.
In a follow-up, Hill criticized the "nonsensical and hostile review process" that put added burden on developers. Mozilla disabled all versions of the extension except for the very first one. It still flagged the extension for the very same reasons, but nevertheless decided to keep the outdated version up.
Does it affect uBlock Origin? The core extension remains available for Firefox. Unlike Google Chrome, Firefox will continue to support Manifest V2 extensions. Mozilla has not flagged this extensions or disabled it.
Hill is now self-hosting the extension uBlock Origin Lite for Firefox on the GitHub repository. Interested users find it on the releases page as a direct download.
Mozilla realizes its blunder, but it seems too late
Mozilla contacted Hill a few days later, likely after the thing blew up everywhere, stating that the "previous decision was incorrect" and that the extension has been restored.
The organization issued an apology for the "mistake" and recommended to Hill to reach out whenever he has questions or concerns about a review.
Hill decided to go ahead with the plan to self-host the extension. He removed the extension from Mozilla's Add-ons repository as a consequence.
When you search for uBlock Origin Lite, you won't get the extension returned anymore.
It remains to be seen if the two parties will come closer together again or if this breakup will be permanent.
Closing Words
Most mistakes in review processes are made by machines. Google, for example, uses automated reviews for the most part, but may also manually review extensions.
The process does not keep all malicious extensions out, of which plenty are regularly discovered, but it may also block legitimate extensions or updates.
In the case of uBlock Origin Lite, it is unclear how the reviewer came to the conclusion that the extension was in violation of policies. Especially the claim that the extension had no privacy policy, when it clearly had one, sheds no good light on the reviewer and process.
Mozilla might want to look at the review process to find out what went wrong exactly to avoid another disaster like it in the future.
Did you experience issues with removed apps or extensions in the past due to reviews by the owners of the stores? What is your take on this one? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
its eating memory up we have gave up on the shitshow its where it belongs now in the bin crying time again for Mo..Lossers
Am still running a 32-Bit Firefox-51 with NoScript and uBlock-Orig, on a locked down Win7-Pro 64-Bit-OS with Complete confidence and satisfaction.
I’m believe most confusion and tech issues today are caused by global corporate initiatives, who’s goals are, to stir up division, dumb down society and consolidate
everything.
He’s dramatizing. Mozilla regularly rejects extensions during the review process. You just have to be persistent. Which is no excuse for Mozilla.
He is not dramatizing at all. Mozilla knew very well what was doing with UblockOrigin.
Exactly John G. You may think it’s some low level tech reviewing the extensions, but no, it’s the CEO reviewing each and every extension.
To all those ppls bitching like a teens .. remember do we have better option than mozilla ?
Sometimes things get fcked up.. you have to get on with it.
I personally can’t blame either party.
Next time point finger like an jack ass remember.. you are helping escalation of the problem rather than resolving it.
Of course there is a better browser: BRAVE. Rust-Based AdBlocker. Period. I don’t need to say anything else.
In line with Microsoft’s end of support for Windows 7 and 8/8.1 on January 10th, 2023, Brave will no longer offer support…
Anon
You were doing ok until you said Rust and better.
You miss-spelled Brave. Rust is fine. Brave however is crypto spyware.
you ppl really seem to like overdramafication. doom calling mozilla/ff – get a grip, just because youre frustated doesnt mean you can blame it on ff. . what would you do w/o ff? see? be totally dependent on google and its v3 shit. Be glad ff exists. act and think positive, – no one changes when thrown with shit. everyone can change mozlla do be a better company, and that works better via constructive means instead of just havng a target for your frustration.
Giving Mozilla a pass every time with the line of thought is why they got complacent and why Firefox has been left farther and farther behind. They need to have their feet held to the fire.
This is typical of what goes on with the gecko (browser that is)…
.
They shoot themselves in the foot so regularly and so profoundly at Mozilla.org that its a wonder they can still ambulate at all. I’ve been a constant user of Seamonkey/Firefox as my daily driver since day one, and was using Netscape Navigator before that. I’ve seen all of the “annoyances” that Mozilla have foisted upon its user base since the beginning. Of all these there is one which for most users was the end. That being their move from the XUL extensions ecosystem to the much inferior (Google) webextensions ecosystem back in 2017 with its bland, hard to see, Googlized user-antagonistic chromium-like interface. Instantly gone were all those powerful XUL addons which made Firefox so awesome! Doh! It is to Weeeeeep! However to this day, my daily driver is still a hardened Firefox (v52.9.0 ESR) with all of my 104 XUL (and a few webextensions) addons going strong. I also run a hardened Firefox v115.16 ESR (on Win7, of course, also my only OS/daily driver) with its wonky but highly modified Proton ui for when I simply cannot render a desired website with the legacy v59.
