Foxstuck: Firefox browser bug boots legions of users offline
- Reference: 1642528927
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/01/18/foxstuck_firefox_browser_bug_boots/
- Source link:
Firefox periodically reports back some fairly [2]innocuous info, including how long your session lasted, how many tabs and windows you had open, what extensions you have and so on. You can see a list by entering about:telemetry in the address bar.
It's all pretty harmless data. What isn't harmless is if your browser goes TITSUP* and stops you from accessing any website just because it can't phone home – especially if other browsers still work fine.
[3]
Two different bug reports in Mozilla's bug-tracking system – [4]1749910 and [5]1749957 – reveal the process of identifying and fixing the issue, and somewhat unusually, Mozilla publicly [6]acknowledged the problem on Twitter.
[7]
[8]
Troubleshooting wasn't helped because two different tweaks both bypassed the issue: disabling either [9]telemetry or Firefox's HTTP3 support both worked.
The telemetry server wasn't directly to blame: the problem was [10]isolated to an HTTP3 load-balancer in front of Mozilla's servers. [11]Cloudflare is a major backer of HTTP3 , so if it wasn't the Mozilla telemetry servers, something else behind one of their boxes would probably have triggered this bug instead.
[12]Linux Mint 20.3 appears – now with more Mozilla flavor: Why this distro switched Firefox defaults back to Google
[13]Google Chrome 97 relaxes privacy protection just a little to help out Microsoft
[14]Mozilla founder blasts browser maker for accepting 'planet incinerating' cryptocurrency donations
[15]It's your Loki day: The Reg takes Elementary OS Jólnir for a quick test drive
[16]Google Chrome's upcoming crackdown on ad-blockers and other extensions still really sucks, EFF laments
Although many people blamed Firefox auto-update for the problem, it wasn't to blame. The issue has existed at least since the last ESR version, [17]Firefox 91 , and the problem also affected people running versions 94 and onwards.
Commenters on various forums have called for a fork of Firefox to remove telemetry support, which just demonstrates that they're not Register readers. We [18]pointed to precisely such a tool months ago. Waterfox users were totally unaffected. ®
* Telemetry Inability Totally Silences URL Processing
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1749910
[2] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YedGmHeHe8mYqxduuf0tRgAAAAU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1749910
[5] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1749957
[6] https://twitter.com/FirefoxSupport/status/1481592266141716482
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YedGmHeHe8mYqxduuf0tRgAAAAU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YedGmHeHe8mYqxduuf0tRgAAAAU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1197144
[10] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1749908#c17
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/31/quic_becomes_standard/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/12/mint_203_mozilla/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/06/chrome_97_privacy/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/05/mozilla_accepts_cryptocurrency/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/21/elementary_os_61/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/14/googles_manifest_v3_extension_plan/
[17] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/91.4.0/releasenotes/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/04/waterfox_firefox_fork/
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"Waterfox users were totally unaffected. ®"
So were Firefox users ... if they had the telemetry turned off.
about:preferences#privacy
Re: "Waterfox users were totally unaffected. ®"
Sure... that's very well known :-/. At least it's still an option.
Re: "Waterfox users were totally unaffected. ®"
Or had the URLs changed to "https://localhost" in about:config, just to be sure
Re: "Waterfox users were totally unaffected. ®"
I'm on Firefox for hours each day and I noticed nothing.
A more user friendly way to shut off telemetry is Settings - Privacy and Security - Firefox Data Collection and Use.
Re: "Waterfox users were totally unaffected. ®"
Yup, no problems here because turning off telemetry is the first thing I do post install.
I also check it is off periodically, not that I've ever seen Firefox turn it back on.
Re: "Waterfox users were totally unaffected. ®"
Absolutely, same here.
However, and I've commented as much before, the problem with this is that it skews the telemetry results.
1) All the knowledgeable and privacy-conscious users disable telemetry
2) All the users who are too naive or oblivious don't.
3) Mozilla examine the telemetry data - "huh, 99% of our users spend their whole time on Pinterest and Facebook, we must integrate Firefox better with those sites. Also, no users ever use the advanced features like integrated FTP support or the Configuration menu - let's remove the former and hide the latter behind a hamburger menu so the users don't get confused. Excellent! We're serving our users!"
4) Profit More annoyed techie users, further declines in product usability, etc etc.
NB: See also Windows 10.
Re: "Waterfox users were totally unaffected. ®"
not that I've ever seen Firefox turn it back on
I would have said that too, but Firefox was updated recently when I updated OpenSuse (Tumbleweed). Upon reboot, it opened a fresh window - pink, for heaven's sake and offering 'vibrant new themes' - and said window had my add-ons (Noscript etc) disabled, telemetry turned on full blast, all the search engines I delete back in the list, and Google reinstated as search engine of choice.
However, closing that window revealed my 'old' window underneath, all tabs, extensions and settings intact. Rather odd, that.
M.
Re: "Waterfox users were totally unaffected. ®"
I was untouched by this issue as well, but then I'm using Windows 3.11 For Workgroups, DOS 6.0, and Netscape Navigator.
*Cough*
I should staple a giant blinking sarcasm tag to my arse so nobody can mistake my posts for anything but the ramblings of an insane person. =-)p
Re: "Waterfox users were totally unaffected. ®"
It's rude to rub our faces in it like that, especially those of us lashed to Windows 10/11.
For my part, I blank out every configuration setting that has a URL in it (usually they lead to Mozilla, Google or AWS) in user.js.
Been doing this for years with no loss of functionality for my purposes. Do be aware that this means no "safe browsing" checks, no in-chrome plugin checks (you have to install / upgrade manually), and a bunch of other stuff so not recommending this for everyone. Sadly, data (as opposed to information) fetishism leads to this kind of ugly hacks to keep things predictable.
No loss of functionality.. for your purposes...
Did that include viewing actual web pages? Like on the interweb? :)
While I appreciate the can-do spirit, this is the sort of solution that makes people roll their eyes when a bug report comes in. Which is to say, having gone down that rabbit hole myself in the past, once you've jerry rigged that much of the about:config you guarantee that even you can't be sure what the impact has been or which change broke it. Then any update is can break both your config and the browser. Debugging the impact of extensions is hard enough.
That said, it isn't like Mozilla didn't force your hand. They keep stripping stuff out of the base browser config, and when people ran to re-implement the missing functionality in extensions, they nerfed those to in yet another attempt to become a Chrome clone like everyone else.
That said I think we need people supporting a clean incarnation of the browser, not suffering daily with hacked together trash(myself included). Projects like Waterfox and Tor are fighting to keep that possible, but they are rolling rocks uphill if the main dev team at Mozilla insists on swimming upstream.
I guess the excuse of using telemetry data to prevent bugs is now a bug in itself.
Everyone knows that Google's funded legal example of not being a monoply Firefox isn't doing great... except Firefox.
Goozilla.