Firefox-esr not deleting cookies

heathcliff36 · 01-13-2021, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shruggy

Have you set Enhanced Tracking Protection to Strict? This may affect your ability to control cookies.

OTOH, I also have Firefox 78.6.1esr with ETP set to Strict, and the "Delete cookies when closed" checkbox is not grayed out.

I vary the 'Enhanced Tracking Protection' between Standard and Custom.
But either way the cookies will always reappear when Firefox is re-opened.

The option 'Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed' has always been faded out.

Quote:

Anyway, going to about:config and searching for privacy there should show in bold all privacy settings that are changed from their defaults.

I haven't made any changes to the 'privacy' section on about:config.
Not sure which preferences to change.

There are 3 preferences in bold though:

Code:

pref.privacy.disable_button.cookie_exceptions - false
privacy.purge_trackers.date_in_cookie_database - 0
privacy.sanitize.pending - [{"id":"newtab-container","itemsToClear":[],"options":{}}]

What are the coomands to uninstall Firefox all its dependencies and the personal profile directory in /home?
I think I should remove hidden files too.

After that I can re-install and see if the problem goes away.

shruggy · 01-13-2021, 10:42 AM

I have the same privacy settings in bold in about:config plus

Code:

privacy.trackingprotection.enabled true
privacy.trackingprotection.socialtracking.enabled true

But as said, I have ETP set to Strict.

As to

Quote:

Originally Posted by heathcliff36

What are the coomands to uninstall Firefox all its dependencies and the personal profile directory in /home?

Code:

sudo apt purge firefox

then remove the profile directory and cache by hand

Code:

rm -rf ~/.mozilla/firefox ~/.cache/mozilla/firefox

Or perhaps removing them will help even without reinstalling Firefox.

heathcliff36 · 01-13-2021, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shruggy

As to

Code:

sudo apt purge firefox

then remove the profile directory and cache by hand

Code:

rm -rf ~/.mozilla/firefox ~/.cache/mozilla/firefox

Or perhaps removing them will help even without reinstalling Firefox.

This is the error message I get:

Code:

# apt purge firefox
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package 'firefox' is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

I have previously attempted uninstalling firefox.
Somehow it didn't quite uninstall.

Later I did an 'apt upgrade' and installed new packages for firefox - the browser started working normally again.
Now the browser won't uninstall!

shruggy · 01-13-2021, 01:02 PM

Ah sorry, the package name is firefox-esr

Code:

apt purge firefox-esr

Have you tried to just remove the profile without purging Firefox?

heathcliff36 · 01-13-2021, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shruggy

Ah sorry, the package name is firefox-esr

Code:

apt purge firefox-esr

Have you tried to just remove the profile without purging Firefox?

Oh yes I should've noticed that.
It is indeed firefox-esr on debian.

Yes just removing the profile is probably the best method.
But I don't understand why my Firefox browser doesn't behave the same as others.
So I'm going to start afresh to hopefully find out what the problem is.

heathcliff36 · 01-13-2021, 02:15 PM

I have done the following commands:

Code:

# apt purge firefox-esr
# rm -rf ~/.mozilla/firefox ~/.cache/mozilla/firefox

Then I rebooted and did this:

Code:

apt install firefox-esr

When I opened the newly installed Firefox browser:
1. All my previous bookmarks are there.
2. The browser is configured exactly as before (font-size and add-ons)
3. The about:config settings are still the same.
4. The extra cookies do not go away in the 'Enhanced Tracking Protection' tab under 'Standard'.

I even did a cold boot and it is still the same.
Clearly my Firefox profiles directory in /home was never removed.

What is going on?

DownSouth · 01-14-2021, 01:58 AM

Maybe as suggested, remove the profile first - reboot, and see if there is any
improvement. If not, check if the profile is still present in /home. If it is, then move it to an external thumb drive and reboot again. How is it now?

