this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I am sceptical that breakage was deliberate. An unfortunate side-effect of something else in a trade-off that Mozilla deemed worth it, maybe.
At that time there were some addons that worked to translate web (not just selected text), and at least one of them was even recommended by mozilla.
The problem is that to translate from google they used a remote code execution method, I'm not sure but I seem to remember that mozilla changed their policy to not allow that and didn't warn the devs (if mozilla simply didn't notice for years it would be even more worrying).
In any case someone reported them all and they were immediately banned, some of the devs tried to reason with mozilla and look for workarounds but to no avail.
Until alternatives appeared (after a couple of years?) it was necessary to install blacklisted or unsigned addons, which is a bit tedious.