Now, I’m just waiting for the next fiasco… If Mozilla were to drop Manifest V2 in favor of Google’s vision of adblocking killing-Manifest V3 only, then its time to call Mozilla Foundation dead. But v52.9.0 ESR will remain my daily driver with v115.16 ESR as backup. For ever.
Honestly Mozilla needs to pay a fee to uBlock for being the ONLY thing left that makes Firefox relevant.
Not being Chromium-based, is reason enough for Firefox being critically relevant.
Chromium is not the problem, Google’s bastardized version of it is.
Chromium is almost exclusively funded and developed by Google, which is definitely a problem.
We have not had this problem with Mozilla but we repeatedly had these problems with Google Play. (I think this is the first time I’ve shared this info publicly.)
I run a 501(c)(3) nonprofit org. Our focus is violence prevention. I created this org in memory of my daughter. She was a high school student who was killed by her ex-boyfriend. And so I do this work to prevent other families and communities from going through what we’ve had to go through.
Our most successful program, Gaming Against Violence, produces and publishes free prosocial video games. We think video games are a fantastic way to engage young people about sensitive topics. The games are free. No ads. No tracking of players. No IAP, etc.
We’ve been honored many times for our work. :-)
But we have zero games in Google Play; it was not worth my mental health.
* They falsely claimed we were collecting player data. We showed third-party validation that we were not.
* They incorrectly claimed we mischaracterized our games as “educational” because Google did not understand that our topics are educational. I sent them proof showing the games are about standards-aligned topics that are required teaching in most U.S. States.
* I even spoke with the head of Google Play (at that time) when we were both at Games for Change (one of our games was honored as a Finalist for “Best Educational Game”!). I explained what had happened. He apologized profusely, promising to look into it. I never heard from him again.
* It became a constant battle. If we resolved one issue, then another nonsense issue popped up. Eventually, I just stopped fighting. All of our games were removed from Google Play in a span of two weeks a few years ago.
I believe a major factor is that since our games are free and contain no ads, Google could not make PROFIT from them.
So now we focus more on games to play in a browser rather than on mobile phones or tablets. This Summer we had several interns who created mobile versions of our newest games for us but when we release them they will have to be sideloaded for Android devices. We will never deal with Google Play again.
As a side note (and for comparison) Apple gives us a free annual dev license to allow us to publish our free games in the App Store at no charge to us.
I’m embarrassed to admit that there was a time when I bought into the “Good Google” ethos and am trying to be hopeful that Mozilla is not going down the same path as Google.
Similar story for me constantly fighting an uphill battle on the Play store. Apart from the time they decided to feature one of my apps. It’s not Google actively being evil but as you note they don’t make a profit from this so there is no real motivation for them to spend money on fixing the review processes or assign some kind of holistic ownership. Seems very much like what Mozilla did here.
The latest version of Vivaldi is no slouch either. It has now sleeping tabs and is comparable with Edge footprint. It has built in ad blockers, you just add them as you do in Ublock Origin. Good as second browser along with Friefox for me.
Wow, I see a lot of Chrome-bots in here trying to bad mouth Gorhill. Mozilla is the one that messed here, as evidenced by their apology. If Gorhill gets upset at users, that is irrelevant. EVERY I.T. Admin gets upset at the users they manage. Users often don’t follow direction, as is especially the case with uBo users.
Finally the full evil and sin of the Mozilla Foundation is revealed! Come join us in the light brothers! Let us frolic in the glory that is Google! You all have criticized Google for letting too much malware through the web store, now repent! Accept that Google is the home of freedom and privacy and you too will be saved!
The powers that be don’t want to lose cash and eyes, bloated from their excessive lust for power via ads. I say, FUCK YOU to these companies. Get the fuck off of the web and don’t come back.
I hope all of the companies involved in advertising GO UNDER and suck themselves.
Enough is enough…..
Leave Britney, I mean uBlock Origin ALONE! Praise to the authors and anyone working on uBlock Origin projects. YOU have SAVED the world from the foul anus of big corporations. May your projects never end.
