Arch Linux

dalu

Member

Registered: 2014-04-16

Posts: 87

Firefox always checks the Allow Firefox to send technical and interact

Firefox,
under Settings,
Privacy & Security,
[x] Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla

When I uncheck this box, it says "You’re no longer allowing Mozilla to capture technical and interaction data. All past data will be deleted within 30 days."
However when I then close Firefox and re-open it, that checkbox is checked again.

This is not ok.

Why this is an issue, apart from the obvious, that it doesn't respect user's settings:
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/fi … ch-update/

In that article they link to a step-by-step guide, but disabling data collection isn't possible, because Firefox, or maybe the build process in Archlinux? doesn't respect the user's wishes to not collect any data and not send it to mozilla.

Last edited by dalu (2024-05-15 14:06:15)

mpan

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 1,326

Website

Re: Firefox always checks the Allow Firefox to send technical and interact

I have this disabled for ages, so it doesn’t seem to be a bug in either Firefox or Arch’s build of Firefox. And I rechecked literally today, because of the update to version 126.

Possibly some add-on or error caused by a previously installed add-on? Does the situation happen, if you create a new profile and try using it? Use the following command to manage profiles:

firefox -ProfileManager

Careful to not delete your current one, of course.

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Sometimes I seem a bit harsh — don’t get offended too easily!

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,156

Re: Firefox always checks the Allow Firefox to send technical and interact

Don't see that problem here either.
Have you ever run Firefox as root?

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Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
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dalu

Member

Registered: 2014-04-16

Posts: 87

Re: Firefox always checks the Allow Firefox to send technical and interact

No, maybe I should.

Everything is chowned to my user and group. I even set 0777 permissions on the whole profile directory.
Firefox developer edition behaves normally.

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,156

Re: Firefox always checks the Allow Firefox to send technical and interact

You should not.  Bad plan if you want a secure system.
The problem I had been exploring is, if you had run something as root, then the config files would likely have changed ownership to root and your regular user would no longer be able to change them.

As with post #3, this post is from Firefox.  As with post #3, those permissions were off and remain off.

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Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

dalu

Member

Registered: 2014-04-16

Posts: 87

Re: Firefox always checks the Allow Firefox to send technical and interact

Yeah, you can't help. It's ok.
I had this firefox profile since 2001, my 1st Gentoo installation and moved it from system to system, hardware to hardware.
It's an old profile and probably has bugs.
It's also adjusted and cleaned so no telemetry gets sent, as far as I can controll it.
Ideally, each application would run under their own {app}-{user-group}, if security is a main focus.

I created a new profile, exported bookmarks and passwords and imported.
The new profile is a lot more slim but also a lot more talky.
Many switches about telemetry default to true.
But it also has a better integrated toolbar, which I can't make sense of.
- On Cinnamon and the downward caret "list all tabs" button is left of the 3 minimize, maximize, close buttons, which means about 20px more space on the monitor, because there is no extra toolbar for the 3 icons and the caret isn't compeltely right. Probably something in about:config I can adjust.
Update: it's "browser.tabs.inTitlebar" = 2 (the default). I had it set to 0.

So the current issue is, how do I migrate my browing history to the new profile.
I don't want to type all the urls I visit on a regular basis, or stuff I stumble upon but forget what it was called, only remembering the domain name or a keyword and my browsing history helps me remember.

If anyone has any deeper insights into Firefox, lmk.

Last edited by dalu (2024-05-31 17:48:24)

mpan

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 1,326

Website

Re: Firefox always checks the Allow Firefox to send technical and interact

AFAIK you can’t without being a Firefox Sync subscriber.

It seems it’s possible to self-host Sync server, but I guess this is hardly convenient to you.

An alternative route may be directly copying “places.sqlite” from the old to the new profile. However, given your installation was very old, I don’t know how much grime will come with it.

Since it’s a normal SQLite database, you can dump contents of some tables and insert into a fresh profile. “places.sqlite” documentation didn’t see an update in 13 years, but the outline seems to match. Apparently, `moz_places_*` (note there are 4 tables now!) and `moz_historyvisits` are the tables you are interested in. Remember to back up “places.sqlite” before testing.

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Sometimes I seem a bit harsh — don’t get offended too easily!