this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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Privacy
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I'm asking you what the misinformation is. Is this harder to investigate because the software is closed source? In my mind undoubtedly yes. I know it was harder for ME to investigate because it wasn't open source - no open issue trackers, SCM repository, whatever.
So please tell me why what I said was misinformation - I'm really curious.
I'm not the person who you're replying to (just another reader) but I felt misled after reading the clarification here in the forums that the source IS available for the adblock portion. I was under the impression (from your article) that the users could not inspect the code at all because of the same wording the person calls out. If they (and obviously others like myself) were misled by the writing, would it not be better just to fix it instead of arguing?
You really felt misled that it was harder to inspect? What makes you think I have the expertise to inspect this? I'm not even a user and I wouldn't know where to start to find the ad blocker within that tarball. Would you?
In any case, I clarified why it was harder to inspect - to me it felt obvious that being closed source made it harder to investigate. The fact that it is also shared source really has no bearing to the general observation, especially since we're talking about a 2GB tarball where I don't even know where to start. And I'm a pretty technical person.
How would a user easily investigate this vs. an open source browser?
You're deliberately ignoring our complaints- I was misled by your writing implying that the browser itself is completely closed source and that it's impossible to inspect the inner workings of its adblock, which as pointed out to you is FALSE (because only the UI is closed source) and thus misleading. I am not going to talk to you about your strawman. I'm also not making any implications about required technical expertise to assess these adblocks, but if we are to go by your assumption, perhaps you are not qualified to make this article if you cannot get the data required to make a proper assessment? Either way, I'm not sure why you're so against adding your article clearer- a few words would've done the job.