Firefox 66.0.4 is out, fixes disabled add-ons

This is the Mozilla release. It will take a bit for the Linux distros to get it packaged and into the repos. Even the Firefox install on my windows machine here doesn't see it as an automatic update yet.

V-22• 7 years ago

I'm still on 66.0.3 and the issue resolved itself, I believe, yesterday...

NullPrefix4• 7 years ago

Resolved as in you're opted in to studies?

V-22• 7 years ago

I never did opt in. SO if it's not the default setting, it must have been off.

INTPenis• 7 years ago

Same. I found some pretty good instructions[1] so all my plugins started working this morning, CET. And you can disable the studies when you're done.

1. https://forums.informaction.com/viewtopic.php?p=100053#p1000...

sciurus6• 7 years ago

Please don't lower the value of run_interval_seconds like suggested there. If many people do that it will cause those of us on the ops team for Firefox's backend services some headaches.

ufo3• 7 years ago

Mozilla pushed a hotfix yesterday but it only worked on certain builds of Firefox, and only for users which had the user studies setting activated. Today's update should be a more permanent fix.

Aardwolf2• 7 years ago

What about older versions? Does this mean that older versions of firefox can never be used with addons (even matching older versions) anymore?

testplzignore• 7 years ago

Good question. Looks like they do have a release for 60 (the current ESR):

https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/60.6.2esr/

foofoo55• 7 years ago

Just export the key from a current version and import it into the old version. Worked for me.

floatingatoll8• 7 years ago

Which older versions, specifically?

Aardwolf2• 7 years ago

I don't have any particular in mind, but also future versions when they are old: will every version of firefox have a certificate that expires at some point in it?

notatoad• 7 years ago

A fix for the ESR is coming, are there any other supported old versions of firefox out there?

If you're using an unsupported version, then it's probably safe to assume you won't get a fix.

ufo3• 7 years ago

Link where the release notes will be posted:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/66.0.4/releasenotes/

sciurus6• 7 years ago

They're published now.

yabatopia2• 7 years ago

Right now, the Firefox for Android version is still not available in the Google Play Store.

tux1968• 7 years ago

Probably less important given the type (and number) of users who are on Firefox Nightly, but it's still at "68.0a1 (2019-05-03)" without an update available yet.

sciurus6• 7 years ago

Nightly updates are currently frozen until we have a fix for https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/1549075

https://t.co/etOWyG4aqh

est31• 7 years ago

No release for android yet, at least not on [1], where I am getting the apk files from. As of now, latest release uploaded there is 66.0.2 from March.

[1] https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/mobile/releases/

EDIT it's up: https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/mobile/releases/66.0.4/

ccrush• 7 years ago

Well, at least you didn't get hit with 66.0.3.

unicornporn2• 7 years ago

My addons were disabled on 66.0.2.

inferiorhuman• 7 years ago

What did 66.0.3 break?

unicornporn2• 7 years ago

Have been polling https://download.mozilla.org/?product=fennec-latest&os=andro...

Still getting 66.0.2... :-/ And yes, my addons were disabled on 66.0.2.

NullPrefix4• 7 years ago

Gives 66.0.4 now

jackewiehose2• 7 years ago

xpinstall.signatures.required = false worked for me on android

wvenable2• 7 years ago

Yeah, this also worked for me on Android. Not sure why the downvotes.

eps• 7 years ago

This did NOT work for me with the Windows version.

Had to install that .xpi from the previous HN thread on the subject.

vfclists• 7 years ago

When will it appear in the Play store?

bmay• 7 years ago

installing and running this version did not resolve the issue for me

is there something else I need to do?

johnchristopher2• 7 years ago

I don't understand why renewing the certificate wouldn't fix the issue ?

How does the 66.0.4 fix the problem exactly ?

kam• 7 years ago

It's a signing certificate that is built into the browser to verify add-ons, not a normal TLS certificate that they can just update on a web server.

The change basically just imports the new certificate into the database: https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-release/rev/848b1502...

floatingatoll8• 7 years ago

That is not a complete statement of the changes shown. In addition to the unexpired certificate, it takes step to reenable any addons that were disabled by the expiration of the prior certificate.

johnchristopher2• 7 years ago

It's a signing certificate that is built into the browser to verify add-ons, not a normal TLS certificate that they can just update on a web server.

Ah, so that's why. Thanks.

What was the signing certificate validity period ?

raverbashing• 7 years ago

So are the extensions checked at startup time for disk integrity issues?

