[Announcement] Recent and upcoming changes to the Nano projects

[jspenguin2017]

Important updates and disclaimers: The WebStore listings are no longer under my control. I am not responsible for the actions of the new developer(s). If you feel concerned about the recent changes (please continue reading for more information), please remember that you can uninstall the extensions and/or find alternatives at any time.

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As some of you might have noticed, Nano Adblocker is now months behind upstream. It became clear that I simply do not have enough time to properly maintain the Nano projects.

At the beginning, there were no backlogs. As the projects grow, I added a backlog system to better manage open issues. That was unfortunately not enough, so I added another level of backlog -- the triage queue. Then a third level. And a fourth one. Now the fourth level of backlog, the notification queue, has over 138 issues waiting for my attention. No matter how well I organize incoming issues, if I do not have enough time to look into them, I will simply fall further and further behind. With thousands of issues backlogged, it is only a matter of time that the Nano projects collapse.

And here comes the news. New developer(s) are in the process of acquiring Nano Adblocker and Nano Defender. Hopefully, they will be able to put an end to this backlog madness and finally give Nano Adblocker some real development time instead of constantly trying to catch up to upstream. The transition is still taking place, so I would like to ask for your patience. I will have more details about this in the upcoming days or weeks.

I would like to apologize for not being able to post an announcement earlier. I was extremely busy last week, and with all the additional things that I have to take care of to ensure a smooth transition, I fall quite a bit behind schedule. If you have any questions or concerns, please post them below. I am still trying to catch up, so please be patient while I find time to respond to your inputs.

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Updates:

The new developer(s) said that they will create their own repositories and change links where appropriate.

The Edge store listings were changed to hidden.

NanoMeow/MDLMirror has been archived.

NanoMeow/UltimateMirror has been archived, and its visibility has been changed to private.

NanoMeow/MirrorEngine has been archived.

The Nano Defender repository has been archived.

Repositories in NanoAdblocker and NanoAdblockerLab organizations except NanoAdblocker/NanoCore have been archived.

The backend server running on legacy.hugoxu.com will no longer accept new reports from the Quick Issue Reporter.

NanoAdblocker/NanoCore and NanoMeow/QuickReports will be archived on 2020-10-15.

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Please head over to my general purpose repository for further discussions: https://github.com/jspenguin2017/Snippets/issues

[DandelionSprout]

Speaking as (to the best of my knowledge) the highest-profile end-user of Nano Adblocker and Defender, the vague notion of "A team of Turkish developers" would definitely need a lot more clarification when the time is right to do so, before I'd feel safe and confident about this.

[liamengland1]

Speaking as (to the best of my knowledge) the highest-profile end-user of Nano Adblocker and Defender

That part was not necessary IMO.

(probably) Most users of Nano Adblocker/Defender care about their online privacy, so they will probably share your concern and desire for more information, as do I.

[DandelionSprout]

I meant that I was the only list maintainer of a major list that used Nano Adblocker as my main adblocker in my everyday life.

[jspenguin2017]

Before I was contacted by the new developer(s), I was planning on downscaling my projects due to time constraints. I had a totally different announcement drafted, in which I announced that some of the Nano projects will become unmaintained. When I started my projects, I never thought it would become this big, and lately, it has been too much for me. I was honestly hoping that someone would take the maintenance burden away from me. Having to choose between shutting down the projects and having someone else to take care of them, I chose the latter.

All this is still new to me, and I am still learning. I hope that I made the right choice and let's hope for the best.

[Yuki2718]

Frankly it reminds me of the past taking over of uBlock. I don't need to know much about uAssets contributors, their years of contribution speaks all. We know nothing about the new developers.

[okiehsch]

There was one day where I was a new developer who has no contribution history at all.

And you grew your userbase organically, they are first and foremost aquiring your userbase, hence the scepticism.

[DandelionSprout]

Does the team of Turkish developers have any previous experience with adblocking in any shape or form?

