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FF Disconnect extension - no longer open source? (github.com)

submitted 1 week ago by IanTwenty@piefed.social to c/firefox@lemmy.world

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Author of this issue from April 2025 says:

Since the repository wasn't updated in about 5 years, I suppose that the extension is no longer open source, correct? But since I still see new releases on the Chrome/Firefox stores, can we just have this GitHub repository [archived] then?

The tracking protection list is regularly updated so it's possible new releases on stores are a result of building the code with the newer list I suppose. Does anyone know for sure? There have been no comments on that issue.

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[–] XLE@piefed.social 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

As aside, I believe that by default, if you use Firefox, this list is already used in your browser.

Firefox relies on a list of known trackers provided by Disconnect

I have no idea whether this provides the same quality of protection as the extension, though.

Disconnect, for their part, brags on their homepage that their "tracker intelligence has been leveraged by browsers that ship to billions of users worldwide," and buries info about the extension much deeper in their Consumer Solutions page.

[–] IanTwenty@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thanks for that info. I did some more digging but could find no definitive statement that Disconnect the extension is completely redundant in FF. In fact with FF's 'enhanced tracking protection' on I can see that the Disconnect extension STILL reports it is blocking domains that presumably FF has missed. The mystery continues.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

I imagine the browser itself gets a first crack at blocking things, so that's interesting. Maybe Disconnect has simply adopted an "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" stance...

I know that when it comes to content blocking, the developers of uBlock Origin recommend using their extension exclusively... So maybe at least you can sidestep the headache of figuring out whether disconnect is still functional or not.