My extensions on FF have not stopped working but I hadn't restarted the browser in that interim

fock• 7 years ago

I have to say I was very pleased that the Debian-ESR package a) disables telemetry in the build and b) ESR still allows you to override the extension signing for now...

whoopdedo• 7 years ago

What about ESR?

LinuxBender• 7 years ago

ESR has been updated to fix this [1]

[1] https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/60.6.2esr/

tmaly• 7 years ago

Is there a little more background to what is happening here? The link is to an ftp, so I have no idea what is broken, fixed or why it matters.

floatingatoll8• 7 years ago

If your addons are broken, it will fix them. If you don’t use addons or they’re working fine, you can let autoupdate pick it up.

The release notes will be published at this URL:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/66.0.4/releasenotes/

sciurus6• 7 years ago

See https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/05/04/update-regarding-...

baalimago• 7 years ago

About time. Embarrassing bug. The only reason i didn't permanently swap browser is because of the lack of alternatives since none has the functionality I apply through the addons.

rnd02• 7 years ago

Personally, I've switched to waterfox -which is a fork of an older firefox branch, and it supports addons (at least the ones I use).

I'm pretty happy with it, and I'm strongly considering staying with it even after firefox is fixed.

zapzupnz4• 7 years ago

You'll be several revisions' worth of security patches behind. For an application that is usually one's main means of accessing the rest of the internet, that would be a deal-breaker for me.

guessbest• 7 years ago

I've been using Waterfox on Windows for awhile along with the new Firefox, but now I am going to replace the Firefox install with Brave. Best of both worlds.

autotune• 7 years ago

I switched to Chrome before this after Firefox started randomly requiring me to close it out and re-open when switching wifi hotspots too often, and connecting/disconnecting from VPN too often and this was on multiple laptops and fairly recently.

batiudrami• 7 years ago

I haven't Switched yet but I fired up my Vivaldi install and have been impressed. A lot of little annoyances that I got used to with the new extension restrictions aren't there because the functionality is built in (like mouse gestures and tabs on left).

I first started using Firefox as my default when I unzipped a version of Phoenix off a CD which came with a computer magazine.

sam_goody2• 7 years ago

I installed Vivaldi, and moved shortly back to Firefox. The two things that did it:

1. I accidentally saved the wrong password to a site. When I went to fix it, it said I needed to login to my Google account to change my stored password.

Wait, wat?! You are sending my passwords to Google, unencrypted, without telling me?! Thai is not acceptable, aside from - What else are you sending?

1b. I see that it saves non password fields without my asking me to save them, and sending that to Google as well. Hmmmmm.

2. It has twice crashed and lost all my open tabs (yes, I have a tendency to keep many open tabs).

Also, for all I know, they are selling my bank account login. Research into the history of Vivaldi (semi fork of Opera) and its dev team left me unsatisfied who they are and that I can trust them.

It probably sends less data to Google than Chrome (which gets every single page, its contents, how long it was open, etc. but is hardly a contender if you want a browser and not just spyware.

nitemice2• 7 years ago

I switched to the Dev build[1] with 'xpinstall.signatures.required = false', and now that it's fixed I don't know if I'll go back. There seems to be a bunch of new features in Dev that I assume will arrive in Firefox eventually, but everything else being equal, I think I'll stick with it.

I'll probably turn 'xpinstall.signatures.required' back to true though.

[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/

tsjq2• 7 years ago

Mine says Developer edition beta 16 Version 67.0b16 (64-bit) Last updated = 03May2019.

do I need to make this change? is it in the about:config ? 'xpinstall.signatures.required = false

omeid22• 7 years ago

It is actually much much faster than Firefox "standard". Might stick with it too!

mnm1• 7 years ago

This is what I run and that fix worked. Are they planning on patching the dev build anytime soon? Doesn't look like there is an update for it. At least one can turn that stupid feature off until there is.

SamWhited5• 7 years ago

I was already a bit mad at them for removing RSS support and claiming their proprietary service that's built in is an alternative, now their proprietary service keeps working (presumably, I didn't use it but it's not an addon so I doubt it's signed the same way) and I can't use the RSS addon.

I know this was a mistake, but I can't help but be mad that their proprietary built in stuff effectively gets a free pass and special treatment and meanwhile I can't use RSS and all my containers were deleted (those didn't come back after the study was pushed either).

luke-stanley• 7 years ago

I use containers too. I didn't loose any data after I enabled dev mode and added the extension back. Perhaps you removed the existing extension first and lost data that way?

neogodless2• 7 years ago

It's odd - on my laptops, my multi-container settings were preserved, but I opened firefox on my desktop last night and they had vanished. I did not remove any add-ons myself.

