Add-Offs

[stoutfellow]

I am well and truly pissed at Firefox this morning. I don't have many add-ons, but the ones I have are either important or very useful. The add-on glitch they're dealing with has disabled both of my ad blockers, two of my security add-ons, and my feed reader. The "studies" link says it's already run on my computer, but the add-ons are still hors de combat.

Six hours, they say. OK, I'll give them until 10:30 before I start screaming.

Comments

[graydon]

It's not, strictly, a glitch; it's a bug in the security of the update system.

Firefox turned it off because otherwise the update system could be used to completely own -- totally circumventing all of the core update security mechanisms -- your firefox install. (Firefox is effectively an operating system. This is the bad side of that.) This has been an increasing problem with all browsers; malevolent actors push a browser version they own via the update, and from the user perspective neither you nor your anti-virus can tell. It's a browser application with automatic updates and security certificates and everything, just malicious ones.

[stoutfellow]

Can you tell me whether the "Legacy Extensions" that have been deactivated will be restored? I've lost Adblock Plus, Facebook Container, Feedbro, and uBlock Origin. If they're not coming back, can you recommend replacements which are consistent with Firefox's new standards?

[graydon]

In the strict sense, nothing will be restored; all pre-shutdown versions of firefox will stay shut down.

[Edited for both links] https://twitter.com/firefox/status/1125135184343396352?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet says that the latest version of Firefox re-enables all the plugins; I have not tried this myself. (The only things I use firefox for oblige me to use stock firefox.)

So it looks like what you need to do is upgrade Firefox to latest (per https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/update-firefox-latest-release ) and things should start working again.

[stoutfellow]

That did the trick. Thanks!

[graydon]

You're welcome!

It'd be nice if Firefox doesn't manage to provide an existence proof of the idea that a volunteer-run browser project is no longer able to handle the threat surface.