
Mozilla Blocks Official Skype Toolbar Add-on for Firefox - twapi
http://blog.arpitnext.com/2011/01/block-skype-addon-firefox-crash.html
======
alanh
“The current shipping version of the Skype Toolbar is one of the top crashers
of Mozilla Firefox 3.6.13, and was involved in almost 40,000 crashes of
Firefox last week.” “This extension is bundled with the Skype application, and
is installed into Firefox by default when Skype is installed or, in some
circumstances, updated.” — Mozilla

It also busts certain designs. This sort of behavior from Skype is
unacceptable.

Good on Mozilla, this is great for their users.

~~~
wheaties
I disable any add-on for any browser I currently have that I did not
expressedly install myself. That being said I've expected this kind of
behavior and malpractice from Microsoft not Skype. Terrible shame, too.

~~~
kylec
You are right to expect this from Microsoft, they've done it before:

[http://robertnyman.com/2009/01/26/microsoft-force-
installs-f...](http://robertnyman.com/2009/01/26/microsoft-force-installs-
firefox-extension/)

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getsat
Could they also please block all the .NET-related addons that Microsoft
development products install nowadays? They're even set so YOU CANNOT REMOVE
THEM FROM WITHIN THE BROWSER. WHY is this even possible? The addons also alter
your User-Agent.

If you've never seen this before, Google ".net addon firefox".

~~~
Hacktivist
I wish they would make it so that addons and plugins can only be installed
inside Firefox (via addons.mozilla.org, File > Open or exceptions for trusted
sites.)

I have seven plugins listed and I only installed two of them.

    
    
      2007 Microsoft Office system - Installed with Office 2007
      Google Update - Installed with Google Chrome (??)
      Java Deployment Toolkit - Installed with Java (on Firefox blocklist)
      Java Platform - Installed with Java
      Picasa - Installed with Google Picassa
      Shockwave Flash - I installed this
      Silverlight - I installed this
    

In the extension category only two are there that I didn't installed

    
    
      FiddlerHook - Installed with Fiddler (not removed after uninstalling Fiddler, uninstall button greyed out in Firefox)
      Java Console - Installed with Java

~~~
ciupicri
That wouldn't be good for Linux distributions which have their own package
management system. For example Fedora offers the following packages: mozilla-
adblockplus, mozilla-vlc, mozilla-noscript etc.

~~~
theBobMcCormick
IMHO, the Linux distros are doing it wrong. Just because you _have_ a package
management system, doesn't mean you have to use it for everything. I think
hackers have seen the absolutely shitpile that most distro's make when they
try to override things like CPAN, Ruby Gems, etc. They really need to go hands
off on some of those things and let the secondary package manager do _it's_
job

Just because you've got a hammer, doesn't mean every problem is a nail.

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jeffb
"Skype Toolbar is one of the top crashers of Mozilla Firefox 3.6.13"

In 2010, Mike Beltzner (director of Firefox) announced that Flash causes more
crashes than any other plugin. Maybe they should ban Flash while they're at
it.

~~~
elxx
If I remember right, this was right before Firefox 3.6.4 introduced out-of-
process plugins so Flash has its own process to crash instead of taking down
the whole browser.

Of course, for some reason the Skype plugin is still capable of crashing it...

~~~
kinetik
That's because it's an extension, not a plugin.

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jsz0
I'm a big supporter of not letting open platforms/systems/etc turn into
digital ghettos. The "anything goes" approach is just a little too self
destructive for me. Often it ends up just forcing people into a more closed
platform. In this case FireFox starts crashing constantly so how do most
people react? Go back to IE? Probably.

~~~
sans-serif
Nobody's talking about you, Android.

------
rfugger
[http://blog.mozilla.com/addons/2011/01/20/blocking-the-
skype...](http://blog.mozilla.com/addons/2011/01/20/blocking-the-skype-
toolbar-in-firefox/)

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jchonphoenix
It feels really fishy that skype forces you to install something like this.

Any time a company pulls something like this on me, they lose all credibility
in my book. Its as bad as spyware and adware.

~~~
elxx
To be clear, it's an option in the installer that you can uncheck.

Of course the vast majority of users won't notice that, and the add-on has a
terrible habit of breaking page layouts, so this is a great move by Mozilla.

~~~
towelrod
No, its not. I just installed Skype yesterday, and the installer doesn't even
mention the plugin. It just installs it.

I immediately disabled it because it has caused problems for me in the past.

The installer does ask if you want to install the Chrome toolbar.

~~~
elxx
Oops. I remember having an option before, guess they changed that.

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harrybr
I cannot take any site seriously that uses Kontera or any other "on-hover to
trigger, click tiny close button to dismiss" in-text advertising (as used in
the article posted).

Does anyone actually disagree that this is a horrible way to monetise your
content?

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robinhouston
Not only is it a pain for users, but also for web application developers. I
recently had to explicitly check for and strip out the Skype phone number
highlighting code in the back-end of a simple database app.

Just look at the astonishing number of odd places that the highlighting codes
have ended up on the web:
[http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=begin_of_the_skype_highligh...](http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=begin_of_the_skype_highlighting)

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TorKlingberg
We often see calls that Firefox should block outside programs from installing
addons. That would be nice, but as long as installers have write permission to
the Firefox directory, there is no way to block them. Mozilla could try to
make it difficult, but the toolbar installers would just use more hacky
methods, which would break Firefox even more often than it does now.

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david2777
I totally agree, I disabled the Skype Toolbar for Chrome a long time ago
because it seems like it constantly crashes.

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tzs
If Apple did this, Mozilla would be bleating about Apple censoring Skype.