[jspenguin2017]

Software development skills are transferable, and the skills needed to develop a product tend to be different than the ones needed to use a product. Of course developers need to know how to use the features they are developing, but the experience from developing a completely different extension would be much more important than the experience with adblocking. As an example, I know very little about dynamic filtering, I do not believe I ever used it and I am not too sure how it really works. However, this has not limit my ability to develop other parts of the extension.

[jspenguin2017]

@okiehsch That is a good point, I will see what kind of information I can share.

[jspenguin2017]

I am going to bed now. I am not sure what my schedule for next week will look like, so I apologize in advance if I cannot find time to properly reply to your comments until the weekend.

[gorhill]

As an example, I know very little about dynamic filtering, I do not believe I ever used it and I am not too sure how it really works.

I would like to point out my view that Nano AdBlocker ("Nano") is pretty much uBO but with a different syntax highlighter and some configuration tweaks, most of the work that benefit Nano occurs in uBO. Surely the acquirers are aware of this?

In my opinion the best original feature of Nano as far as I am concerned is the ability to report issue (which requires maintaining an intermediate server), but for the rest I see it only as mostly uBO when leaving out the code editor and tweaks -- the sparse list of fixed issues confirms that the bulk of the commits benefiting Nano occurs in uBO.

I will see what kind of information I can share.

Your users installed your extension because they implicitly trusted you. It does not look good when you have to ask permission to disclose important information to those people who wants to acquire your user base (essentially acquiring your user base's trust and a way to monetize uBO volunteers' work) before considering your user base's best interests, i.e. who is going to maintain the extension they use.

Additionally, why refer to the acquirer as "Turkish developers" instead of just naming the entity? The nationality of developers is irrelevant, but the entity and its track record is. I find it odd that you feel like mentioning their nationality which is irrelevant while leaving out the more important information about which entity is involved so that people can research it.

I am just going to ask point blank:

• Which entity is acquiring your user base, control of your repos, and control of Chrome/Microsoft store publications?
• Are the acquirers related in any way to eyeo or BetaFish?

As far I am concerned at this point from what is being disclosed, what I see is a yet to be disclosed entity is planning to monetize the work and time of all uBO contributors indirectly by acquiring and monetizing Nano.

[LiCybora]

As a Firefox port maintainer, I would like to know whether the "Turkish developers" will take over the Firefox port as well or just the Chrome(ium)/Edge part. I am neutral to the decision, but if the upstream developer is changed, I need to think about should I detached from upstream and rename the project, maintain for the new developers, or just abandon the Firefox port. It is unlikely I will still continue maintain for new developers without knowing their stance.

My initial motivation for maintaining this project is I find the usefulness of this project and do not want it dead on Firefox (previously original author and some other maintainers do maintain on Firefox for a while). I try my best to turn myself from normal user to maintainer. I am still too far to be qualified as developer. But in case I still need this project and the new developers do not take over the port (or I don't like their stance, just in case...), I will try my best to develop on my own (or maintain for them if I agree with new developers).

However, as the uBO have its syntax highlighter and the new Firefox mobile do not support addons other than Recommended Extension, I am even confuse whether Nano Adblocker is still needed on Firefox if report issue is missing (or suspicious that everyone is concerning). At best, the new developers are good (maybe better than me) and they will maintain ports on Firefox greater than previous. At worst, either I will slowly develop on my own, or just use uBO and abandoned it.

Update: I refuse to port for this project anymore.

[DandelionSprout]

I think that among the other original features of Nano Adblocker, {{nanoHref}} was the one I liked the most. It was much like {{origin}} for autoCommentFilterTemplate, but displayed the whole URL and not just the domain. This was very convenient when working on the Nano Placeholder Buster list in particular, and I'll see if I have some spare time to submit a request in the uBO issue tracker to add such a feature there as well.

Apart from that and Nano Filters / NanoMeow, I think Nano had a few additional included lists (5 Nano-branded lists + Adblock Warning Removal List), and a few additional scriplets that currently aren't being used for much.

Nano's original advantages in 2018 that made me jump from uBO to Nano back then, like a then-revolutionary linter, and easier integration with Nano Defender, have pretty much been caught up to in 2020 by uBO.

