Hi, sorry to hear you have this problem; you are not alone (1358850, 1358852). The extension was blocked for the reasons mentioned on the following page:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/blocked-addon/[email protected]/77.5.7/

But where does that leave you? If you have Chrome or Microsoft Edge, you may be able to use that to recover your speed dial URLs and set those up in Firefox's built-in new tab page or in another speed dial add-on. Hopefully the community will come up with something simpler.

It may be worth putting pressure on the author to see whether they will address Mozilla's concerns and make an updated version of the extension available.

Hi

In 2020, we became aware that the developer of the FVD add-on had begun intercepting search queries that were being sent to a third-party search provider, in clear violation of the Mozilla Add-ons Policies. After a repeated violation we again explicitly told them under which circumstances this type of data collection is not acceptable. At the time, the developer disabled the feature, and we continued to host FVD Speed Dial.

Recently we have become aware that the developer has re-enabled the offending functionality, which remains in violation of AMO policy. In light of these repeated offenses, we have blocked this addon. While we regret the impact that this has had on some of our users, we believe that our commitments to user safety and the importance of user trust in Firefox and its surrounding ecosystem have obligated us to take this action, and we stand by this decision.

While it is well within you right to impose guideline to add-on dev, and to host the add-on that fit your moral idea (they are plenty available on your store that are made to bypass copyright btw). If you are talking about offence, remotely disabling an add-on, on some-one else computer raise the bar pretty high.

Good to know that you feel you are within your right to chose for the user what's good and what's not what it he shall and shall not do what is legal and what is not.

Remote disabling Is not good practice, It should really be reserved as last measure for clear and present danger (exploit for toyan crypto virus).

Good practice should have been informing the user that the add-on was doing "..." and asking him if he still wanted to use it, while no longer hosting the add one on the store.

I'm taking the time to let you know, because I know user that don't even know about mozilla, For them it's just the browser with the fox... and when they turn on there browser an see all there stuff (welcome speed dial) gone, they don't get it they think they have been hacked (actually they have by you), and they lose complete confidence in firefox (they wont know or care about the share search query especially since when installing the add-on it shat you'll be sharing url). Just the opposite of what you think you just did.

May be you could do a better job not to alienate the few people still using Firefox, even when it is for there own good.

Thank you for your feedback.

Hello,

I am also concerned with the unexpected deactivation of the fvd plug-in. And I have to say that I'm really disappointed in Firefox gestion of this situation. Because of it I lost all my professional links (that I can't find anywhere else)! Why didn't you warn the users first... At least we would have made some backup! How about you take care of your users feedbacks and reactivate the plug in for one or two days with a warning about near deactivation? In addition you say that the privacy problem is in search part of the plug-in, but I wasn't even using this... I deactivated the search bar of the plug-in. I wasn't even using the embedded backup part for the same reason : I didn't wanted my search/links to be stored anywhere else than in my computer.

I'm really in need of my professional links. I even searched in the raw files of the plug-in to find my links but they are no more readable for human as they are encoded in sqlite

Thank you for your feedback, but we are unable to offer a solution at this time.