Comment by gorbachev
9 years ago
Again, I did not have a chance to review whether or not the add-on would be installed and run on my computer, because you installed and ran it without my consent.
This is not hard. Don't automatically install stuff on your users' computers. You're defending something every other software company has found themselves in trouble for previously. I really don't understand why. The fact that Firefox is open source in no way excuses it.
because you installed and ran it without my consent
I didn't install and run anything on your computer. I don't work for Mozilla.
And you installed a piece of open-source software whose source code you could have audited at any time, but you chose not to. You delegated the auditing to someone else, and now you're upset at what they chose to do with the power you gave them. You're free to complain that you don't like what they did, and not to trust them in the future, but you don't get to say that you had no chance to give input or to see what would run. You had plenty of opportunities for that and did not do it.
Is it reasonable to expect a software vendor, open source or not, to not install adware on your users' computers without consent? Yes or no?
If yes, then why would it be necessary for me to audit anything?
If no, then PLEASE elaborate on why?
Your original comment complained that you didn't get to review the software. My point has consistently been that you did have a chance to review it, and chose not to. What you think about what it did, or what I think about what it did, doesn't matter, and "what it did was bad" is not a counterargument to "you had a chance to review it and chose not to".
This isn't the first time a piece of software, open source or not, has released a new version that did something users didn't expect or were angry about. The sole difference is that, in the case of open source software, you have the chance to review what it will do by looking at its source code prior to running it. The fact that you didn't review it doesn't mean it was impossible to (that would be the case with a proprietary browser like Chrome).
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