Your loyal subject,
Anonymous
Frankly, seeing as I had to beg for him not to be rude as shit to users back when I wasn’t rude as shit to users.. So I dunno if I can side with gorhill even against mozilla.
Check out the latest comment in that Github issue thread. Someone at Mozilla realized they fucked up, and emailed the UBO author.
>After re-reviewing your extension, we have determined that the previous decision was incorrect and based on that determination, we have restored your add-on.
However the author has justifiably pointed out, there is an added overhead on the author to have to deal with companies and their hostile review processes. I’ve been in this situation before and fully sympathize, it’s very stressful, and worse it’s unnecessarily stressful. Mozilla isn’t unique in this, it happens frequently with Apple, MS, Google, FB, where companies see their review processes as infalliable and see the extension authors as beholden to them.
Mozilla has been digging its own grave for over a god damned decade. What are any of you gonna do about it?
I tried to do something, it even worked. But I am not allowed to have things and honestly I blame all of you.
>”Mozilla has been digging its own grave for over a god damned decade. What are any of you gonna do about it?”
Too much whining about Mozilla, a company that is absolutely rolling in Google money. “Poor Mozilla, here, wipe your tears with another handful of thousand dollar bills…”
>”I tried to do something, it even worked. But I am not allowed to have things and honestly I blame all of you.”
You’re blaming a bunch of new Ghacks readers that have no idea what you are talking about? Seems fair. Hardly any old-timers around anymore.
You’re here ;)
Thanks for the principled knee-jerk tantrum, Raymond, you’re making Google’s crusade to kill literally all ad-blockers a huge success. Mozilla actually admitted their blunder, but will you?
“Code review” at AMO is literally done by a bunch of tech illiterate morons who know fuck all about software engineering and can’t even follow a simple README
Save yourself the trouble
For those not knowing, Google whiteknights fake reviewed uBlockLite and forced Mozilla to delete it.
It happens everywhere.
that sounds as unrealistic as outrageous as the reasons why woke invaded and is destroying gaming and other entertainment venues
aka
if youre not woke, you are a backwards bigot, if you dont like firefox, you are a google lapdog, if you dont dislike russia/china, you are a russian/chinese troll/bot
Sad thing is there are a surprising amount of social media influencers who are in fact Russian bots.
https://www.wired.com/story/influencers-tenet-benny-johnson-tim-pool-russia-propaganda-videos/
Why would a Firefox user want to user the lite version when the full version is better?
It’s lighter than the full version in Android.
Mozilla is a coffin filled to the brim with old extensions.
Thanks for the article! :]
“He who is without sin can cast the first stone”.
Not even a sin, a mistake, a big mistake with potential dramatic issues for newbies. Still : He who never mistakes can cast the first stone.
I can understand Raymond Hil’s irritation, even his anger, but far less when it comes to users, most of us prompt to draw the Colt at the first opportunity.
Mozilla blundered and apologized. End of the story. But should the story repeat I’d likely reconsider words of wisdom :)
@TomHawack,
You’re getting the best content blocker … FOR FREE, & you want him to kiss you and other people’s @$$, because you can’t hack hearing the TRUTH???
This is not a business venture, it’s a labor of love. Gorhill makes absolutely nothing in return for uBlock Origin. He doesn’t accept any donations.
So don’t post $tupid $hit like “he who throws the first stone” crap.
F***ing ungrateful piece of s**t.
If you don’t like gorhill shutting down BS, than use something else.
Those diversity hires at Mozilla deserve all the ire from gorhill.
Firefox is the best browser, but Mozilla is still run by woke lunatics, so diversity hires will alway work in nothing jobs, like extension reviewers (which are largely done automated anyway).
If you’re going to quote the Bible, Jesus threw out the money changers from the synagogue. He didn’t politely ask them to leave, he took his athletic carpenter trained body & threw them out.
Are you going to criticize Jesus???
SMH.
@anon, I was referring of course to users : “users, most of us prompt to draw the Colt at the first opportunity.” hence to “cast the first stone”. How you got to misunderstand is above my understanding.
I’ve adopted ‘uBlock Origin” at the moment it what made available, years ago, consider it as a pillar of privacy and security, and will always be grateful to gorhill’s work. Clear enough? :)
Once the stone is thrown, only the flesh or the glass stop it, you know that’s true.
Mozilla has enough money to learn how to read rightly before writing bull****.
My congratulations to Raymond, of course.