SamWhited5• 7 years ago

I did not disable or remove the extension, my containers were just all gone after the study was pushed and extensions came back.

neogodless2• 7 years ago

To the best of my understanding, here's what happens.

* containers.json is reset to default

* if you have any non-default containers, they are lost

* the underlying data is still in IndexDB (??) but isn't connected to the custom containers that were wiped out

* if you're clever and can read the IndexDB (or wherever the data is, it's moved a few times) then you could probably rebuild your containers.json file

Yoric2• 7 years ago

Never hear Mozilla claiming anything about a prioprietary service being an alternative to add-ons. The reason for which built-in RSS support was removed is that it was much crappier than the add-ons available.

Doesn't solve your problems, though :/

throwaway20482• 7 years ago

Pocket was promoted as the replacement for RSS. Pocket is a closed source SaaS product, despite the fact Mozilla now owns it.

SamWhited5• 7 years ago

I can't find the link right now (I could swear I commented on the article here, but maybe I'm grepping for the wrong things in my comments), but in one of the blog posts where they announced removing RSS they advertised Pocket as the alternative that was still built in. Their RSS support was pretty terrible, but even so this sort of attitude was infuriating already, and now to see it have a leg up because they get to own the platform and the app just puts me over the edge. Not to mention that I have to dig through like three levels of settings to disable the damn thing and remove it from their stupid cluttered home screen every time something happens to my settings in the mobile version (which is alarmingly often).

I like Mozilla as a company, but I desperately wish there was an alternative sometimes. Anyways, sorry for the rant, I'm done (for now).

BuckRogers2• 7 years ago

LiveMarks really is a fantastic addon to bring back Live Bookmarks functionality. That said, I've always been a fan of native browsers for their inherent advantages. Never felt the desire to use anything else, unless it has significant usability improvements. Phoenix/Firefox was always that browser for me. I usually suggest people use their native browser (Edge/Safari), and if they want an upgrade, to go to Firefox. With all of these recent debacles, it would be hard for me to not suggest the new Chromium-based Edge to Windows users and crossplatform.

wdr1• 7 years ago

This is pretty bad for Firefox. I wonder how much people straight up & left for Chrome as a result of it.

user178432• 7 years ago

It will be possible to roughly deduct this from the following statistics during the next days/weeks:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/...

https://data.firefox.com

floatingatoll8• 7 years ago

Note that these statistics would, presumably, exclude all users who disable telemetry in Firefox. Since many of those outraged at the interruption to addons seem to overlap frequently with those who object to and disable telemetry and studies on principle, their departure over this incident could well have no impact whatsoever on the metrics you linked above.

It must be a nightmare for the Firefox team to have a minority group of quick-to-anger users that refuse to allow themselves to be taken into account by usage metrics, refuse to allow their browser to participate in studies, and then object loudly when decisions are made that discount them.

ne0sapi3n• 7 years ago

I left for Chrome in a way via Brave. Brave is based on Chrome minus being owned by the All-Seeing-Eye Company in Mountainview.

AtHeartEngineer• 7 years ago

I really like brave, but right now FF is still my main. Brave is still needs some features. The whole syncing bookmarks and wallets thing is really annoying. I'm glad the way they devised is secure, and privacy sensitive, but it's still a pain in the ass.

bscphil• 7 years ago

Doesn't using Chromium solve the same issue, as long as you're not signed in to Google?

onli• 7 years ago

Probably many, but don't forget that there are many firefox users that never install a single addon.

contravariant• 7 years ago

Which ironically means that the people most affected by this debacle have the most to lose by switching.

Although that also means that firefox managed to piss off it's most loyal group of users. Again.

bluedino• 7 years ago

Or they just lived with it for a few days. They were probably using FF because the addon doesn’t exist for chrome in the first olace

lugg8• 7 years ago

It was also over the weekend.

All it did was cement how much I despise Chrome's inability to sandbox it's network config.

Yay gotta close down all chrome instances to turn a proxy on and off.

lugg8• 7 years ago

Probably fuck all because chrome still has no add-ons on mobile.

People will bitch for a few days then they'll get over it.

This is a shitty screwup but I'm not about to jump ship over it.

jazoom• 7 years ago

I took the opportunity to check out Vivaldi again. Wow. It's so polished compared to Firefox. The downside is I'm now supporting the Chromium monoculture.

burtonator• 7 years ago

It's about 10-15% on my app but Firefox users are generally super smart so they provide great feedback.