If the profile directory has gone from /home, but Fox is still problematic run
the purge command again - reboot - and before doing another install try running autoremove to see if any leftovers are picked up (but check the list of what it wants to remove). Then reboot again and run the install command.

heathcliff36 · 01-14-2021, 09:00 AM

It turns out removing firefox is much more complicated than expected.

I tried removing firefox again after reading from this site: https://www.fosslinux.com/13881/how-...-in-ubuntu.htm
.

The commands used are as follows:

Code:

rm -rf ~/.mozilla/firefox ~/.cache/mozilla/firefox
rm -Rf /etc/firefox/
rm -Rf /usr/lib/firefox*

apt purge firefox-esr

I believed this removed firefox.
I rebooted and installed firefox-esr.
When I opened firefox - all my bookmarks and settings were still there and the cookies problem remains unchanged.

I don't want to reinstall the OS because this problem of firefox retaining coookies persists with another distro.

Does anyone know how to completely uninstall firefox or do I have some other problem with this debian distro/

ondoho · 01-15-2021, 12:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by heathcliff36

It turns out removing firefox is much more complicated than expected.

Don't generalise.
It is for you, because there's something wrong/non-standard on your system.

Quote:

Originally Posted by heathcliff36

I have done the following commands:

Code:

# apt purge firefox-esr
# rm -rf ~/.mozilla/firefox ~/.cache/mozilla/firefox

Then I rebooted and did this:

Code:

apt install firefox-esr

When I opened the newly installed Firefox browser:
1. All my previous bookmarks are there.
2. The browser is configured exactly as before (font-size and add-ons)
3. The about:config settings are still the same.
4. The extra cookies do not go away in the 'Enhanced Tracking Protection' tab under 'Standard'.

I even did a cold boot and it is still the same.
Clearly my Firefox profiles directory in /home was never removed.

What is going on?

This should have fixed things.
Question: how did you open the newly installed Firefox browser? By clicking on a menu icon? You need to find out which command that menu entry executes.
Maybe you have a secondary firefox installation somewhere?
In any case, purge firefox again, then do

Code:

find / -name '*firefox*' 2>/dev/null

(this will take a few minutes) and show us the result.

heathcliff36 · 01-15-2021, 05:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ondoho

Question: how did you open the newly installed Firefox browser? By clicking on a menu icon? You need to find out which command that menu entry executes.

Yes after firefox re-install it's icon appears on the desktop.

Quote:

Maybe you have a secondary firefox installation somewhere?
In any case, purge firefox again, then do

Code:

find / -name '*firefox*' 2>/dev/null

(this will take a few minutes) and show us the result.

The output is this:

Code:

root@debian10:~# find / -name '*firefox*' 2>/dev/null
/var/cache/apt/archives/firefox-esr_78.5.0esr-1~deb10u1_amd64.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/firefox-esr_78.4.1esr-1~deb10u1_amd64.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/firefox-esr_78.6.1esr-1~deb10u1_amd64.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/firefox-esr_78.6.0esr-1~deb10u1_amd64.deb
/usr/share/libreoffice/help/en-US/text/shared/optionen/persona_firefox.html
/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/22x22/apps/firefox.png
/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/24x24/apps/firefox.png
/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/scalable/apps-extra/firefox-icon.svg
/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/16x16/apps/firefox.png
/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/48x48/apps/firefox.png
/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/256x256/apps/firefox.png
/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/32x32/apps/firefox.png
/usr/share/icons/ContrastHigh/22x22/apps/firefox.png
/usr/share/icons/ContrastHigh/24x24/apps/firefox.png
/usr/share/icons/ContrastHigh/16x16/apps/firefox.png
/usr/share/icons/ContrastHigh/48x48/apps/firefox.png
/usr/share/icons/ContrastHigh/256x256/apps/firefox.png
/usr/share/icons/ContrastHigh/32x32/apps/firefox.png
/home/heathcliff/.mozilla/firefox
/home/heathcliff/.cache/mozilla/firefox

What surprises me is that .mozilla and .cache have not been removed.

boughtonp · 01-15-2021, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by heathcliff36

What surprises me is that .mozilla and .cache have not been removed.