The crux of the issue is, why can a single Mozilla reviewer unilaterally decide that uBlock origin Lite is problematic and freeze its extension page?
This review mechanism is definitely flawed. Shouldn’t they investigate the reviewer’s past reviews for similar instances of malicious speculation and harassment of developers?
I even doubt whether the reviewer was paid to intentionally provoke Hill and make him lose enthusiasm for developing an ad blocker in the browser.
Mozilla self destructed a while ago. Too many in the obsessive camp about stuff. No concept of crating a mass appeal product anymore. The fringe is running Mozilla now and it has basically ruined Firefox.
Best comment!!!
Agree 110%.
I am sorry, as much as he’s the good guy most of the time, Raymond is clearly the bad guy here. Mistakes happen, it was on the light/crippled version (barely useful on Firefox), removing it voluntarily from Mozilla addon store is just immature and over-reactive.
again with the same “unless you support mozilla in everything, you are part of the bad guys” so now the only guy mozilla fans cling to pulled one of his extensions from their store and they call him bad for it… if he pulls regular ubo too, then the only copium argument of firefox fans that once ubo stops working on chromium, firefox will get more market share will become obsolete
yeah the dude has a temper. But I would be mad too if all I heard all day long is 12 yr olds complaining that youtube is detecting their adblocker.
“removing it voluntarily from Mozilla addon store is just immature and over-reactive.”
Yes. And that’s exactly what Mozilla did.
And it didn’t fix it until there was a big buzz.
Why should the developer have to clean up Mozilla’s mess? They screwed up – they should be held responsibility and take the consequences.
The absolute irresponsibility of the owners of all these “stores” (Google, Apple, Mozilla, etc.) leads to exactly this.
Agreed. If an app maker wants only curated apps in their store, that’s fine, but don’t give bots the final say and expect people to be happy. Real curation requires a human touch. Feedback like this is what drives them to do better.
Mozilla is ideologically supremacist, like Google or Facebook, or Amazon or any other political entity, they want to be at the top, people are inferiors to them, they do not want to be differentiated, discriminated, but they do want to impose their rules to discriminate and perpetuate their false supremacy.
uBlock is not any add-on, the work Raymond does is excellent, yet Mozilla treats him like this, if Mozilla has no respect for him then obviously they have no respect for anybody, it’s all hypocrisy.
Private businesses are not political entities. If they engage in political activity, like blocking any anti-trust inquiries, it is to protect their profits, It they engage in virtue signaling, it is because they think they can make money off it. They don’t care about your politics, they just want your money.
check what happens to the corporations on annual basis during july for last few years; see whom they’re hiring, what positions they create – incl. mozilla.
they act as political entities supporting particular groups in the name of inclusiveness. and how that ends you can clearly see on firefox example – among others.
@checkyoureyes
“they act as political entities supporting particular groups in the name of inclusiveness. and how that ends you can clearly see on firefox example – among others.”
See part about virtue signaling. It’s all for show, they pretend to care about your politics, but all they want is more profit and good PR.
“check what happens to the corporations on annual basis during july for last few years; see whom they’re hiring, what positions they create – incl. mozilla.”
Do you want the government to dictate to private corporations who they can hire? That sounds like communism. I understand this may fit with your far left beliefs, but private companies should be allowed to hire whomever they want.
To be honest, if a browser add-on repository were to use kid-gloves or have a soft-spot for ANYBODY, it would be the ublock guys. Hands down the most useful extension of the decade. These guys do incredible work, their time working and publishing things on Mozilla’s platform should be a pleasure – in fact Mozilla should send them a handwritten letter of apology and an expensive box of chocolates, or something.
I kid, but come on, the ublock guys? Yeah they’re out to do bad things… /s
There was another ad blocker a few years ago that the dev sold to shady “investors”. The dev never told anyone about the sale. It had malware included with it. Can’t be too careful.
Guy. It’s just Gorhill. And he pointedly refuses any financial donations because that would be a form of bias.
Well i dunno, is he one of the main devs behind ublock or not? If not, my point is invalid, if yes, then everything I said stands.
Your point is invalid because he did not sell it. He passed off maintainership to another dev who then made the project worse to Gorhill’s dismay. You can easily google this instead of making these baseless accusations to ruin his name. Imagine if someone ruined your good intentions and you receive slander on the internet for no reason.
Panda,
You replied to the wrong person, I never accused Gorhill of anything. Try reading…. geez!
