I got a warning for all my Firefox loving followers out there, stay away from any Firefox themes that claim to be, “interactive” or have been developed by BrandThunder.
What is so bad about BrandThunder themes?
Have you noticed some of the new themes for Firefox are being called, interactive? This puzzled me for some time, as I was curious as to what they meant by this. So, since most of these themes came from the developer, BrandThunder – I tried out the Puppies theme they developed.
Anybody notice anything a little weird, different or ugly?
Looks like by interactive, they mean we sneak a lot of extra stuff into your browser.
Why did my default search engine change to Bing? – Doing this without permission, not cool.
Who do I have a second search box? – Now I have two ways to search Bing.com right from my browser toolbar – wasn’t hijacking my default search enough?
What is that gear in the corner? – This seems to be the theme’s settings options, where you can get more things just from BrandThunder, to junk up up your Firefox install.
Listen, everybody deserves to try something unique with theme development, but this is a mess. It hijacks my browser every which way but loose.
How to Uninstall BrandThunder Themes
So, the next question is, “How do you uninstall this theme?”. Go to Tools > Add-ons and then go to themes…
What, they didn’t put a theme in the themes menu? Oh this BrandThunder theme is so annoying. You can find it under the “Extensions” menu under Tools > Add-ons.
Is it gone? Grr… not yet! After uninstalling, it comes up with a survey asking you to tell them about your experience. Rather than that, I thought I would express my views here.
Now, you are finally don with this mess of a Firefox theme add-on.
Final Thoughts About BrandThunder Themes
In my opinion, every Firefox user should stay far away from these themes. They hijack portions of your browser, and insert services you may or may not want. There are many more great themes worth trying out – and they won’t try to trick you into installing more than you bargained for.
Mitch:
Thanks for your candid review. Commentary like this helps us improve our product over time. My goal isn't to change your mind, it's more to provide additional information or background to your analysis.
The Puppies theme you chose to analyze makes your points more poignant. I'll admit it represents a current batch of our themes that are lighter on interactivity, but overlooks some of our more sophisticated work. Consider Weather (http://brandthunder.com/weather) where the theme changes based on your local weather conditions and integrates forecasts, alerts, temperature and other live conditions. The Daily Beast (http://www.thedailybeast.com/browser-theme) which updates the theme with an image of their latest feature story, plus a sidebar widget of their Cheat Sheet. Canvas (http://brandthunder.com/canvas/) which allows you to put any image from your PC or any web page into the browser theme. These are all pretty advanced compared to a simple theme.
Regarding the “interactive theme” moniker and uninstall, as you noted there's more going on than just the theme – so we don't qualify as a normal theme, but the theme's a big part of it. Since the product reaches a wide audience outside of the AMO community, we included theme in our product title to help with understanding of what it is. Unfortunately, the interactivity impacts where the uninstall position falls (under Extensions instead of Themes) – and there's that ongoing potential for confusion.
For the search boxes, toolbar buttons and settings button, the search boxes are a core component to us building our company and allowing us to do this work full time. The settings button is standard across our work to users can switch between our interactive themes, get help and change settings. The other toolbar buttons change depending on the implementation. Since Puppies is more theme focused, we kept the buttons geared toward what we felt a theme user might enjoy. Maybe we missed the mark.
For the search changes, we do disclose the changes on the download page next to the “Accept & Install” button. On our download pages, we do make sure the “Read Carefully” text is visible at a 1024×768 resolution to ensure it's exposed at nearly all monitor resolutions. I'm sorry you missed it and feel we're being sneaky. We are trying to be above board in all our actions, and we're also trying to build a business. We will accept business model consulting ;-)
We certainly don't mind your commentary here, but it would have been welcome in the uninstall survey as well. We actually pushed a change last week based on feedback from the survey. When you were running Puppies, if you launched a new tab you would have seen a third Bing search box. It is quite popular, but it also bothers a number of users. As a result of the complaints, we added a check box to allow users to turn it off.
We're proud of the work we do. While I respect why you don't like some of our decisions, I hope you can appreciate other aspects of our work. I can certainly appreciate the work you do for your readership.
To be perfectly honest, I think I'll side with the Google Chrome approach. (start with a barebones/crippled extension and theming API and progressively relax/extend as you confirm that exploits are unfeasible)
I firmly believe that, if you smush an extension into your theme, it can't be called a theme anymore.
This is serious. If these themes existed at getpersonas, I believe mozila must be warn. It is not funny at all to not know that you are installing something beyond a theme.Unlike the official addon page, all these themes do not have comments enabled for users who install those persona themes.
Hi Kevin,
I like the way you responded to the criticism with the lengthy explanation. It will be better to point Bing search engine as one of the features of this add-on. Now it seems as though you are trying to hide this feature. Ok you are disclosing it at the bottom. Why the font size of your disclosure is so small? Just curious to know. That's it.
You've got a good point. Maybe we should be touting Bing as one of the value adds of the themes. So much of our work is done for brands and the text is tailored around the connection between a fan and the team or site that's offering the theme. As a small company, we follow similar patterns everywhere for efficiency sake. Looks like a fresh look could help.
The font size and color answer will be a bunch of business babble. It boils down to clearly providing the disclosures while also maintaining focus on the intent of the page – tout the product benefits and gain a user. The more distractions on the page, the fewer users you end up with. Commerce sites are experts at guiding users through similar processes.
If you looked at one of our download pages before posting your question, you saw the “Read Carefully” in green text. A couple weeks ago when we launched these new download pages, that text was in gray. We made the change to green to give more visual weight to the disclosures without overwhelming the design.
I hope this helps. We do keep listening to feedback and keep revising to make our work better.
I tried it aswell, the girl ofcourse.nnBesides the fact that there was nothing “interactive” about the theme, it was clogging up my screen with various unwanted tools.nnI wish Mozilla would check persona’s for such themes, but I guess it would be a pain if they had to check every theme.
I tried it aswell, the girl ofcourse.
Besides the fact that there was nothing “interactive” about the theme, it was clogging up my screen with various unwanted tools.
I wish Mozilla would check persona's for such themes, but I guess it would be a pain if they had to check every theme.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla’s add-on database too.
True, wish there were a few more checks and balances when it comes to allowing new people into Mozilla's add-on database too.
Seminole Cnty, FL – School Board Election Dr. Tina Calderone (aka Dr. Evil) – a LIFELONG DEMOCRAT – becomes a Republican to run for school board. Is she turning her back on Democrats or lying to Republicans? Someone’s getting lied to. WHO?
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