7 ms·

In 2017 Mozilla silently installed an extension promoting the TV show in everyone's Firefox.

• Dylan16807 16d ago
  The extension did not do anything unless you put in a secret setting. It wasn't promoting anything. If this had been a hardcoded easter egg there would have been no real complaints. But showing up as a mystery extension spooked some people, and then misreporting made it spread a lot further than if all the reporting was accurate.
  • Melatonic 16d ago
    I just rewatched Mr Robot and that actually sounds cool. What was the secret setting ?
    • Dylan16807 16d ago
      Once you get the extension installed, you open up about:config and add a boolean preference "extensions.pug.lookingglass" set to true. There might have been another way to do it later but we'll never know.
      • Melatonic 16d ago
        Interesting. What did that accomplish ?
        • Dylan16807 16d ago
          Adds an effect to certain words on websites (like puppet, control, economy, robot), sends an extra header to red-wheelbarrow.com that changes what you see. https://github.com/mozilla/addon-wr/blob/master/addon/background.js https://github.com/mozilla/addon-wr/blob/master/addon/backgr...
  • account42 14d ago
    Dude, the existence of the extension was the promotion. And Mozilla was paid for it. And the bug report is still hidden showing they have not learned their lesson. Why are you defending bad behavior?
    • Dylan16807 14d ago
      People weren't supposed to be finding it like that. I really don't think "oh what is this new firefox experiment?" was an intended promotional path. It was an extension because that was easier to do and isolate. That's why I'm defending the intent. And I don't think the visibility of a bug report tells us whether they learned their lesson.