Bypass Paywalls is a popular extension for Firefox and Chrome that does what the name implies: allows your browser to manipulate its cookies so that websites with "soft paywalls" that allow a small number of free articles can't accurately determine if you've already exceeded your limit.
Bypass Paywalls is a free software project maintained by Iamadamdev and hosted on Github.
On November 17, Iamadamdev updated the project's Readme file to announce that Mozilla had removed the extension from its Add-Ons Store; according to Iamadamdev, the add-on was removed for violating Mozilla's terms-of-service; but they dispute that the project violates those terms.
The terms are spread across two pages and the relevant passage appears to be "Mozilla reserves the right ...[to] remove [an add-on that] our reasonable opinion, violates this Agreement or the law, any applicable Mozilla policy, or is in any way harmful or objectionable to End-Users".
I do not believe that Bypass Paywalls violates any law; and it's hard to see how it would be harmful or objectionable to the users who run it. The "applicable Mozilla policy" seems a little circular, but maybe that's the justification?
Release and Beta versions of Firefox do not allow unsigned extensions to be installed, so the vast majority of Firefox users will not be able to use Bypass Paywalls unless it is restored to the Add-Ons store.
The Mozilla Add-Ons Store still lists two not-very-ambitious paywall circumvention tools; Chrome's add-on store still includes Bypass Paywalls.
The author of Bypass Paywalls is urging users to contact Mozilla and ask them to reconsider their decision to remove the add-on.
Frontier is the bottom-rung of the top-tier of US ISPs, serving customers in 29 states. Despite enjoying monopoly control over its customers' online lives, and despite massive government handouts and a lackadaisical approach to maintenance, and despite out-and-out theft from customers, the company is filing for bankruptcy, having accumulated $16.3b in debt through mismanagement.
Bruce Schneier's Foreign Policy essay in 5G security argues that we're unduly focused on the possibility of Chinese manufacturers inserting backdoors or killswitches in 5G equipment, and not focused enough on intrinsic weakness in a badly defined, badly developed standard wherein "near-term corporate profits prevailed against broader social good."
Long before 4chan and other anything-goes forums existed, every major online community had a similar community: the Well had its "weird" forum, Usenet had alt.syntax.tactical (among others), and Something Awful had the "Fuck You and Die" forum, where people were funny, mean, obscene, and gross, sometimes all at once.
When you see that curved arrow on the side of a cardboard box, you instantly know that box came from Amazon. The unfurled rainbow feathers of a peacock immediately scream NBC. And a partially eaten piece of fruit in the profile is a world-recognized symbol of tech titan Apple. Icons are powerful symbols, condensing volumes […]
Call it retro. Call it a throwback. Even call it kitsch. But the 80s are still a singular time in pop culture history. From Ghostbusters and Back to the Future to your neighborhood arcade and the Atari 2600, artifacts of that seminal decade still resonate, evoking audible excitement and sighs of pleasant yesteryear remembrance. But […]
With millions out of work, the global economy in a sharp recession, and legitimate fears for the future abound, you might think this is absolutely the worst time to strike out on your own and be your own boss as a work-for-hire freelancer. But according to numbers compiled by financial services company Payoneer, the current […]