One thing Firefox ROCKS at is that they support extensions/addons on mobile!

Chrome won't add them on mobile because they don't want adblock there.

fraudsyndrome• 7 years ago

I was on the reddit thread when it happened - was super confused as I just updated my firefox and it happened at a very similar time frame so I assumed it was from the update

I personally found the issue trivial, my main addon is ublock origin. There was a workaround using about:debugging and installing UBO on there which worked so it's not like the fix was a long process.

Being committed to a single browser, if anyone was using firefox for as long as me, I can't fathom someone leaving their main browser over something like this. I haven't been using it for THAT long but what if Chrome did something like this too? Then they'd move to another browser that's not FF/Chrome?

Santosh832• 7 years ago

I too use only two extensions, uBlock Origin and HTTPS Everywhere and the hotfix pushed by Mozilla re-enabled them within half an hour of disabling. I do sympathise with those who apparently lost the settings of certain addons, notably Container based ones. Fortunately I always found the UX of Containers so clunky that I never bothered.

Sticking with Firefox as an open competition to the browser monopoly is critical now more than ever before.

_Donny• 7 years ago

I have been on the tipping edge of switching from FF to another browser for a long time now.

Short-lived bugs such as this one do not annoy me as much as the terrible performance of FF. It is not rare that FF uses 2 cores at full utilization all the time.

I always end up installing a new browser out of anger, but I _always_ come back to FF for its great features that I have become addicted to.

yabatopia2• 7 years ago

I've switched to Vivaldi on my desktop and Brave on my smartphone. For now. It's been three days and I'm still waiting for an official release with the add-on fix, can't wait forever.

ChrisSD• 7 years ago

Is the TOR browser update out soon?

karavelov• 7 years ago

What about updating also the beta channel, I am using 67.0b16 and I still think I am affected because, not updates since and all the addons are shown as "ALLOWED IN PRIVATE WINDOWS"

whatamidoingyo2• 7 years ago

I've been waiting to see this. Just updated from 65.0 to 66.0.3. My addons are still disabled. Tried to install ublock origin, and it's not letting me. I'm getting a "Download failed. Please check your connection."

This is crazy, and I'm really disappointed with Mozilla. I'd leave firefox right now, but I don't want to contribute to the destruction of one of the last good pieces of software not owned by Google.

gorhill• 7 years ago

Just updated from 65.0 to 66.0.3

The fix is in 66.0.4.

whatamidoingyo2• 7 years ago

I noticed that after posting. :o EDIT: "gorhill"... I was seriously just on your GitHub account, like 15 minutes ago. I knew I've seen that username before. Thanks for making uBlock Origin!

bo1024• 7 years ago

I installed Opera yesterday. So far so good. Hope others will chime in with more alternatives

chii• 7 years ago

opera is now just the chrome engine. I don't think there's any alternative to chrome but firefox now-a-days, as even microsoft gave in and started using chrome's blink engine.

codedokode4• 7 years ago

Opera is proprietary and it is unclear what kind of telemetry it has.

fourier_mode• 7 years ago

New version doesn't show up while following the instructions on: <https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/update-firefox-latest-r...

metaprotocol• 7 years ago

Switched to Chrome and Brave.

OrgNet• 7 years ago

I wish I could switch to something else, but I still trust Mozilla the most.

Perceptes• 7 years ago

Did this issue cause all add-on data to be wiped? After updating to 66.0.4, all of the containers I'd created with the multi-account containers add-on were gone and replaced with what appeared to be a default set of containers. I spent a lot of time setting that up—is there no way to get it all back if I don't have some sort of manual backup? And if not, what files do I need to manually back up to make sure I don't lose my data next time?

Edit: To be clear, at no point did I delete the add-ons I had installed.

detaro4• 7 years ago

My Add-ons kept their settings as far as I can tell, but maybe there's something special about the container logic...

rullgrus• 7 years ago

Yes, the "Firefox Multi-Account Containers" was unfortunately reset for me too.

fooqux• 7 years ago

Mine seems fine. My currently open tabs are still in their containers, and when I open a new tab, my list of choices is still intact.

lugg8• 7 years ago

Containers are notoriously finicky datawise.

I generally keep good backups of the non standard ~/.mozilla folder to compensate.

I think it was issue 339 on GitHub. They basically explain they won't add it to sync data because there is no containers on mobile.

https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/3...

steve192• 7 years ago

I could never understand why they were not synced. Its so incredibly frustrating, and the official reason does not help.

