[HN Gopher] Promoted Add-ons Pilot Wrap-up
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Promoted Add-ons Pilot Wrap-up
Author : TedDoesntTalk
Score : 16 points
Date : 2021-01-22 13:18 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.mozilla.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.mozilla.org)
| TimLeland wrote:
| I'm curious how many more installs the extensions received from
| being promoted. My weather extension has been part of Firefox's
| recommended program for some time and has seen some growth but
| not substantial. I do like that people can trust that the
| "recommended" extensions are reviewed more heavily and in general
| are safer extensions. Honored they included my extensions and
| offer this option.
| TimLeland wrote:
| Link to weather extension if anyone is interested:
| https://weatherextension.com/
| dang wrote:
| Submitters: please don't editorialize titles--this is in the site
| guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| (Submitted title was "Firefox: Paying Mozilla to promote your
| extension has failed". We've changed it to what the article
| says.)
| Animats wrote:
| Well, yes, but it is a press release spinning a failure.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| We can all read that for ourselves, you don't need to
| editorialize.
| chris_f wrote:
| I was part of the pilot [0], and enjoyed the process. It didn't
| cost anything, and they only requested random surveys on the
| service.
|
| My extension just sets the default search engine to Runnaroo, and
| I don't promote it much because people can just do that through
| the browser, but it was nice to get some increased exposure and I
| did notice an uptick in downloads, especially initially.
|
| In general, I'm all for Mozilla testing different monetization
| strategies to offset some of their reliance on Google.
|
| [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/runnaroo/
| Animats wrote:
| _" After reviewing the pilot results, we have decided not to move
| forward with this iteration of the program. Later this month the
| Verified badges for pilot participants will be deactivated and
| the Sponsored shelf on the AMO homepage removed."_
|
| Good. It came across as an extortion scheme. "Pay us money or we
| put a nasty message up to prevent people from downloading your
| add-on". I started to sign up, read the terms, and rejected the
| program, sent in a message to Mozilla add-on support telling them
| why.
|
| Their old system, where you requested review and it took a few
| weeks, was fine. The slow speed tended to keep out scammers.
| Spivak wrote:
| I think there are two sides to this. The fact that the add-ons
| are hosted on Mozilla's own website lends far too much
| credibility to what is some randos code. There really should be
| more alarm bells to make sure people understand that they're
| basically curl | firefox-ing.
|
| Irrespective of the program to remove that message by paying
| Mozilla to review your code they should still keep the
| warnings.
| ajayyy wrote:
| You are confusing "Recommended extensions" program with this
| one. The recommended extensions program is free and is still
| continuing.
|
| Mine was added to it without me signing any terms.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Amazing to see people leave money on the table for good for the
| users.
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(page generated 2021-01-22 23:01 UTC)