Live data from Hacker News

Firefox Profilemaker

ffprofile.com

31–40 of 89 posts

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to run Firefox with resist fingerprinting enabled. I believe it was causing chat time stamps on websites like WhatsApp to be incorrect, which was annoying but I don’t know if you consider that broken.

Yes I discovered that when viewing the TV guide on plex. Everything was an hour out (UK). I think with resist fingerprinting the timezone is set to UTC0. In the end I had to turn that setting off.

Ironically, checking for UTC+0 JavaScript time from an obviously-not-UTC+0 IP geolocation might give additional hints for fingerprinting, as does everything else that looks non-default, like odd language preferences or even a DNT header.

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#34
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't ask for a complete audit, but is there one example from the wizard that could break stuff, that is NOT called out by the wizard itself?

That might be true for a technical user, but is the average user going to know that discord is broken because they disabled webrtc? Also, resistfingerprinting is going to significantly increase the difficulty of recaptcha challenges you encounter.

Because an error message should be displayed then.

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#35

I wish Firefox exposed a better UI for it's profiles. It seems like a really powerful feature that is much less useful than it might be due to poor ergonomics...

That's something that I like about experiments in "Container Tabs", where you get the power of separate profiles, but the ability to mix-and-match them in the same browser window and opening a profile can be as simple as opening a new tab. I understand though why Mozilla seems to be having such a hard time converging on a UX for Container Tabs that makes everyone happy and it may be impossible to ever surface 100% of…

Container Tabs give you no control over which extensions are used in that container. That is my main use of Profiles.

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#36
I used to work in IT and had built this exact thing via Python for large scale, role-based, preference management on our workstations (particularly in lab situation at Universities). I wish chrome had something similar!

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#37
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be true for a technical user, but is the average user going to know that discord is broken because they disabled webrtc? Also, resistfingerprinting is going to significantly increase the difficulty of recaptcha challenges you encounter.

ResistFingerprinting is currently known to break Google's Recaptcha v3. Here is the Firefox bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1503872

I always have a hard time using some services when in incognito mode; I get the captchas, and either they are wrong or are really hard, and it can take several tries to get through them.

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#38
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Mozilla should remove about:config, so users can't hurt themselves on it. I'm sure the telemetry shows its rarely used, and when it is, it often breaks the browser in ways that are unfixable for the average user. Malware is also able to modify these advanced settings to hijack the browser in nasty ways, and slow down Firefox, and make people switch to Chrome faster. If they don't remove it Firefox is going to c…

>(This is in fact sarcasm before you get too eager with that down arrow) I see this defense quite a lot on the internet, and I think it's misplaced. Even without your comment, I would have downvoted you, not because I though you were in earnest, but because your sarcastic comment doesn't add anything to the conversation.

I think it adds a lot to the conversation. It's an obviously poor argument, which points out how poor it is when Mozilla uses it to make obviously poor choices.

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#39
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to run Firefox with resist fingerprinting enabled. I believe it was causing chat time stamps on websites like WhatsApp to be incorrect, which was annoying but I don’t know if you consider that broken.

It also breaks add-on compatibility because it sets your user agent to the last ESR version of Firefox, which may be several versions behind the version you're actually running.

That is resolved with 60.x ESR. First released in the early summer and has been the default since September. 52 had no support for webextensions

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#40

I feel the strong need to point out some of these settings will break Firefox in subtle and hard to understand ways. There’s a reason you “void the warranty” when tweaking the about:config preferences. No rule against it, but just watch out. (Mozilla employee)

Does Mozilla have a sanctioned way to pre-configure a browser with standard configurations?

This used to be impossible, and essentially made my employer banish Firefox in most cases.

Post reply on HN