Bug#715555: gnome package has icedove and xul-ext-adblock-plus incompatibility

[Moritz Muehlenhoff]

On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 02:12:03PM +0200, r.3 at libertysurf.fr wrote:
> 
> Package: gnome 
> Version: 1:3.4+7 
> 
> Hello, 
> updating from squeeze to wheezy, I got a dependency problem with gnome. In french, it says : 
> 
> Les paquets suivants ont des dépendances non satisfaites : 
> xul-ext-adblock-plus : Casse: icedove (> 16.0~a1+) mais 17.0.7-1~deb7u1 est installé. 
> 
> Indeed, gnome package depends on both icedove (10.X) and xul-ext-adblock-plus. But the debian security team now provides a security update of icedove (ESR, 17.X) that is incompatible with xul-ext-adblock-plus. They did it on purpose, knowing icedove ESR would brake xul-* packages. And they do not want to maintain xul-* packages anymore, advising people to go directly to http://addons.mozilla.org : 
> 
> http://www.marshut.com/npxkm/switching-to-mozilla-esr-in-stable-security.html 
> 
> Which makes gnome inconsistent and not fully instalable. 
> 
> Would it be possible to follow security team advices, and remove xul-ext-adblock-plus from gnome package ? 

A compatibility update to xul-ext-adblock-plus was released through stable-security as a hotfix, but needs
to be the exceptional case.

The dependency on xul-ext-adblock-plus should still be lowered for the Debian 7.2 point release (at least to 
Recommends or less, see below) to prevent such a failure in the future.

Independent of that: 
There have been recent reports in the German language IT press about the dubious
business practices behind Adblock plus.
http://www.mobilegeeks.de/adblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk/ (Only in German)
(plus a lot of followups even in the mainstream media, e.g.
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/browsererweiterung-in-der-kritik-wie-adblock-plus-mit-werbung-geld-verdient-1.1715051 )

English version:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/06/google-and-others-reportedly-pay-adblock-plus-to-show-you-ads-anyway/

I don't think we should install such software in the default desktop installation.

Cheers,
        Moritz