I simply don't understand Mozilla anymore. The power users are also the unpaid evangelists/marketers. They seem determined to alienate this demographic while iOS'ifying Firefox for a general audience. Which is great and all until they realize they don't have a marketing budget to complete with Google and MSFT.

Twirrim2• 7 years ago

I think it was issue 339 on GitHub. They basically explain they won't add it to sync data because there is no containers on mobile.

Makes you wonder how on earth their data sync is working with regards to mobile. Surely if it doesn't have the components to leverage the data it just wouldn't read it..?

8bitsrule• 7 years ago

I too lost my multi-containers and assignments. I was just reading this (2017) discussion: https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/3... and noticed mention of file 'containers.json', which I found in my current Firefox profile. It contains the descriptions of the containers I created since yesterday (for the 3rd time).

So it looks as though a manual backup of that (or the whole profile, knowing its in there) at least will end that chore.

But you still lose the Container -> websites associations. The same page recommends: "An effective way of exporting and importing containers safely is using ffcontainers."

The page for that syncer is here: https://github.com/pierlauro/ffcontainers ... but it's on hiatus at this moment.

ufo3• 7 years ago

From the release notes (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/66.0.4/releasenotes/) :

If add-ons that use Containers functionality (such as Multi-Account Containers and Facebook Container) were disabled as part of this problem, any lost site data or custom configurations for those add-ons will not be recovered by this release. Users may need to set them up and login again in about:addons (Bug 1549204).
Themes may not be re-enabled. Users may need to re-enable them in about:addons (Bug 1549022).
Home page or search settings customized by an add-on may be reset to defaults. Users may need to customize them again in about:preferences or about:addons

I don't know if there is a way to manually recover the settings you lost. It might be a good idea to check the related links in the release notes for more info.

ilikepi• 7 years ago

I found that the changes I made to container names and colors were reset, but my hostname assignments remained. I guess those were two different datasets and only one was reset.

Mandatum• 7 years ago

This is the biggest reason I'm still using Firefox. Containers have totally changed my workflow, much preferred over Chrome profiles.

I wish they added more colour and icon support, there's open cases for it but they're not prioritised. If only I was a good enough developer..

mrmondo2• 7 years ago

The fix doesn't seem to work if you've been using Firefox Beta (67.0b16), or if you then install Stable (66.0.4) and sign in to sync - all addons are still marked as "legacy" and not enabled.

However, if you find each one in the store and (re-)install them - they work again and their data is back intact as expected.

jaipilot747• 7 years ago

Just in case someone misread this like I did, you need to reinstall each add-on. Not FF Beta itself.

mrmondo2• 7 years ago

Indeed, I meant re-install the addons.

beezle2• 7 years ago

So nothing for those of us still running 56 beause Quantum trashed our extensions (and there are still not equivalent availale)?

roblabla2• 7 years ago

Why on earth are you running such a massively outdated browser? You should at least switch to pale moon, basilisk, or another maintained browser. God knows how many vulnerabilities in the wild there are in 56.

beezle2• 7 years ago

I don't think I or anyone else need to justify why they still use the 56 ESR instead of pale moon nor does that have anything to do with the question of whether there will be a fix for this version from Mozilla.

Clearly a few feathers have been ruffled by even broaching the fact that many people still use the 56 version because crtical extensions still have no equivalent under quantum. Snark is not allowed even when asking a relevant question of whether there will be an update. Sad.

codedokode4• 7 years ago

Web devs might want to use older versions to test their site in them.

millstone• 7 years ago

Is security the new motor powering the upgrade treadmill?

God knows how many vulnerabilities there are in the massively outdated Windows 7, why don't you upgrade to Windows 10...

svnpenn• 7 years ago

https://reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/bkspmk/addons_fix_for_...

a_imho• 7 years ago

Why is it so hard for moz://a to provide something similar as an official workaround? Here is the cert, import it and you are good to go. Instead we have the opt-in to studies and update your browser nonsense and no fix for days.

alskdj21• 7 years ago

I'm really worried about the average users not knowing what happened here. At least an email should be sent informing about the issue. But I guess many of those average users don't have a single extension installed, no problems for them.

baroffoos• 7 years ago

The average user doesn't really need to know. The problem was fixed, there is no action on their part needed and there is no future risk like a data leak.

bald42• 7 years ago

Why would Mozilla have my/average users email-address?

genghizkhan• 7 years ago

Firefox Sync?