[TheOne320]

Will the project stay open source?

[gorhill]

They can't change the license, and they have to assign GPLv3 license to whatever code they add to the project.

[jspenguin2017]

I will be responding to comments in the order they are received. I am quite short on time, so please be patient.

[jspenguin2017]

@gorhill

There are a couple other things that I would like to address regarding your input, but I do not have time to write that tonight. So let's just get the burning questions out of the way.

The new developer(s) claimed that they are a pair of independent developers, they said that they are freelancers who are just starting out. Regarding affiliation with Eyeo and BetaFish, I asked them this morning, and they said no.

Update: To clarify, I still control the repos, the Edge store listings, the bot (NanoMeow) account, and the legacy.hugoxu.com domain. I will post an update if any of these change.

[jspenguin2017]

Regarding updates to the opening post: I will add disclaimers no matter who acquired my projects. This is not an indication that I no longer care about my projects and their users. Quite the opposite: The updates and disclaimers disclose what I can and cannot control, which gives the users a chance to make an informed decision.

Unfortunately, the projects do not have a good notification system, I linked this announcement in all relevant repos for better visibility, this is the best I can do right now. Hopefully most users would have a chance to see this thread and make a decision before the first update from the new developer(s) comes out.

---

I will address your comments when I have more time later this week or this weekend.

[liamengland1]

The developers are apparently named semagul aymak and nizametdin altuncu.

Nano Adblocker is controlled by the former and Defender by the latter. I can't find any information about them.

[Yuki2718]

Why they didn't simply fork the projects? This suggests they wanted not the code base but Nano brand and its user base. What I concern is something like this: https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/1293233244826218498

[gorhill]

I can't find any information about them.

So this is what is actually happening, I consider all else to be fluff:

"Two developers"[1] with no track record of ever contributing to the current project, or any related projects at least showing any sort of interest in content blocking or privacy or even loosely related topics, and with no visible internet presence to this day, paid an undisclosed amount in exchange of the user base and control of the GitHub repositories.

As of now, the user base has already been transferred (as per Chrome store listings), and in all likelihood a majority of those users will have no idea their installed extensions is no longer maintained by the person they originally trusted, at least implicitly, when they installed those extensions. Links to the privacy policy have been removed from the Chrome store listings (here, and here).

It goes without saying that the goal of these "two developers" is to monetize the two extensions. Those "two developers" will likely continue to import all the work from upstream, i.e. uBO, which is the result of long time volunteers investing their own free time and efforts days after days spanning years, which also contributed to make Nano AdBlocker to become what it is.

[1] Using quotes because nobody knows that there are really two actual developers given that nothing can be verified so far.

[Techman]

Looks like I will be removing everything related to Nano Core/Defender from my uBlock Origin preferences. I've seen how this goes with content-blocking extensions. They have usually turned around and monetized in some fashion. We don't need any more rubbish like that in the ecosystem.

@jspenguin2017, I honestly think it would have been better off that you shut down the projects and redirect users back to uBlock Origin instead of "sell" them down the river. As @gorhill has mentioned, it is entirely likely that existing extension users have no idea that ownership has changed hands. This is a significant privacy and security issue as extensions can auto-update.

In all honesty, I'm for uBlock Origin marking Nano lists as bad unless these situations can be addressed. Transferring the project over to unknown and unproven maintainers makes no sense.

[jspenguin2017]

@gorhill

Nano AdBlocker ("Nano") is pretty much uBO but with a different syntax highlighter and some configuration tweaks

In my opinion the best original feature of Nano as far as I am concerned is the ability to report issue

You are not wrong if you compare Nano with uBO today, but this was not always like this. Nano was the first adblocker to ever get a syntax highlighter. So I would say that the syntax highlighter is the best original feature since the ability to quickly and easily report issues is present in AdGuard, Adblock Plus, and probably other adblockers before Nano.

