What's Going on with Firefox Addons/Extensions?

jsbjsb001 · 05-05-2019, 08:11 AM

Or lizard man working for the NSA, broke into Mozilla's HQ and is holding all of them hostage in return for complete control over everyone's systems, so the NSA can gather as much info on everyone as they can...

ntubski · 05-05-2019, 08:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fatmac

I'm beginning to think this is actually a 'back door' exploit.

Maybe something to do with America's N.S.A. - I think we all know how they'd love to have access to every ones computers.

Somehow, I think the NSA would be more stealthy about it.

jsbjsb001 · 05-05-2019, 09:11 AM

Perhaps M$ and the NSA are in it together...

Turbocapitalist · 05-05-2019, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsbjsb001

Perhaps M$ and the NSA are in it together...

That's old news. Yes, M$ was the first member of Prism but the program which is more problematic is called Upstream.

I hope that Mozilla can appease the remaining people still using their browser by explaining how things went south and why it has taken all weekend to issue a patch for some dud certificates. Im sure it will be instructive one way or another.

jsbjsb001 · 05-05-2019, 09:24 AM

Perhaps you're right Turbo

Incidentally, just found the following, I think it explains why Firefox ESR's addons were/are still disabled without doing the about:config fix.

Quote:

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

Clarified that the Studies fix applies only to Desktop users of Firefox distributed by Mozilla. Firefox ESR, Firefox for Android, and some versions of Firefox included with Linux distributions will require separate updates. (May 4, 12:03 EDT)
...
Please note: The fix does not apply to Firefox ESR or Firefox for Android. We’re working on releasing a fix for both, and will provide updates here and on social media.

hazel · 05-05-2019, 09:38 AM

Interesting. I just looked at my add-ons and I have two: Duckduckgo privacy extensions (which I reinstalled last night) and one called hotfix-update-xpi-intermediate, which is the bug fix. And this is ESR, which (according to the above post) hasn't been fixed yet.

jsbjsb001 · 05-05-2019, 09:55 AM

Well I haven't got the "hotfix" yet, but I've done the about:config fix, so I don't care. As it looks like I'll have to wait for the CentOS repo to issue an update for Firefox ESR.

Out of interest Hazel, what distro are you talk'n there?

hazel · 05-05-2019, 10:00 AM

Slackware 14.2. I think I said that further up.

jsbjsb001 · 05-05-2019, 10:04 AM

Interesting. In "About Firefox", does it say "Mozilla Firefox for Slackware" ?

Because I'm just wondering how Pat does Firefox for Slackware, as that might explain why you have the fix, and mine only had the "Studies" feature enabled automatically, but nothing else.

I thought mine did have the fix applied before, but on second thought, it doesn't seem it was.

hazel · 05-05-2019, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsbjsb001

Interesting. In "About Firefox", does it say "Mozilla Firefox for Slackware" ?

No, it just says Firefox Quantum Extended Support Release 60.6.1ESR.

jsbjsb001 · 05-05-2019, 10:25 AM

I think that explains it then, it looks like you've got the version distributed by Mozilla. And I've got the version of it distributed by CentOS/Red Hat, and not Mozilla.

Slackware_fan_Fred · 05-05-2019, 10:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ntubski

Somehow, I think the NSA would be more stealthy about it.

Thats the thing NSA would want people to think they'd be more stealthy.

hazel · 05-05-2019, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsbjsb001

I think that explains it then, it looks like you've got the version distributed by Mozilla. And I've got the version of it distributed by CentOS/Red Hat, and not Mozilla.

Ah, that explains why it's in the repo as "mozilla-firefox". I was puzzled about the name but thought it was just a typical bit of Slackware eccentricity. But if it's a Mozilla build, why has it got the studies option greyed out? You'd think they would want you to use that.

Slackware_fan_Fred · 05-05-2019, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hazel

Ah, that explains why it's in the repo as "mozilla-firefox". I was puzzled about the name but thought it was just a typical bit of Slackware eccentricity. But if it's a Mozilla build, why has it got the studies option greyed out? You'd think they would want you to use that.

IMO I think it's because esr is long term stable, I Think they only want to run studies on the "stable" browsers since that is what gets new features.

jsbjsb001 · 05-05-2019, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hazel

Ah, that explains why it's in the repo as "mozilla-firefox". I was puzzled about the name but thought it was just a typical bit of Slackware eccentricity. But if it's a Mozilla build, why has it got the studies option greyed out? You'd think they would want you to use that.

Is the "mozilla-firefox" repo a Mozilla repo on Slackware? Like for example, the repo I have for Google Chrome on CentOS is actually Google's repo, as that's how you get it for CentOS - it's not in any CentOS repo, or any addon repo's for CentOS, like epel, etc.

I'm not sure about why the "Studies" feature is greyed out on Slackware, as I don't have Slackware installed myself. I guess it might be possible that either it's enabled (or can be by Mozilla), or maybe you got the "fix" some other way? I'm not sure in any case about that tho.

I think it's a safe bet that you got the "fix" because you're getting Firefox from Mozilla, and I'm getting it through the CentOS repo's, and not Mozilla.