- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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.”
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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.
Contributing to Russian oppression and fascist agenda.
Wait, they complied to Roscomnadzor? This is so stupid. It’s literal Big Brother.
Долбоёбы.
“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.”
Wait. Are they first to comply?
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.
afaik they can’t do any business with Russian customers since March 2022 because of the sanctions
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 ;-)
Now, Russians who want to use it cannot, and are forced to use other browsers that Putin can control.
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.
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
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.
This is noted as a temporary block on the specific extensions ONLY within the country with regulatory power to ban Firefox. Russia.
This is proactive ban before court desicion.
God I’m getting sick of that word.
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.
Are these only “just” pulled from the online catalog, or the browser itself blocks installation too from file?
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.
ah okay, thanks, I missed this one.
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.
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 :)
Communication from Roskomnadzor should be censored straight to/dev/null.
Just gonna drop this here.
Do I want Waterfox or LibreWolf?
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.
You don’t need one. It is easy to install an xpi in Firefox
[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.
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”.
This comment section is a great example of the Dunning-Kruger effect playing out in real time
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.
Would you be happier if they ignored the demands and possibly got Firefox banned in Russia?
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 use Firefox, even if it takes more work to load some extensions.
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.