[jspenguin2017]

@gorhill

Your users installed your extension because they implicitly trusted you. It does not look good when you have to ask permission to disclose important information

I totally agree, it definitely does not look good for me. This is the first time someone acquired my projects, and honestly I am not too sure what I am supposed to do. If there is a next time, I will certainly be more prepared.

Ultimately, I have no control over what the new developer(s) do. So I updated all of my posts in this thread to be clearer and more neutral. This should hopefully help users to make properly informed decisions unaffected by their trust in me, implicit or otherwise.

[ghost]

I dont understand why people care about nano so much, I mean literally its ublock origin fork with some features

[Yuki2718]

@enescglyn Because so many people use Nano.

[tazihad]

I started noticing youtube ads. Now I am here. I guess this is it for me. It was good 2 years. Going back to uBlock Origin. Thanks to the nano developer I never noticed ads and ad detector.

[jspenguin2017]

@tazihad

The new developer(s) have yet to publish an update at the time of your post. Your issue is most likely unrelated to the changes announced here.

[PseudoResonance]

I don't think he was saying the changes were related. I think he just came here looking for a fix or reasoning, and then discovered this unfortunate issue and decided to give up on Nano. I too had a similar experience. I came to GitHub looking for an explanation on the lack of recent updates, and came across this, and I think this is probably it for me and Nano Adblocker too.

The lack of any announcements or transparency as well as the lack of information regarding the situation, plus the fact that the new maintainers have zero history of ever working on anything, let alone this project, just doesn't really make me want to keep using this.

Sure, now there is information available here, but unless you come looking for it, you'll probably never find out. Honestly, if there was a noticeable announcement in the plugin, like a new tab popping up saying "Hey, we're transferring ownership!" I would've been a lot happier. I also would've been a lot happier if the new maintainers had shown some prior interest in the project before acquiring it. That looks to me like they're just looking for some easy targets to acquire instead of actually caring about the project.

I plan to still watch out for any new developments in this issue, but I think it is most likely that many users who are informed of this will ditch Nano Adblock.

[nicole-ashley]

@jspenguin2017 I'm sorry to hear that you have come to the point where you no longer have enough time in your life to maintain a popular open source project.

I recall a similar situation a couple of years ago where you were extremely critical of me for not having time to maintain my uBlock Origin fork, with no understanding of what I was going through in my life at the time. Your manner was very superior, critical and unnecessarily disparaging of my work and dedication up until that point when life had got out of my control.

I hope your followers show you more grace, understanding, and consideration than you did to me. Especially in light of what seems to be a very dubious and opaque decision to transfer ownership to complete unknowns rather than bring on more collaborators or even just retire the project.

All the best for the future.

[Vanho12345]

This is a really disappointing event.Perhaps many will not be aware that ownership has been transferred.

Decisions that are significantly less transparent are only disappointing.

From now on, I will use ublock.Thank you for your work.

[jspenguin2017]

@gorhill

why refer to the acquirer as "Turkish developers"

The new developer(s) claimed that they are in Turkey. I initially include this information so users can be aware of potential time zone differences and language barriers. I was able to communicate with the new developer(s) in English without too many issues, but I believe English is not their native language.

[jspenguin2017]

@LiCybora

The new developer(s) should contact you directly if they are interested in the Firefox version.

[jspenguin2017]

@gorhill

Links to the privacy policy have been removed

Privacy policy links are bound to developer accounts instead of each listing. It was not really "removed", more like "not added". If I recall correctly, it is not possible to publish updates without adding a privacy policy first.

[jspenguin2017]

@gorhill @Techman

before considering your user base's best interests

I honestly think it would have been better off that you shut down the projects

I have been thinking about this even before the new developer(s) contacted me. Is it in the users' best interests to abandon the project? When I announced that I will no longer maintain the Firefox version myself, I remembered that a lot of people were not happy about it. And that was when the project is over 50 times smaller. Considering only a dozen people voiced their concerns here, so far it looked like I made the right decision.

