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Cleaning Up Firefox


V.T. Eric Layton

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V.T. Eric Layton

Well, I'm a bit overdue on this...

 

I have had a habit from way back in the old daze of Mozilla of wiping/reinstalling my profile directories for Firefox, Sea Monkey, Thunderbird, etc. I don't need to do Sea Monkey these days because I hardly ever use it, so its profile is still pretty clean. Thunderbird was changed a few years back and its profile doesn't get as cluttered as it used to, so I don't have to clean that one either. However, my FF still gets pretty stuffed and often corrupted.

 

I've been having javascript issues with FF lately, so yesterday I figured it was about time to clean house. I removed the current profile directory from the .mozilla directory and then restarted FF. It creates a new directory this way. I copied over my logins data and permissions.sqlite (protected cookies/sites). Then I signed onto FF Sync and all the rest (preferences, bookmarks, etc.) was sync'd with my most recent cloud backup. The only thing I had to do manually was set up a few interface customizations (toolbars, icons, and such).

 

All went well. Sadly, it did not resolve any of the javascript issues that I'm experiencing on a couple sites here and there. My guess is the old version of this browser (45.9.0 ESR) is the cause of that, actually. If I ever get off my lazy arse and upgrade to Slack 14.2, I'll have a newer version of FF to work with. Meh... one of these days. ;)

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securitybreach

Yeah, those issues do not exist in the current build of Firefox. I use it daily on multiple machines without any issues.

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Anybody running into the Mozilla problem that all FF add-ons are now disabled because signatures cannot be verified? I did change my config setting to turn off the signature requirement--I want my NoScript--but my fear now is that I'll forget to change the setting back when the problem has been rectified by Mozilla!

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All my add-ons were disabled until I disallowed signatures. According to Mozilla, a lot of people are having this problem:

Late on Friday May 3rd, we became aware of an issue with Firefox that prevented existing and new add-ons from running or being installed. We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to people who use Firefox.
It doesn't affect ESR or FF for Android.

Zdnet:

An expired certificate on the Mozilla Add-ons infrastructure is disabling Firefox add-ons for millions of users, and is also preventing users from re-activating or (re-)installing extensions.
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I had 5 of my 7 addons disabled Friday night when the time on the computer hit midnight UTC time. (Windows 7)

 

I did something in Windows on Saturday, after reading a solution, to get them working again but it took an hour until some sort of fix was downloaded. Then only 4 of the 5 were moved to the correct section. I just fired up my netbook and the 1 was still in the unsupported section. While I was trying to figure out what to do, it moved back to where it should have been. I'm not sure why 1 took an extra day.

 

I'm not sure if I can do the same thing in android. AdBlockPlus has been deactivated and I started seeing ads where I never saw ads before.

 

If I find a solution for linux and android, I'll point you to it.

 

It doesn't affect ESR or FF for Android.
That isn't true. My Win 7 is running FF ESR v 60.6.1 and 5 addons were deactivated! Also on my android tablet, ABP is not working.

I'm not sure who posted that but for me, it is not true. I'm afraid to launch FF on my other two android devices because I'll be in the same boat as I am on the one tablet.

Edited by zlim
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securitybreach

Odd as I have yet to see it. What version of FF do you run? I am running 66.0.3 (64-bit) on my machines.

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I'm at 60.6.1esr 64-bit and I've applied all security updates SUSE offered. In spite of Mozilla saying this problem doesn't apply to esr, I was still affected as Liz was.

Edited by ebrke
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Looks like they've pushed updates for Windows, ESR and android. I don't know about linux.

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/05/04/update-regarding-add-ons-in-firefox/

A Firefox release has been pushed — version 66.0.4 on Desktop and Android, and version 60.6.2 for ESR. This release repairs the certificate chain to re-enable web extensions, themes, search engines, and language packs that had been disabled
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I'm no longer having issues after disabling signatures as I posted above. It always takes SUSE a few days to get updates out, so I'm using that method for now.

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I installed the newest ESR version on my two Windows computers. Now I'll do my husband's. (I never fired up FF on 3 computers after I read about the problem).

 

My android is at v 66.0.2 and so far, googleplay isn't offering me a FF update.

When I see it, I'll do the 3 android devices.

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V.T. Eric Layton

Only thing that worked for me was changing about:config xpinstall.signatures.required to false.

 

DO NOT. I REPEAT DO NOT DO THIS.

 

When you turn off sig verification in FF you are opening yourself up to a world of hurt. Scam sites and spam sites can install extensions and addons on your FF without any verification or certification. That's NOT a good thing. Again, do NOT modify the about:config to disable signature/cert checking in FF.

 

Just be patient. Mozilla is working on the fix for this.

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securitybreach

Only thing that worked for me was changing about:config xpinstall.signatures.required to false.

 

DO NOT. I REPEAT DO NOT DO THIS.

 

When you turn off sig verification in FF you are opening yourself up to a world of hurt. Scam sites and spam sites can install extensions and addons on your FF without any verification or certification. That's NOT a good thing. Again, do NOT modify the about:config to disable signature/cert checking in FF.

 

Just be patient. Mozilla is working on the fix for this.

 

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing earlier. And they have already fixed it.

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I figured I was no worse off than I had been before FF V57--and browsing without NoScript and AdBlock Plus was intolerable.

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