Foxstuck: Firefox browser bug boots legions of users offline In a hard-to-beat demo of the perils of software telemetry, Mozilla accidentally kicked legions of users offline last week by an update to its telemetry servers that triggered an existing bug in Firefox. Internally, Mozilla is calling the bug "foxstuck". Firefox periodically reports back some fairly innocuous info, including …
Just to save people some time. Worth stating that the latest Waterfox won't run on any processor that doesn't support processors without SSE 4.2 extensions. So, latest WF no longer supports processors like Penryn Core2Duo. Firefox does though. Needs a minimum of a Nehalem-based processor (1st gen 1 i5, i7 processor). The is a Waterfox 'classic' that does support older processors but has security vulnerabilities.
> the latest Waterfox won't run on any processor that
What in the Sam Hill does a web browser need to care about the processor it's running upon?
Is that another case of "because we can, and new and shiny trumps everything anyways"?
*facepalm*
What in the Sam Hill does a web browser need to care about the processor it's running upon?
Methinks that this problem is probably the result of choosing a compiler option that causes the compiler to emit code that assumes the SSE4.2 instructions are available. If so, the problem will be present only in the binaries compiled with that option, and may not be present in a different download/distro, and can be avoided by compiling the source yourself for the processor you actually have.
> to increase performance
In the "we want to be able to run any shit code" perspective I guess?...
Because the old browser optimization is more than enough to render complex web pages, and even occasionally stream a high-res movie.
What it more often then not struggles to do though, is cope with badly written advertisement code...
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.
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.
That would have been an OpenSuse issue, not a Firefox issue.
Part of the reason I like Slackware so much is because it does as little as possible to code as released by the upstream developers, and absolutely none (that I've ever noticed) to the individual's personal settings.
Came here to say the same for Linux Mint 20.3. Telemetry was turned back on for Linux Mint 20.3, when I upgraded on it's release last week, (not earlier beta), as I check these things often.
Pretty sure an upgrade from Linux Mint 20.2 to Linux Mint 20.3 did the same, turned telemetry back ON in Firefox. Worth checking after upgrading to 20.3 if you do an in-place upgrade.
> "Telly meet tree" as an actor in one episode of UFO (Close Up) pronounced it.
Did someone say Del Amitri?
Upvote for linking to one of my favourite songs. Though the Youtube error “the uploader has not made this video available in your country” made me laugh, considering there’s a dozen other copies of the same song on there that I can access, plus I’ve had it in my MP3 collection since about 1993…
“The Martians could land in the car-park and no-one would care…”
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
especially those of us lashed to Windows 10/11.
So you can't respond to the siren voices of non-Windows environments?
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A graphical browser? What a waste of resources.
Just a couple days ago I was running Lynx on my own much-hacked version of the Bourne shell on a VAX hosting 4.2BSD on all of 4 megs of RAM. Still works just as well as it did about three decades ago :-)
Waterfox is useful because it has a version based on pre-Quantum Gecko where you can use classic plugins. If you're using an alternative Firefox browser based on the present-day version, wouldn't it be easier just to use Firefox... what does an alternative Firefox browser really do apart from introduce a delay before receiving security updates?
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.
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.
>> Firefox periodically reports back some fairly innocuous info, including how long your session lasted, how many tabs and windows you had open, what extensions you have and so on
It is not innocuous. It's nothing to do with Microsoft. PLEASE get out of this mindset that data is not important. If it was not important Microsoft would not be collecting it.
My FF was not affected as I have the voluntary BS turned off as well.
Ungoogled-chromium (64bit) is my backup browser & IE11 for M$ downloads fully updated as possible.
I don't know the rules for links but I will try here. It is possible to download & run an update program. And you have the ability to access the Google app store without logging in & download apps you trust. Kind of what FF should do. As time goes on I think FF will stray further & further away from the users wishes. Hard to find a computer today that is not filled with commercial & government spyware.
Download page for (Ungoogled Chromium)
MarmadukeDownloadLatestStableUngoogledChromium binaries (64-bit and 32-bit)
https://chromium.woolyss.com/#updaters https://chromium.woolyss.com/
Installation Guide for (Ungoogled Chromium)
https://avoidthehack.com/how-to-install-configure-ungoogled-chromium
(Ungoogled Chromium) extensions (Once installed just pick/install extensions normally)
https://avoidthehack.com/manually-install-extensions-ungoogled-chromium
Chromium Web Store for using Google Extension store/downloads wihout logging in. Just go there & install from within Ungoogled Chrome browser normally...
https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store/releases/tag/v1.1.1 LATEST .crx file
auto updates from browser as well as all other extensions...
Profiles Instructions
https://www.winhelponline.com/blog/transfer-chrome-profile-another-computer/
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