What extension permission "Access your data for sites in the xxx domain" means?
Hi everybody,
I just got this message requesting to grant additional permissions to an updated extension (see file attached). However, the message is meaningless to me.
Doing a fast check in Google I haven't managed to find any explanation about what data will be accessed.
I think that a better message, maybe with a link to support page with more detailed explanations, would be highly appreciated, specially knowing how much Mozilla cares about privacy.
Best
All Replies (7)
Attaching image
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-high-definition/ Contact its support and ask them.
For a new install, it seem to want very sweeping privileges for something specific to YouTube (image attached). Often developers require unexpected permissions due to the way they have implemented particular features. Either they didn't take an approach that minimized permission requirements, or Firefox's design didn't allow them to ask for less. Or... they're up to something unexpected. This is hard for outside observers to assess, so contacting the developer makes sense.
As far as I can tell, the phrase "Access your data for..." indicates a "host permission." It appears to mean that the site wants extra permissions related to pages on those servers. There is an article on the Mozilla Developer Network site which mentions what is involved with those extra permissions: https://developer.mozilla.org/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json/permissions#Host_permissions
But this is not enough information to know whether you should trust a particular extension. There is both an automated and a human review of extensions on the Add-ons site to filter out major problems. But what may seem logical to a reviewer still might bother you, so it makes sense to look into it further.
By the way, the permission prompts for WebExtensions-based extensions are similar to the ones presented by Chrome and there have been articles about how to assess those for 5+ years, so hopefully someone will update their analyses for Firefox soon. For example:
jscher2000 said
By the way, the permission prompts for WebExtensions-based extensions are similar to the ones presented by Chrome and there have been articles about how to assess those for 5+ years, so hopefully someone will update their analyses for Firefox soon. For example:
Thanks jscher2000 for your answer was very helpful. Would like to ask you 2 things: 1) if in Firefox an add-on doesn’t require to access something on your browser does that means that it doesn’t or that maybe it does and doesn’t asks your permission? 2) As far as I understand an add-on can send all your browsing behaviour to a server and then sell it to advertisers.
Modified by user1414492
Hi izytalas, I haven't learned anything more since September, so you may wish to check with other sources on these questions. Mozilla has a forum specifically for Add-ons: