[Riddle solved] Suddenly many Firefox installs!

[ImprovedTube]

Since June 15 our installs almost doubled because of Firefox alone.
Any ideas? (this looks unnatural. Didn't find us mentioned in any news these days. And it won't stay at almost the same amount for 9 days)

@code-charity/contributors

[fynks]

May be this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/s/ypMTIeb4yU

[ImprovedTube]

interesting! (could be one reason, yet not all #2411 (reply in thread))

[WiseTomCat]

I think that your extension is being featured in the firefox's recommended section in Add-ons page for some time now.....must say it really works like charm unless you are set to clear cookies and cache on exit. I dont mind the minor issues btw. This has been a game changer in terms for feature and simplicity.

[Pdzly]

Yeah saw that

[1-minute-to-midnight]

I reinstalled it because the forced playback wasn't working

[raszpl]

I reinstalled it because the forced playback wasn't working

but this extension doesnt do forced playback? It can only stop forced playback :) I am slowly cooking something to add "force playback" for those people who get Youtube videos paused by default despite not changing anything (looks like one of YT google experiments or glitches)

[ImprovedTube]

hi @1-minute-to-midnight! Autoplay in a background tab when it is disabled by firefox?

[1-minute-to-midnight]

no the forced playback speed option, occasionally stops working

[raszpl]

no the forced playback speed option, occasionally stops working

oh yeah that one, Im not touching that code

[ImprovedTube]

@1-minute-to-midnight let me know if you notice anything more.
You can open the browser console when it happens (, and join one of the open issue threads about it)

[jscongdon]

When you search FF add-ons for youtube, Improve Youtube is number five on the list as well.

[jscongdon]

Oh, yeah. I didn't pay attention to the details of the graph, seeing that now. Not knowing exactly how you get the number of installs, I would then speculate that someone/thing installed the plugin on a virtual instance... and then replicated that instance that number of times.

[jscongdon]

1. "chrome books for students" :)
2. many different countries lends to virtualization at scale
   What are the chances that the plugin's capabilities are being utilized for automated view-stimulating/manipulation

[ImprovedTube]

edit: good point, once noticed it being added to 1000s of chrome books for students. Yet the installs seem to come from many different countries. And actually run the browser daily now too. As if somebody placed a link in very popular place, yet only about Firefox (unlikely). To put the number into perspective, the red line already was high, because Youtube enhancer wasn't available for a month. The current amount doesn't just happen to a Firefox extension.

[ImprovedTube]

ok! seems to be real!
i didn't pay attention to the new green line in parallel, representing about:addons
where Mozilla editors wrote a custom description:
"Customize YouTube to taste. Give it a new look, new features & filter only the content you want."
This also explains that non of these many users wrote feedback ratings just yet. (They can be a whole different audience than addons.mozilla.org)

Welcome to Firefox! 🥺🥺

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"chrome books for students" :)

(Old story:) The yearly cycle aligns with school holidays. (And google analytics IP locations would show they are all from an area where several schools share some management)

Let's see if we meet one of them one day, to tell us more.

So our Beta test isn't a test. (Not our choice @raszpl). Should have renamed it ImprovedTube.EDU long ago.)

What are the chances that the plugin's capabilities are being utilized for automated view-stimulating/manipulation

no se 😮 if so, they'd have to connect the code and not need all. And might not use store installation. And might use browser automation tools.

[ImprovedTube]

Where to send your ImprovedTube-Firefox cake and everything? @raszpl

[raszpl]

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Releases/127

clipboard API, finally real human boy Set() subset/superset support all great, sadly still no support for world MAIN (can declare scripts for injection = no need for injecting them into page context manually)
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json/content_scripts#run_at despite
patches landing 28 days ago https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1736575