So nothing for those of us still running 56 beause Quantum trashed our extensions (and there are still not equivalent availale)?
Firefox 66.0.4 is out, fixes disabled add-ons
241–250 of 392 posts
Re: Firefox 66.0.4 is out, fixes disabled add-ons
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
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/
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
Yeah, so if you set 'xpinstall.signatures.required = false' in the about:config it'll let you use your extensions, but this is just a workaround.
When a fix is fully rolled out (which should include Developer edition), then you won't need that (and probably should re-enable signature checking).
Re: Firefox 66.0.4 is out, fixes disabled add-ons
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
The software was also simpler. And we were not really great to shipping stable software in the past.
Sure we were. I have video games that were pressed to CDs with no possibility of updates and they still run to this day. On a complete play through of many of them you wouldn't notice a single bug. Using users for QA has made us lazy and borderline incompetent.
I think you're thinking of extreme cases here like games which are released with bugs these days for holiday rush, because the patching is easy / built-in. That's not the case for everything and not the case for Firefox.
And the stable software in the past may be due to nostalgia. They had bugs. Even before dialup was common, games were patched: Diablo 1 had a number of patches for example, Quake 3 went up to 1.32, Dune 2 (1992) got 1.07. We just accepted bugs, because... what can you do?
Re: Firefox 66.0.4 is out, fixes disabled add-ons
#244About 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.
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.
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.
Re: Firefox 66.0.4 is out, fixes disabled add-ons
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 mino…
Who's fault is that, at the end of the day? Mozilla didn't have to structure their addon system in such a way that their (in)actions could disable the addons of every Firefox user on the planet . Mozilla did not have to abuse the studies mechanism (also on by default) to ship a workaround. Mozilla did not have to disable the option that would let me work around this problem by myself (which is going to cause me no en…
So you're going to complain about the software breaking and also complain about them pushing a hotfix for it?
This whole situation isn't ideal but it's absurd to me that people are upset about hotfixes for a bug that they found extremely inconvenient. Do you like the bug or not? The option to turn off the system they used for hotfixes is right there in the privacy settings and they even show you what it's currently being used for (and what it was used for in the past). Like it or not, as far as I know every major browser (maybe not Safari?) is doing the exact same thing except they're less transparent about it.
I have literally no idea how to identify what experiments and rollout flags are quietly turned on for my install of Chrome and not for other people because it's not documented anywhere. At least in Firefox the option is right there and so is info on what the option does.
"No opt-out telemetry" is a great idea that doesn't function in the real world. If you ship online-connected software with 1m+ users that doesn't have a way to deploy hotfixes or a killswitch for dangerous features or basic telemetry, that is incredible negligence because all it takes is a single bug or a single unanticipated act by a third party and you're DDoSing someone or causing other kinds of mayhem. I'm quite serious. This is why most vendors operating at Mozilla's scale have the same set of tools at their disposal, even if they don't tell you about it. You cannot deploy large-scale connected software in the real world without doing this. It's one thing to go 'Word shouldn't have any telemetry' (okay, sure) and another to go 'this app that connects to thousands of servers, is left open all the time, and runs remote code should not have any telemetry or automatic update mechanism'. The latter is naive on the level of 'just don't write any bugs and your software won't need updates'.
Re: Firefox 66.0.4 is out, fixes disabled add-ons
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who's fault is that, at the end of the day? Mozilla didn't have to structure their addon system in such a way that their (in)actions could disable the addons of every Firefox user on the planet . Mozilla did not have to abuse the studies mechanism (also on by default) to ship a workaround. Mozilla did not have to disable the option that would let me work around this problem by myself (which is going to cause me no en…
So you're going to complain about the software breaking and also complain about them pushing a hotfix for it? This whole situation isn't ideal but it's absurd to me that people are upset about hotfixes for a bug that they found extremely inconvenient. Do you like the bug or not? The option to turn off the system they used for hotfixes is right there in the privacy settings and they even show you what it's currently b…
So you're going to complain about the software breaking and also complain about them pushing a hotfix for it?
The right way to do this is to push a new release, which they've done. The absolutely wrong way to do this is to silently push a fix through a back door that's open by default and rightly shouldn't exist in the first place.
Yes, you can do things more efficiently when you ignore the rules and subvert reasonable expectations. Generally though, society takes a dim view of this.
>If you ship online-connected software with 1m+ users that doesn't have a way to deploy hotfixes ..
That way is checking for updates, and then asking me if I want to install them. Most software does this and it works fine. There are no privacy implications for hitting an API for a number and checking locally if it's higher than a number I have. All clean, all above-board.
That way is emphatically NOT playing like a sneak and making changes silently and remotely without asking me about it first. I don't care what you think your good reason is, you don't have the ethical/moral right to make changes on my property without that affirmative consent.
Re: Firefox 66.0.4 is out, fixes disabled add-ons
#247Did 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 l…
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...
> 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..?
Re: Firefox 66.0.4 is out, fixes disabled add-ons
#248how about windows xp. still don't work. you going fix it for us please?
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.
Re: Firefox 66.0.4 is out, fixes disabled add-ons
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
In this case, I was more insecure being subjected to advertising networks (and the malware carried on them) because of Firefox's mistake which meant I wasn't able to load ublock origin. I'm also not sure how many of those "security patches" are intended to make my browsing experience safer, or simply meant to implement bizarre policies that might blow up in my face at any time (as this certificate issue has). It's a…
This "bizarre policy" was software signing, which is in fact a security feature.
I don't understand what "getting their act together" means here, when you're posting it on an announcement that the problem has already been fixed. Should Firefox proactively remove all security features that risk ever posing some modicum of inconvenience to users? Because that would be... all of them.
Re: Firefox 66.0.4 is out, fixes disabled add-ons
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ups…
> Why would anyone want to upgrade from XP? Is that a serious question? Security? Compatibility with Modern hardware? If you want to use a car analogy, what you're asking is 'why would anyone want to upgrade from a Model T?
Microsoft could drop newer Windows versions and instead focus on improving Windows XP.