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Mozilla restores Firefox add-ons banned in Russia (www.theregister.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

56 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Mozilla has reinstated previously banned Firefox add-ons in Russia that were designed to circumvent state censorship, such as a VPN and a tool to access Tor websites.
The ban was initially imposed at the request of Russia's internet censorship agency, Roskomnadzor, but Mozilla lifted it to support an open and accessible internet.
Mozilla's decision reflects its commitment to users in Russia and globally, despite the potential risks associated with the regulatory environment in Russia.

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[+] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 45 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

They can kill access to the Firefox website and prevent people from getting access to the addon (well, okay, if you can manually find an .xpi, and have the technical chops to do so, you can download it elsewhere and install it locally).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Aside from blocking the add-ons site, they might block the update servers. Linux wouldn't be affected I think (unless they block rpm, apt... As a whole), but on windows I think it updates from Firefox servers directly.

There are probably ways around it, but it's a burden for the windows users.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I bet ready to run copies of Firefox with Russian anti censorship add ons is going to be real popular on the very numerous Russian putacy sites.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, but a browser isn't something that you probably want to be getting from an untrusted source. Hell, random malware aside, the Kremlin themselves could probably just actively distribute a modified Firefox, see what people who don't want to be blocked are getting up to and grab their credentials to websites.

I mean, there are ways to do it. You find some alternate source that you trust to get a hash of a browser release or a copy of signing keys or something and get a signature from someone you trust and validate that, but that's narrowing down the pool of people for whom the browser is accessible a long ways.

I mean, yeah, if I were in Russia, I'd probably use an SSH tunnel to get out. They can block VPN providers that don't apply the government blocklist, but I don't believe that they're prepared to kill outbound SSH. But the government just needs to block the vast majority, and the vast majority aren't gonna be doing that.

Like, you make the path of least resistance to live in an information bubble, then make the resistance to doing something else high enough, and you've got the 99.9% solution that you need.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Desperate people in desperate times.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

They will force local ISPs and Russian VPN companies to block access to Mozilla’s domains. Same thing China has been doing with the Great Firewall for years.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Just to be clear, mozilla.org is not blocked in China