>> I know you had to "turn on" pocket. That doesn't counter my argument.
> Kinda does, especially since Google never used pocket?
Pocket also gave way to a new type of add-on that's impossible to remove and installs silently. They do show up in about:support, at least, but only as names [1]. I feel like that whole episode was treated very poorly by Mozilla, with a lot of misinformation [2] and reasonable documentation requests being ignored [3].
IIRC that kind of addon always existed. Some kinds of browser functionality was implemented that way.
It doesn't exactly "install silently", it's there by default. Just like the code for the bookmarks toolbar is there by default. It uses the addons API, is all.
I'm not sure how to read the Go Faster docs [1]. I undestand that they can get updated silently, but it doesn't say anything about pushing new ones. I assume that's also possible, as it totally makes sense, but I don't have any proof.
The Go Faster initiative seems to have started around June 2015 [2] with Pocket being one of the first users [3] [4].
> The Presentation addon IIRC handles some prompts
[4] This first comment in #1215694 has a nice Orwellian tinge: "We're moving pocket to a built-in addon. This will facilitate user choice [...]". We all know how that went.
> but it doesn't say anything about pushing new ones. I assume that's also possible, as it totally makes sense, but I don't have any proof.
I don't think they can be
> with Pocket being one of the first users [3] [4].
So were Hello/Loop. I think you've got the cause-effect backwards here. It seems to have started off as a way to add experimental features that needed a different update cycle (before Test Pilot existed). Now that Test Pilot exists all of these addons are basically for core browser functionality (e.g. the dev tools may move to this model at some point). So right now it's just a way of shipping code with a different release cycle, and being used for things that would otherwise be baked into the browser itself.
> Kinda does, especially since Google never used pocket?
Pocket also gave way to a new type of add-on that's impossible to remove and installs silently. They do show up in about:support, at least, but only as names [1]. I feel like that whole episode was treated very poorly by Mozilla, with a lot of misinformation [2] and reasonable documentation requests being ignored [3].
[1] what's even "presentation@mozilla.org"?
[2] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.governance/2PYq2w8te...
[3] e.g. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1179699