Mozilla Firefox, which in recent years has begun to take the lead in the web browser competition with the steady rise of Microsoft Edge and Opera, has encountered another unpleasant incident. The famous browser caused a stir when it removed uBlock Origin, one of the world’s most widely used ad blocking plugins, from the platform. Here’s what happened afterwards…
Firefox had to apologize at the end of the process!
Raymond Hill, aka ‘Gorhill’, is also known as the creator of uBlock Origin, the world’s most widely used content blocker. Recently, Hill received two emails from Mozilla about his Firefox add-on uBlock Origin Lite. In these emails, Mozilla reported that they had reviewed the add-on and found some violations. The allegations included lack of consent for data collection, the inclusion of machine-generated code, and the lack of a privacy policy.
As a result of these allegations, Mozilla removed the add-on from the Firefox Add-on Store. However, Hill denied all these allegations in a statement on GitHub.
He stated that the add-on does not collect any data, does not contain minified code and has a privacy policy. Hill also added that he would not appeal the decision, saying he did not have the time or motivation to deal with this ‘nonsense’.
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Following this incident, Mozilla reached out to Hill again a few days later, admitted that their previous decision was wrong and restored the plugin. However, this apology was not enough for Hill, who decided to remove the add-on from Mozilla’s store entirely. Currently, uBlock Origin Lite for Firefox can only be downloaded directly from GitHub.
This incident has once again highlighted the need for app stores to improve their review processes. In particular, it has once again become clear that automated review systems can produce erroneous results, which can have negative consequences for both developers and users.
