974104 - Blocklist Free Driver Scout side-installed add-ons

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Toolkit :: Blocklist Policy Requests, defect)

Description

[Kris Maglione [:kmag]]

The Conduit installer for Free Driver Scout side-installs three add-ons and changes the default search engine to Conduit.

Add-ons:

veberGreat: [e-mail] (2K users)
vis: [e-mail] (360K users)
Web Check: {52b0f3db-f988-4788-b9dc-861d016f4487}

veberGreat is related to the add-ons blocked in bug 937405.

Comment 1

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

Blocked: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/blocked/i564

Comment 2

[Felix Grabowski]

(In reply to Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] from comment #1)
> Blocked: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/blocked/i564

Hello Jorge,

I hope you're well.

My name is Felix and I'm working for the company that is owning the Free Driver Scout. 
There're some things I'd like to say. I don't really understand why you have blocked the bundle and the addons as well. We don't make silent installs with the bundle. The user get shown all addons and can consent the installation or not.

Did you check the bundle on http://freedriverscout.com/ by yourself?
If not, please can you do that.

Please can you delist the FDS bundle and especially VIS and Webcheck? These addons really help the users with their functionalities.

We have noticed the problem with "Vebergreat" for a while and therefore we have removed it a few weeks ago. Probably Kris Maglione used an old setup. Sorry for that.

I'm looking forward to hear from you and we apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

Best regards,
Felix

Comment 3

[Frederik Braun [:freddy]]

Felix came by the office and wanted to ask if the add-on can be queued for another review.
Can you or someone else take another look, Jorge?

Comment 4

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

(In reply to Felix Grabowski from comment #2)
> (In reply to Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] from comment #1)
> There're some things I'd like to say. I don't really understand why you have
> blocked the bundle and the addons as well.

We only blocked the add-ons included in the bundle, not the application installer.

> We don't make silent installs
> with the bundle. The user get shown all addons and can consent the
> installation or not.

Please read the Add-on Guidelines, particularly around add-on installation: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Addons/Add-on_guidelines. There's an opt-in screen for side installs, and you installer is bypassing it. The Firefox opt-in is shown in a screenshot in this article: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2011/08/11/strengthening-user-control-of-add-ons/
 
> Did you check the bundle on http://freedriverscout.com/ by yourself?
> If not, please can you do that.

I didn't, but our team member who filed this bug did.
 
> Please can you delist the FDS bundle and especially VIS and Webcheck? These
> addons really help the users with their functionalities.

What we need to correct this situation is that you modify your installer so that no add-ons are silently installed, and include new versions of your add-ons in it. We can then unblock the new versions. The old ones we can't unblock because they were installed without following our guidelines.

Comment 5

[Iulian Timis]

Verified as fixed in https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/blocked/i564 on FF27 (Win 7).
Closing bug.

Comment 6

[Felix Grabowski]

(In reply to Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] from comment #4)

> What we need to correct this situation is that you modify your installer so
> that no add-ons are silently installed, and include new versions of your
> add-ons in it. We can then unblock the new versions. The old ones we can't
> unblock because they were installed without following our guidelines.

I will provide you all new versions per mail. Does it work or do you also need the information here?

Comment 7

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

Mail is fine.

Comment 8

[Felix Grabowski]

(In reply to Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] from comment #7)
> Mail is fine.

Did you get my mails? Could you check that?