Firefox Updates Blocked Add-Ons List, Includes One Recommended By Mozilla

Browser extensions are fantastic but, as superheroes have taught us, with great power comes great responsibility. Malicious developers can hide bad behaviour inside useful extensions and when they slip through the screening process, the only option left to the likes of Mozilla and Google is to ban them. Mozilla has updated its blocked add-on list and it includes an extension the company itself gave the thumbs-up just this week.

Along with banning add-ons “Google NoTrack”, “Facebook Video Downloader” and “Popup-Blocker”, Mozilla nixed “Web Security”, which it promoted in an August 15 article on privacy extensions.

Unsurprisingly, the add-on has since been removed from the post, but Martin Brinkmann over at gHacks has all the details:

Web Security, the name of the add-on, claims to protect users actively “from malware, tampered websites or phishing sites”. The extension has more than 223,000 users according to Mozilla AMO and a rating of 3.7 out of 5 … When Mozilla noticed the error in judgement, it removed the recommendation but did not update the article to inform users about the removal.

Let this be warning to double-check your browser extensions and if possible, only install those with source code available on BitBucket or GitHub.

If you’d like to keep up-to-date on blocked Firefox add-ons, Mozilla keeps a public record online.

Blocked Add-ons [Mozilla, via gHacks]


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