omeid22• 7 years ago

Lost my containers yet again, I am now on the last straws with Firefox, this whole Normandy thing is not helping the case. Firefox never asked me to opt in!

terrycody• 7 years ago

thanks for the heads up, now alive!

joe443• 7 years ago

how about windows xp. still don't work. you going fix it for us please?

joe443• 7 years ago

windows xp won't let me add new add on to.

slig4• 7 years ago

I'm very curious - why are you still on XP?

joe443• 7 years ago

because it easy to use.

codedokode4• 7 years ago

Why would anyone want to upgrade from XP? New versions of Windows have no improvements (the only improvement is search in Start Menu), but they cost money, they work slower and require new expensive hardware. They have spyware and updates that cannot be disabled. You pay for the product and then you are used as a free tester of new versions of Windows. Microsoft wants everyone to upgrade to earn more money and to upsell to users new "cloud" features they don't really need. But for me it would be better if MS would drop newer Windows versions and returned to improving XP without increasing resources comsumption, without HTML apps, telemetry and "cloud" features.

This is an example when the interests of users and the manufacturer are opposite. If the user uses an OS for many years and everything works, why upgrade? Looks like a waste of time and money.

Imagine if you bought a car and several years later you are told that you need to upgrade it, because, you know, car factory workers need higher salaries and if you don't buy the new one, then there is no way to pay them.

This explains why MS and independent developers (that drop XP support to help MS) forces users to upgrade. Because it is MS who wants an upgrade, not the user.

Twirrim2• 7 years ago

XP doesn't have any official support from Microsoft, and you'll find most vendors are reaching as stage of deprecating XP support. The OS itself is 5 years out of extended support from Microsoft, and it makes up barely 1% of the market place. You'll be hard pressed to get anyone to care if they've broken their software on it.

jags-v• 7 years ago

Mine says : Firefox Developer Edition 67.0b16 (64-bit). No fix yet there...

Elect2• 7 years ago

Why I still can not install addons after upgrading? On the addon page it shows "only with firefox - get firefox now".

f4stjack3• 7 years ago

Good move, congrats on surviving the second armag-add-on finally BUT I won't be moving from chromium until Firefox (or Mozilla) explains:

- why am I opted-in to a Studies program in Firefox's default state? (With no explicit information about what it is)

- what does app.normandy.enabled switch do and why is its default value is True and doesn't change to false when I explicitly state I don't want to be in the Studies program?

- why can't we see any xpi's installed by studies program unless we explicitly go to about:studies?

I don't say chromium is better, but I think we deserve an explanation regarding these points.

ntp853• 7 years ago

This might be a stupid question, but have you asked them through their support or social media channels yet?

f4stjack3• 7 years ago

I did from twitter, no answer yet. And I think this is an answer owed to all of the users - not just me.

napsterbr3• 7 years ago

why am I opted-in to a Studies program in Firefox's default state? (With no explicit information about what it is)

I came here to mention exactly this. I don't mind the certificate issue (as long as there is a post mortem and they learn something from it).

I was wondering how my addons came back automatically (without me having to upgrade to 66.0.4) and I found out about this studies thing, which I never consented to. I feel violated. And the problem is, what browser am I supposed to use from now on? Lynx? Sigh

ETA: I am (was) a proud Firefox user since it was called Firebird, and changing browsers never crossed my mind before (even if Chrome felt faster some times). At this exact moment, I have zero trust on Mozilla, just like I have zero trust on Google (Chrome). Extremely frustrated and disappointed.

sequence7• 7 years ago

You could just turn off all studies in Firefox. It's a simple option:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield#w_to-opt-out-of-...

dmos62• 7 years ago

what browser am I supposed to use from now on?

There's actually quite a few. This Wikipedia list [0] might not be the best curation, but it carries my point, somewhat. For example, I've really enjoyed the power-user browsers, like surf, luakit or uzbl.

I know you were expressing the fact that we're stuck between Firefox and Chromium, because they're the only browsers able to keep up with the rapidly moving web stack and provide a fluid user experience at the same time. My point is if you're willing to compromise on that, you actually have other choices.

Oh I do hope to see the day when there's a variety of browsers, all equally compatible with the day's web. Doesn't seem like we're moving in that direction though.

Personally, I tolerate Firefox, because I want some of the extensions, namely Dark Reader and ublock. Dark Reader doesn't really have alternatives, as far as I know, and I find that network level blocking isn't effective or ergonomic enough to replace something like ublock origin. If I solved these two problems, I'd jump ship to surf immediately.

