Closed Bug 454953 Opened 17 years ago Closed 17 years ago

Disable addons.mozilla.org bugmenot.com accounts

Categories

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Administration, defect)

defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 449002

People

(Reporter: asmith16, Unassigned)

Details

There is an extremely annoying 'feature' on addons.mozilla.org that makes an account required for downloading 'unstable' addons. I've asked around and the only answer I got for why that's required is that people better know what they're doing if they want to download such an addon. I will speculate that getting an account on AMO doesn't add anything to one's understanding of what they're doing. In the past I used accounts I got from bugmenot.com. Today these no longer work. Could someone get rid of that login requirement, or at least explain why it's needed, or at least explain why the bugmenot accounts have been disabled? It gets in my way when doing work (looking up where I saved my credentials and typing them in every time I want to download the thing is extremely unproductive). Is this some misguided marketing scheme? I can hardly see how Mozilla can profit from it, but I don't know whose idea this was exactly. For reference - the addon I'm trying to download is Canvas 3D, but I assume the same problem exists with other addons.
Without checking any of this, as my own personal view: I would assume that by registering, you agree with certain terms, which legally make Mozilla not liable for damage caused by these "unstable add-ons". Keep in mind that anyone can upload whatever they want without being stopped (of course, if someone finds something that's malicious, it'll be taking down - but there is no screening of the unstable add-ons on upload, beside the very basic virusscan etc.) . So I could imagine that legally it is quite important that in order to download it, everyone is clear about the fact that Mozilla bears no responsibility for the content of these add-ons. As far as the bugmenot accounts are concerned, I would hazard a guess at supposing that, apart from defeating the scheme mentioned above, they also make it impossible to figure out what to do if someone abuses such an account: by making nasty comments, or uploading an add-on that's malicious. Because it's a multi-user account, by definition it's going to be impossible to hold a single person accountable as there is nothing that prevents someone from using the account. (Again, not sure to what extent my explanation covers the actual explanation, but this is what I can tell you just using some common sense...)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/pages/experimentalAddons "The add-on site requires that users login to install experimental add-ons as a reminder that you are about to undertake a risk step." It's just an extra layer of thought that goes into downloading a sandboxed extension to prevent people from just clicking download without thinking. The idea is that it adds some limited effort required to download the extension and hopefully people who haven't a clue that it might be a bad idea won't just knee-jerk install the thing. If you're debating this one way or the other the process wasn't made this way for you.
I completely understand why an extra effort is required so people don't end up screwing themselves up without much warning. But I feel requiring registration is too extreme and it doesn't really give you a proper warning anyway (register does not equal shoot yourself in the foot in most users minds). Just imagine that viewing a page with a self-signed cert in Firefox 3 would require registering with Mozilla rather than the 4-5 clicks through the warnings :) And I understand that the rule wasn't made for me, but I am one of the users too, and probably not in too small a minority when it comes to downloading experimental addons.
Depends on: 441739, 444003
Summary: addons.mozilla.org disabled bugmenot.com accounts → Disable addons.mozilla.org bugmenot.com accounts
You'll probably want to CC yourself on bug 441739 then.
See bug 449002 for the removal request to delete all bugmenot accounts. With the new fixes going in, we are not requiring a login to download a sandbox'ed add-on, so we should remove all bugmenot accounts from our system.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 17 years ago
No longer depends on: 441739, 444003
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
Verified duplicate
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
Product: addons.mozilla.org → addons.mozilla.org Graveyard
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