You could have easily Googled that, Panda
@Panda.
Not sure what you are talking about. Gorhill never sold uBlock. I’m talking about another ad blocker.
https://www.ghacks.net/2020/10/16/time-to-remove-nano-adblocker-and-defender-from-your-browsers-except-firefox/
Panda,
Looks like you’re the one who should have been googling. Also don’t use Google.
Can I just say a BIG Thank You to Raymond – your extension changed the world, made us more secure, and saved a lot of data on phones. I fully understand that you’re sick of nonsense from Mozilla, but I can’t help thinking that it was cumulative after all the B.S. that Google shoveled your way. It was clearly an error on Mozilla’s behalf which they’ve fixed quickly – maybe do both Mozilla extensions and Github? Manifest V2 is perfectly fine – Google just wants more of the advertising pie with V3.
and he is probably the person who has been responsible from taking more money away from creators than anyone else. 2 sides to every coin.
Here’s the third side of the coin: If there’s an ad before the video, a user doesn’t watch the video. All that “money” creators are missing, is imaginary money. Just like musicians bitching about people downloading their music and fantasizing/dreaming that if they couldn’t download it they’d buy the cd instead. Again: imaginary purchase.
I’m not against advertising – just host the adverts locally and uBlock won’t stop them. I am against malware and tracking. Why do you need to track?
“he is probably the person who has been responsible from taking more money away from creators than anyone else” how do you get that? Before Ublock Origin there was millions of people using Adblock Plus, and before that there was uncountable numbers of people using userscripts to shut down ads. All the way back in the HTMLv1 days, people were doing something to remove ads, from disabling GIF animations and JavaScript, to using custom hosts files. Nobody wants ads. Even without Ublock Origin, people will be injecting JavaScript blockers and filters into their browsers one way or the other. People will always do something to remove ads.
So hard to reply when everyone’s name is “Anonymous”.
ABP was huge, and the defacto adblocker for years until Ublock came along, and they just basically do the same thing but better.
+1
+1
This is all deeply non public vote, undemoratic, non participative, non open, no nothing for the interests of thr people. It is corporate, investors, big money fields of influence… and naturally also very political
Brave, with it’s built in “Shields” is better than Firefox anyway, so no worries.
Thats still Chromium garbage. Stop promoting Chromium-based browsers. We need to get away from the monopoly of companies like Google who are trying to destroy the internet.
Dude that’s a lost battle until something TRULY revolutionary comes out: Servo or Ladybird. Sorry, I don’t have a lot of hope for that battle. Even less than with privacy battle.
Except Brave is so lumberingly slow to open and load its interface that it makes even creaky old Firefox look nippy.
Impossible, it’s chromium. You are just throwing shit with no basis.
Chromium means live wiyh MV3 trash, worse adblock and worse Userscript.
Worse Adblock? That’s highly debatable. UBO is javascript slow trash. Brave shields are rust-written. The only thing that’s not working (and I hope in the future can be added) is element picker.
Still Chromium and in the hands of Google to get more Market share. Because of that we get things like Manifest v3
Mozilla have gone crazy, they have made many bad decisions lately. They are treading on thin ice here, without uBlock Origin, Firefox might lose a lot of users.
Firefox doesn’t have a lot of users left to lose. They used to dominate the entire browser market but now they can’t even manage half of the six percent necessary to beat Microsoft.
I agree.
I use Firefox as my main browser with Brave as a backup. Something like this will make me not want to use FF.
Who cares? Let’s just leave the crap version of the extension for Google sheep to worry about. He should remove it from the Chrome web store as well, just for laughs.
Here’s a brilliant idea: Gorhill should SELL the crap version, for a hundred million dollars. TO AVAST. =)
FF main selling point is UBO. without it, its market share will be >1%
I agree. Anyway, why use the Lite version on Firefox when the original uBlock Origin will continue to work even when Manifest v2 extensions on Chrome will be gone forever !??
Thank you, my thoughts as well, it basically exists as a meme to show how badly v3 nerfs what it can do. The fact that they updated it at all is impressive.
I think only good will come of this; a bit of a wake up slap to Mozilla, even if it’ll be forgotten about in a week.
a real nonsense, mozilla is slowly digging its its own grave
Slowly? This is a relatively small one, but it seems they took out the drills and bulldozers recently.
The grave was still dug, now Mozilla is burying itself with no self-respect or mercy at all.