Just to finish my rant; the other day I was experimenting with text browsers for rendering simple sites like thefreedictionary or HN. Their ability to do that is quite abysmal. I think that says a bit about the state of web's accessibility.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers

d1v3r• 7 years ago

I don't mind the certificate issue

For me, it's the other way around.

They should have forseen the certificate issues and never implemented the system as it is, i.e. disabling addons that have been installed with a valid cert. At most there should be a warning. Addons are losing their configuration because of this and we have yet to see how they fix old FF versions. All of this indicates a total lack of foresight.

However, I see the value in having studies enabled and being able to test features and fixes with certain hardware configurations. Almost every software does it, because it's very useful. Maybe Mozilla, being an advocate for privacy, should be more transparent about it though.

Kaiyou• 7 years ago

I've switchted to qutebrowser, but not sure if it will fit your needs.

progval• 7 years ago

And the problem is, what browser am I supposed to use from now on? Lynx? Sigh

You can try Firefox from your distribution's repositories. eg. Debian disables this sort of things.

officeplant• 7 years ago

what browser am I supposed to use from now on? Lynx?

w3m is a pretty fun terminal based browser with modern enhancements

scoutt• 7 years ago

It is interesting the quantity of studies they push to their opted-in normandy students.

Take a look at https://normandy.cdn.mozilla.net/api/v1/recipe/

Looking Glass is a collaboration between Mozilla and the makers of Mr. Robot to provide a shared world experience

Mozilla wants to know more about knowledge and opinions of news on the Web.

Etc.

There are also links to what seems to be internal documentation.

It shocked me the interest and the infrastructure they have just for collecting information. This is not just a couple of developers trying to figure out what feature is used and/or studying bugs.

sam_goody2• 7 years ago

Chromium is definitely worse.

While these deserve an explanation, you should not wait to move.

Chrome is spyware that does web browsing. It's parent company also shows ads, all the time.

Chrome's auto update not only allows them to silently update or change your browser, it allows them to silently install other software on your computer.

Firefox is a browser. It can auto-update in a way that may be questionable, but it also has a lot of cranky devs looking over their shoulder to call them out years later because Mr. Robot may have been able to show them an ad. FF deserves to be called out on their mistakes, and need offer an explanation. But perspective!

Why would you not move now?

diegoperini• 7 years ago

I've been reading lot of comments like the parent lately. Thanks for voicing my thoughts.

andai• 7 years ago

I want the ethics of Firefox and the speed / user experience (eg. select & move multiple tabs) of Chrome, so I moved to Brave. It's a Chromium fork that's a bit more Firefoxy -- made by Brendan Eich, former Mozilla CEO and inventor of JS, (eg has the "Switch to Open Tab" feature I love from FF), although there's some cryptocurrency stuff thrown in that I'm not a fan of, but so far it feels like a net positive over both FF and Chrome.

It's very privacy oriented, to such a degree that it actually breaks a lot of websites (but you can disable the shields easy).

tinus_hn2• 7 years ago

Chromium is not Chrome. It does not have auto-update. Surprisingly this gives more control by default than with Firefox.

pbhjpbhj10• 7 years ago

Google still pay for Firefox; about $2 per user. So, Chrome and Firefox are funded by the same people. In fact Google upped the money they're paying despite FF's falling users share, what are they getting for their money - I doubt they're giving it out of charity.

It's like price differentiation, I feel. FF is for people who want to avoid Google, but Google are paying to get privacy-infringement lite. Who knows what else besides being default search provider, and getting every search you type in through search suggestions, they're getting for their money?

cranky devs looking over their shoulder to call them out years later because Mr. Robot may have been able to show them an ad //

Way to underplay things. Do Chrome change their UI (ie chrome) to ad advertising? Do they force add-ons on people that are unremovable in order to advertise a product? And then update, re-placing the advert into users chrome who've removed it? Do they blank out users home-screen settings in order to add advertising? (I think they did do that one?)

Chrome may be spyware, but default so is FF. And Mozilla have shown they're more than happy to mess around with their users browsers for advertising/promotions.

Aside: how is Chromium worse? Waterfox is looking like a good option.

krageon3• 7 years ago

Chromium has a working exploit (AFAIK it still is not patched) that allows third-party code to masquerade as first-party code. Unless you run a special addon[1], you are vulnerable to this.

