That's hyperbolic. Mozilla can't directly update whatever they want via this system. According to the article they can only "change the default value of a preference" within Firefox.
> trusting those thousands of third-party authors to directly update whatever they want on my system
You have completely misunderstood what Normandy does.
The comment I was replying to was about something much broader than Normandy: "trusting [Mozilla] to build Mozilla code" and "to give you software".
Re:Firefox/Normandy/PreferenceRollout
by mlthoughts2018 on Saturday May 04, 2019 @11:26AM
(#19827018)
How so? Rolling out changes to default settings in an unannounced, automatic way based on users being automatically enrolled in that preference update program, with difficult to understand opt out settings changes required, sounds _absolutely_ like third party authors able to make unrestricted (and unannounced) modifications to my system.
I cannot understand how anyone could think otherwise of Normandy.
Edit: I'm not implying anything about the capabilities of this preference-updating system; the subject was software updates and who is trusted to deploy them.