Thunderbird update silently installs Test Pilot extension

Well said.

 

1. In general terms, it definitely makes sense that Mozilla gets feedback from its users that helps to improve their products.
2. The question is: How can this be done? Since Mozilla doesn't have your email address they have to implement something else in Firefox/Thunderbird to contact you. I'm not aware of any reasonable alternative. If they published such a request, e.g., on their website, 99.9 % of their users simply wouldn't notice and, hence, not react.
3. We're NOT talking about Microsoft, we're talking about Mozilla. All of their products are open source and community based. Everybody who's able to read the source code can do so. All changes are public, and the introduction of surveys/metrics was and still is object of heated public debates in their forums and on Bugzilla. Nothing is done in secret. Again, we're not talking about Microsoft.
4. No data is submitted to Mozilla without your consent. You can easily deny any participation.

That's why I still think that your reaction is unwarranted paranoia. But each to his own

That was my point, indeed.

 

I suppose one way would be to begin including an extension called 'Test Pilot' in an installer and have it set for 'opt in' by default.

'Denying participation' is exactly what the O.P. desires, hence this thread.

Data collection is de rigueur nowadays. Everybody wants a piece of the action.
Of course, we're assured it's all completely "anonymous"-- after all, how could things like your IP address, your OS license number, your HD serial number, your search history, website preferences, or any number of other things that could be personally related to *you* ever be personally related back to you?

But the conventional party line is always that since your name, physical address, and telephone number aren't collected, everything's "anonymous"-- and it's all a big benefit to you anyway. So how bout just doing the decent thing and help out your old pal the software company?

Yet some of us insist on playing the Scrooge, and figure our personal proclivities and usages of software are nobody's business but our own.
And so it goes.

 

FWIW, I'm not opposed to that if done properly. Updates are a natural time for communication. There are friendly ways to inform the user of changes that will be made while also giving them an opportunity to allow/deny changes before they come into play.

From my point of view there are at least two degrees of participation: 1) running the component that fetches and executes the "studies", 2) allowing that component to send the results to Mozilla. Since #1 is the precursor to #2 and #1 is a potential (and unnecessary) risk from my conservative point of view, I put emphasis on #1. Had Mozilla implemented things in a different way so that #1 wouldn't silently occur without notice/consent, I wouldn't have started this thread.

I don't want to create an excuse for Mozilla when I think some other factors are coming into play and it should not be that challenging to resolve, but I find myself questioning whether Mozilla has implemented a proper update code framework and pattern in general. The characteristics of that would be:

1) The bare minimum of information is passed in the requests sent from the user's machine.
2) The user is not only made aware of the availability of an update but is also presented with information about what will be changed/added if they allow the update. For example, the update available dialog can include release notes or at least a button to fetch them.
3) The user has the ability to cancel or proceed with the update after learning of it and reviewing those changes
4) The user has the ability to adjust what components will be installed and/or the preferences that will be in effect when the updated software comes up. There are different ways to handle that, but the obvious objective is to prevent the software from coming up with a configuration that it undesirable from the user's point of view.

This type of pattern educates users, respects their preferences, and helps them to get through the update process in both an efficient and safe manner. It also need not burden those who "don't want to be bothered". I don't know, however, whether the framework for including extensions with distributions currently supports and makes trivial that approach though.

 

Well, that might have been a better approach for you and some other users. I know that the way how to do this was discussed at length in their forums and on Bugzilla. I'm not sure why they chose to do it this way in the end (I'm too lazy to search for it) but I can imagine that one reason was that probably many average users wouldn't have performed the update at all. So ... yes, it might have been possible to do it in a better way. Nevertheless, I still think that your reaction ...

... is an over-reaction which is not justified and which obviously assumes that Mozilla is doing something evil (although everything is documented and publicly available and Mozilla is under constant surveillance by many privacy-aware users and developers).

It seems clear to me that you don't trust Mozilla. So the next logical step would be to move to other products that give you much better control like ... let me think ... Internet Explorer and Windows Mail

Good luck

 

On one hand I should thank you for reminding me and others what is at stake if this trend continues or <gulp> gets worse. On the other hand that hurt sorta like...

So that spot isn't very comfortable you say? *poke* ... *poke*. You are bad