The fact that I still can't find that it's patched now tells me nothing good about the health of the ecosystem and who it is meant to serve. That should be all the reason you need to switch to Firefox, which admittedly also has huge warts but to my mind ones that aren't quite so egregious.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin-extr...

f4stjack3• 7 years ago

Wow this is... scary and you say it is still not patched? Thank you.

pbhjpbhj10• 7 years ago

You make it sound like it's a third-party RCE; but it's a cookie bypass, so it's tracking -- that's serious still [and the implementation sounds illegal to me].

The companies Instart Manager (used by cnet, tomshardware, etc., see link) and Upmanager that are doing this workaround of ublock -- are they not able to attack other browsers, only Chromium? I guess one benefit of being the biggest advertising company is that people don't want to mess with Google's stuff in case they suffer financial repercussions.

https://github.com/gorhill/uBO-Extra/wiki/Sites-on-which-uBO...

mstg• 7 years ago

I switched to FF a couple of months ago, and was not opted in to Studies automatically. I'm based in Norway though so maybe GDPR had something to say. I had to opt-in to Studies to fix the certificate issue.

vansteen• 7 years ago

"To provide this fix on short notice, we are using the Studies system. This system is enabled by default, and no action is needed unless Studies have been disabled. [..] It may take up to six hours for the Study to be applied to Firefox. To check if the fix has been applied, you can enter “about:studies” in the location bar... "

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/05/04/update-regarding-...

brendyn• 7 years ago

Consider running Icecat. It's most convenient to use it by installing a fully libre distribution such as Parabola or Guix System. Distributions which respect the FSDG don't just exclude proprietary software, but actually take software like Firefox which is 99% libre, and chucks out the last 1% of junk, improving many defaults. You're unlikely to have ethical qualms with such an Icecat.

https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ You can see how it's made here: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnuzilla.git/tree/makeicec...

Note that it looks like it disables sync, but that should still work, and you can add whatever addons you like.

shthed• 7 years ago

Chrome has studies too, called field trials. https://blog.chromium.org/2012/05/changes-to-field-trials-in...

GordonS• 7 years ago

Is a more robust way around this to use a trusted timestamping service?

This is the way code-signing on Windows works, and allows you to prove that code was signed by a valid certificate while it was in its validity date - so even once the certificate expires, the code will still run as long as the cryptographic timestamping signature is valid.

BuckRogers2• 7 years ago

I've always been a fan of native browsers, and have been using Chromium-based Edge[0] as my daily driver at work. While I wasn't one who was impacted by the extensions change, The removal of Live Bookmarks really stung for me, as I've used that feature since 2002.

Container support (with Containerise), a dedicated search bar to use with DDG bangs, and easy 'send tab to device' is what has me holding on today.

But I have to admit that Microsoft's eventual offering is pretty appealing, a Chromium-based browser with the advantages of Chrome's compatibility and Edge's conservative battery sipping. I'm one who has always liked and even preferred Microsoft's products and their integration on as objective of a basis as a human can muster. Even if it's in different aspects, I think they're going to probably have Edge become a package equally appealing to the things I love about Firefox. Edge/Safari are definitely where I'll go if Firefox really starts circling the drain, but having been on FF since it was Phoenix, it'll take more than this debacle.

[0]https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/download/

rasmussondk• 7 years ago

Our extension sets https://www.givero.com as the default search engine. After the extension got disabled and re-enabled, searches now default to Google.

So this fix is not complete.

Our efforts in getting Firefox users to install our extension has been in vain. "Luckily" we didn't have many users yet but imagine the amount of money this will cost bigger search engines like DDG, Qwant, etc.

hvis• 7 years ago

Can't you do the switch on the next extension update, for instance?

TeMPOraL• 7 years ago

but imagine the amount of money this will cost bigger search engines like DDG, Qwant, etc.

People use extensions to change the default search engine in their browsers? I honestly thought only malware does that; regular people use the Settings menu.

raxxorrax• 7 years ago

studies, normandy, looking glass, forced signing of addons... Mozilla is giving away a lot of good-will lately. Still my favorite browser, but I don't like the general direction. Privacy should always default to true.

I hope for Mozilla to find a source of income that isn't Google, because they did a lot for the web. Let us just hope they don't need to make too many compromises.

pbhjpbhj10• 7 years ago

We need a new Phoenix, I feel.

From Wikipedia:

They [the original Phoenix devs] believed the commercial requirements of Netscape's sponsorship and developer-driven feature creep compromised the utility of the Mozilla browser.

silversconfused2• 7 years ago

GNU icecat is a very nicely modified firefox that respects the users. I highly suggest giving it a try if firefox has been bothering you lately.

Firefox 66.0.4 is out, fixes disabled add-ons

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