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Questioning the Quality of some Firefox Extensions


I’m always flipping through the Mozilla forum looking for interesting things to read when I came across one that was called “addons.mozilla.org recent and open issues.” It sounded interesting because I didn’t realize that there were any open issues with Mozilla’s Add-on site.

I started reading through it and quickly became aware of why the thread was started (Note: AMO stands for the Mozilla’s Add-Ons site):

The purpose of this thread is to make people aware of some tactics used in extensions considered by some people not worthy of the AMO (addons.mozilla.org) “trust” seal. It has also the purpose of discussing the AMO quality standards and the views on these and other extensions that might be considered harmful for common non-tech-savvy users.

One of the big questions is on the quality of the toolbars that are available. When I had installed the 200 Firefox extensions at one time there were several toolbars that were installed, but most of them were the more popular/unique ones since I was traversing the list with the most downloaded extensions being first. There is, however, a website called Conduit that will allow anyone to make their own Firefox toolbar extension with their own branding:

Conduit Toolbar Creator

I haven’t looked much into Conduit, but I’m guessing that they are making money through searches that are performed with the toolbars being generated for websites. They say that websites will benefit from offering the toolbars by keeping their logo in front of the user’s face, which will hopefully keep the reader coming back to your site.

The only problem is that 93 of these toolbars currently exist (listed at the end of this article) on the Mozilla Add-ons page alone, and I’m sure there are also several sites that don’t have theirs listed there. The fear is that this may jeopardize the quality of the experience new users to Firefox receive if they install them because they also collect information from users:

Those extensions were collecting data and uniquely identifying users without notifying them. This caused some stir into the community as most of the people thought that AMO had a high quality standard and sought to protect users from such tactics, things that we realized weren’t true. AMO doesn’t even have a policy for extension submitting.

As Firefox continues to grow I think a policy needs to be enforced that focuses on the quality of the extensions. Mozilla wants to ensure that new users receive the best experience possible, and one of these days they may let an extension slip through that does more damage than good. Let us know what you think of Mozilla letting extensions like this into the “trusted” Add-ons site.

Finally, I’ll close by listing the extensions that the forum members have managed to find so far that were created using Conduit:

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  1. KnightJanuary 16, 2007 at 1:16 pm

    I was at one time using Torrent Search, then found out about this “Conduit” deal. When I removed the extension, it looked like it was still installed. My google search page still had the embedded Torrent Search “look” to it. Then I found that my default search engine was Torrent Search instead of Google, so I just removed their “search” engine. Almost seemed like spyware at one point, I was trying all sorts of programs trying to remove what I thought was Conduit taking over my pc. :oops:

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  2. RyanAuthorJanuary 16, 2007 at 3:04 pm

    That’s one of the big problems with this is that people knowledgeable about what Conduit toolbars really do don’t think they should be offered as add-ons, because it could tarnish Firefox’s reputation. If I had an experience like you did above and I was a new users I think it would definitely make me question installing any extensions at all…which is a large portion of why I use Firefox in the first place.

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  3. CoryCAll-StarJanuary 16, 2007 at 3:49 pm

    Wow, it’s looks like having your own tool bar is the cool thing to do. I’m going to create mine right now! :P

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  4. John MarshallJanuary 16, 2007 at 5:02 pm

    I hated these extensions. They filled the extension list with crap and abused the AMO system. Fortunately they were recently disabled (aka removed).
    Hence the message at the top of the description:

    ********** NOTICE **********
    This add-on has been disabled by an administrator.
    ****************************

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  5. RyanAuthorJanuary 16, 2007 at 8:12 pm

    Any idea when that happened? I checked some of them today and they didn’t have that message.

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  6. John MarshallJanuary 16, 2007 at 10:06 pm

    Around the 9th
    [forum.conduit-network.com]

    Also mentioned somewhat here:
    [forums.mozillazine.org]

    Also in recent news I read on techcrunch conduit made a deal with Google… :\

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  7. AnonymousJanuary 18, 2007 at 1:08 am
    Ryan wrote:
    Any idea when that happened? I checked some of them today and they didn’t have that message.

    The Anderson Tech Club Toolbar page was deleted as to why it is blank as per request from author after getting a email asking him to update per [wiki.mozilla.org]

    Oh and another conduit toolbar that was disabled that is not on list is the “Webcam Bar” at [addons.mozilla.org]

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  8. Radu CapanAll-StarJanuary 18, 2007 at 6:49 am

    Every time there is something good, something come and destroy it. This open the way to some selective directories of Firefox extensions.

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  9. Subliminal DirectionsJuly 9, 2007 at 9:17 am

    Our Toolbar collects usage statistics that do not identify the user and is clearly laid out in the privacy policy of the toolbar. The user is completely anonymous. I would like to point out that most websites you navigate also collect usage statistics to help improve the sites and the SD Toolbar collects this data to help improve the toolbar.

    Complaints were originally made because some of the conduit (and other toolbar creators) users had found a flaw on the site that allowed them to get a high ranking for their toolbar by constantly changing their toolbar description which kept their toolbar high on the list which eventually annoyed other users and started the ball rolling to demonise Conduit and other Conduit publishers. Please note that the debate of Conduit toolbars is for another reason entirely with the privacy only being a cover issue.

    If anyone can prove their is a fault with the Conduit Toolbars and the data that is collected please visit our site and let us know (showing proof). Once we recieve proof we will begin steps to rectify the situation. Kind Regards – Subliminal Directions [subliminaldirections.org.uk]

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