[krystian3w]

Or people are afraid of FUD, e.g. in Poland, I don't think anyone has talked about selling Nano more globally than this: https://github.com/MajkiIT/polish-ads-filter/discussions/17251

and on one portal I know 2 boys avid fans and 1 girl avid fan, which they advertise Nano very much where can.

[jspenguin2017]

@nikrolls

Your manner was very superior, critical and unnecessarily disparaging of my work

I simply wanted to let you know about a setup that saved time for me. I am sorry that you took it this way.

[LiCybora]

@jspenguin2017

The new developer(s) should contact you directly if they are interested in the Firefox version.

Might you forward this issue link to them such that they can show up here? One of reasons that many people feel insecure is that they never exist here and we only know them via you. No one can actually interact with them except you, even I have no way to reach them for question. Who knows how long I will have to wait if I cannot contact them?

Situation can be much better if they show up and introduce themselves as new developers to their users, at least knowing two developers are really actually exist without using quotes. I don't see any reason to hide themselves from here, or more accurate, their users.

[liamengland1]

Considering only a dozen people voiced their concerns here, so far it looked like I made the right decision.

Do you seriously believe this? Most users of Nano do not check github and have no way of knowing that this transfer of ownership has taken place.

[jspenguin2017]

@LiCybora

Might you forward this issue link to them

Sure, I will do that.

@llacb47

Most users of Nano do not check github

The same can be said for the other announcement.

[okiehsch]

Is it in the users' best interests to abandon the project?

You really think that your users prefer you selling them to an unknown third party to you stop maintaining the extension? If you had just given control away I could kind of see the point but logic dictates that the buyers will try to monetize the user base otherwise they could have simply forked.

[ElDani82]

Why do people install ad blockers? As the now former developer of a security and privacy extension, it should be expected of you that administrative issues are resolved with these reasons kept in mind.

Since changing store ownership is a known weakness that has been exploited in the past - through both guile and the sale of the product - I had expected more thought be put into this action. In my mind it's even more relevant, because the main browser this blocker was developed for isn't capable of stopping extension updates, leaving the average user both without knowledge of the change and unable to prevent from potentially being taken advantage of.

Reading this thread, one thing has become very clear: you don't really know who you sold to. These two people may be fine examples of humanity and their desire to continue development may be entirely honest and altruistic. It's equally possible that they're fronts for some shady advertising companies who went into this arrangement with plans to subvert the existing user base of the extension or introduce other harmful changes. There's no proof or even indication either way, but the uncertainty is a problem.

In a case like this, at the very least I would have expected the developer to push an update to all users which informs them of the impending change of ownership. I'm not sure where else this notification has been posted to, but the average user can't be expected to follow GitHub issues for each and every of their software.

While there are no hard feelings from me for your actions - I sympathize with the lack of time, it's all too understandable that caring for a free product isn't easy nor rewarding most of the time - there's no doubt in my mind that your reputation has taken a hit from how you've handled this. Also, if you ever start another security/privacy project in the future, the privacy-conscious crowd will no doubt come back here and find a good reason not to use it.

That criticism aside, I wish you all the best in your future and leave here with a thanks for your efforts back when Nano was shiny and new. The (once) unique features of Nano aren't the draw they once were, so moving back to uBlock Origin will be easy.

[jspenguin2017]

@okiehsch

You really think that your users prefer you selling them to an unknown third party to you stop maintaining the extension?

If there was a clear candidate to be the new maintainer, I would have simply transferred the control over to them. The new developer(s) demonstrated their resourcefulness and dedication with their acquisition, and they are the best candidates that I currently know to be the new maintainers.

the buyers will try to monetize the user base

If the new developer(s) are able to provide meaningful contributions to the projects, and their monetization efforts are reasonable, I do not see what is wrong with that. If they do not provide meaningful contributions, or their monetization efforts are too aggressive, users will leave and the new developer(s) would have lost their time and money.

[okiehsch]

demonstrated their resourcefulness and dedication with their acquisition

Meaning they were willing to pay for it? Note that I don't criticize you for selling, you have put a lot of time and work into this project and it's totally understandable that given the opportunity you take a financial reward. I just think you should have made more of an effort to inform your users before you made that decision like ElDani82 mentions.