I'm not surprised - you said you ran:

Code:

# apt purge firefox-esr
# rm -rf ~/.mozilla/firefox ~/.cache/mozilla/firefox

When you're acting as root user (as indicated by # instead of $), the "~" refers to root user's home directory.

Try running the rm as your user and/or being explicit with "/home/heathcliff" instead of "~" (as well as confirming successful removal immediately afterwards).

heathcliff36 · 01-15-2021, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boughtonp

I'm not surprised - you said you ran:

Code:

# apt purge firefox-esr
# rm -rf ~/.mozilla/firefox ~/.cache/mozilla/firefox

When you're acting as root user (as indicated by # instead of $), the "~" refers to root user's home directory.

Try running the rm as your user and/or being explicit with "/home/heathcliff" instead of "~" (as well as confirming successful removal immediately afterwards).

Thank you for pointing out that important detail.

I have finally been able to remove the firefox directories in /home:

Code:

# rm -rf /home/heathcliff/.mozilla/firefox
# rm -rf /home/heathcliff/.cache/firefox
# rm -rf /home/heathcliff/.cache/mozilla/

Before I re-install firefox to see if the problem of removing cookies is resolved, what about the following directories that still have files referring to firefox:

Code:

/var/cache/apt/archives/firefox-esr_78.5.0esr-1~deb10u1_amd64.deb
/usr/share/libreoffice/help/en-US/text/shared/optionen/persona_firefox.html
/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/22x22/apps/firefox.png

Is there a risk of 'evercookies' being present in them?
Can I simply remove them before re-installing FF?

shruggy · 01-15-2021, 11:20 AM

No, don't do this, they have nothing to do with cookies. While removing the deb from apt cache is harmless, the other two are not part of a Firefox installation at all, and may be needed by applications that installed them.

boughtonp · 01-15-2021, 12:32 PM

Short answer, nothing to worry about - more detailed answers below.

Quote:

/var/cache/apt/archives/firefox-esr_78.5.0esr-1~deb10u1_amd64.deb

This is basically the deb installation package that Apt has downloaded.

It should not contain any form of state relating to your installed Firefox

If you want to be paranoid, it is safe to remove - it (or a newer verion) will be redownloaded when you next ask Apt to install Firefox.

Quote:

/usr/share/libreoffice/help/en-US/text/shared/optionen/persona_firefox.html

A HTML file within LibreOffice Help - here is the online version of that file: https://help.libreoffice.org/6.2/en-US/text/shared/optionen/persona_firefox.html

The "persona" part is an unusual abbreviation of "personalization" (rather than a reference to the word persona, which could be mistaken for a synonym of profile).

It mentions Firefox because: "You can customize LibreOffice with the same themes available for Mozilla Firefox."

Removing it may or not break LibreOffice Help system. (Wouldn't surprise me if it had no effect and was re-created on next upgrade.)

Quote:

/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/22x22/apps/firefox.png

A PNG is an image file, and in this example an image used for an icon.

There's zero reason this file would contain any settings/cookies.

If you only have firefox.png within 22x22 path and not in the other six (16,24,32,48,256), my guess would be that this file was in use when uninstalling Firefox before.

Again, if you want to be paranoid, you could move/rename the file as backup, but I'd expect it to return when you install Firefox again.

heathcliff36 · 01-15-2021, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shruggy

While removing the deb from apt cache is harmless,

You mean the older archived program versions of FF in

Code:

/var/cache/apt/archives/firefox*

can be removed?
Is that more clear?

And if I do this then presumably I will have more available disk space on my HDD?
Is that correct?

Quote:

the other two are not part of a Firefox installation at all, and may be needed by applications that installed them.

You mean since the other directories referring to FF are in

Code:

/usr/share/libreoffice/
and
/usr/share/icons/

they do not necessarily refer to the proper use of FF?

The files referencing FF in the

Code:

/usr/share/

directory are for other apps in the Linux distro to be compatible with FF.
These directories do not store cookies.

Am I right in thinking that?