If the new developer(s) are able to provide meaningful contributions to the projects, and their monetization efforts are reasonable, I do not see what is wrong with that.

I agree but I doubt that there is a reasonable way to monetize privacy and security conscious users that would also be worth their investment. Time will tell.

[jspenguin2017]

@ElDani82

As the now former developer of a security and privacy extension, it should be expected of you that administrative issues are resolved with these reasons kept in mind.

Nano is not a "security and privacy" extension. It is an adblocker. It is called Nano Adblocker after all. It happens to also block some trackers but that is not the focus, this is reflected in the filters policy of Nano Filters: tracking and privacy related issues are out of scope.

[dragonwolf83]

Having gone through a few mergers, I will add my feedback only from that perspective.

Typically, there is no announcement or confirmation of a sale until the sale is done. They may set a future date for when operations, assets, personnel, etc. is officially handed over but from the legal standpoint it is often done and the new company is officially in charge.

Once the sale is done. A joint press release is done by both parties. This will produce the following

• General Press Release announcing the sale and introducing the new owners
• FAQ document that answers the top questions customers are likely to have about the sale
• Internal documents to employees with more details and guidance on how to answer questions to customers.

The Press Release says what happened, who we are, and will try to reflect the benefit this will have on the product and customers. This is a joint statement approved by both parties so it's typically the same and released on both websites. Sometimes, one party may add a few more statements with their own take and is quite often approved by both parties to ensure messaging is aligned with each other. See the GitHub acquisition announcement by Microsoft as a great example.

The FAQ is compiled with what both companies feel will be the most common questions that their customers will have. Customers and employees are scared at this point. The FAQ is meant to address those fears as much as possible with a positive spin on how this will advance the product and improve customer lives. A lot of times, the new company doesn't want to address roadmap and overpromise so they will keep it high level.

The above documents are usually highly coordinated with legal and marketing teams writing it. Unfortunately, that is more difficult for a lone developer because they don't know what to do and may not have time either. English being a secondary language for a developer can add to the difficulty. Had this been a larger company acquisition by someone like RedGate or GitHub, they would have handled this for you. I know RedGate has done this many a time with small useful tools.

The only thing that can be done now is to get the developers to do the above and address their new customers. That is the single largest issue right now because we have not heard anything from them and so everything is speculation. The 2nd issue is the perceived value of what developers will bring to this project and they need to address that. The 3rd issue is how they expect to monetize it since the purchase implies they want to make their money back.

[jspenguin2017]

@okiehsch

it's totally understandable that given the opportunity you take a financial reward

I tried to stay away from the money topic because people tend to be sensitive to it. But I want to point out that I see the money as more of a safety mechanism. I will keep some of it to cover taxes, server costs, developer license costs, and other things. But I will consider donating some or even most of it back to the new developer(s) depending on what they do.

[jspenguin2017]

@dragonwolf83

Thank you for your great insights. I honestly did not think it would be this complex. I thought a quick announcement would be enough since that is what I used to do to announce changes.

I already asked [1] the new developer(s) to join the discussion and to introduce themselves, but I am not sure what their calendars look like.

[1] https://github.com/NanoAdblocker/NanoCore/issues/362#issuecomment-706738266

[sohsatoh]

As a developer who makes some paid software, it's understandable to sell what you can get for a profit when you can get a profit.

However, the concerns for us users are as follows

1. The buyer is not famous (it's suspicious that we cannot get much information when you research them.)
2. Their intention to purchase Nano Adblocker (it is not generating any profit at the moment)
3. The software can be used to read and "steal" data

As for 3, it's a critical issue. Something similar has happened in the past.

[gorhill]

Since this fact is quickly buried as the conversation goes on, I will reiterate that after you leave out @jspenguin2017's development efforts, the bulk of what they will be monetizing is thousands of hours of works invested by volunteers over many years who are not a party to all this: uBO, uAssets (add to this all Crowdin contributors).