Mozilla not longer trustworthy

Hello

Was using Firefox 10+ years in a row now and was always happy to have this browser.

But now Mozilla turned into something that I cannot trust longer.

Beginning with the high praised Quantum which destroyed my meticulous installed and clean profile in just a second. Quantum destroyed my profile because another user was using the same installation with a fresh profile. Fresh profiles are set to auto-update by default. And as I was starting my profile later… it got ruined.

It cost me very much time to find out why the installation was updated. And it took much time to figure out that avoiding auto-update is nearly impossible… at least if you use profiles.

More as one year I was using FF 50-56 on different computers after Quantum release… each computer with different profile and addons. Regularly I tryed to find replacements for the Quantum-killed addons… but without success. One of the important addons (used in all my profiles) broke more and more so I was not able to use FF properly.

Time to leave my beloved FF installation and install it fresh with last version. It took me 3 full days to search and test new addons again and again… to overtake all my settings… bookmarks… addon-preferences… speed-dial shortcuts… and passwords.

Passwords was really funny! FF stores passwords in special files. My installations were using version 3 ( ? ) of these files. On the way from my version ( 50-56 ) to version 65 Mozilla was also updating the password files to new versions. Version 5 is latest. This is shown nowhere. It was impossible to update the password storage from 50-56 to 65 - password storage was empty after this. I had to update the installation by hand through all stable versions just to ensure that FF will update the storage from version 3 to 4 and then to 5.

After each update I was checking for passwords and that auto-update is still off. Then I was working on all the settings, addons, shortcuts, bookmarks. All together 3 full days.

I copied this installation to other computers… just to see that FF has magically turned on auto-update again… and it started auto-update on first start to version 66. WUNDERFULL !!

This was 2 months ago.

Next point is that you removed the option to “don’t search for updates”. A dozen times every day I get this pesky “hey there is an update”-popup. Also above video streams and such.

NOW… Mozilla ruined that all again. Without any update of my software installation. They tell me what software I may use on my own computer hardware. They remotely deactivate all my installed addons. They leave me with a blank installation… unsecure… without my script- and content-blockers. They let me run on darkweb pages without security. I have a broken profile again… and have to wait maybe days or weeks or months until there are signatures or alternate addons. Not to talk about all the work to get my FF installation running again as I want.

2 times in a row you destroyed my profiles… without any help. You just push the red button and destroy the hardly installed and well working internet experience on users computers all over the world. You have no right to change any byte on my computer without asking me if I want that.

You say it’s for better browsing, secure browsing, protecting FF-users from bad addons and or malware. But it’s not just that. It’s that you just want protect Mozilla so that peoples cannot say that easy “using Mozilla or addons is unsecure”. You call it blocklist for addons. I call it kind of DRM. You say you want protect users. I say you want control them… what they are allowed to do and to see and what not.

While writing this I have to think about bad regimes of some nations in their darkest periods. That’s why we have Tor and other software.

What we need here is an addon to terminate your pesky update-popups… an addon that prevent FF from contacting update URLs… and an addon to kill your addon-blocklist. But guess what? You will never give signatures for them or whitelist them.

Thank you Mozilla!

Ok. Mozilla is bad. Where do you go now? Google chrome? :stuck_out_tongue:
Most of what you described are bugs. At least they didn’t nuke your whole O/S when they updated, like (not only) Windows did.
Always create backups. If you go through the trouble of updating files by hand you might want to consider to invest that time in creating a backup of your passwords, bookmarks, (changed) settings, etc. outside of firefox instead, and install major versions only after exporting bookmarks and other things that are important to you.

If that process bothers you, you could export all of those into a cloud (Firefox account) for convenience.
Software bugs are annoying, but like Microsoft showed some very bad ones can happen even in software you pay for.

You would very soon notice how annoying that can be.

This is also a bug. The certificate they used to sign the add-ons as a protective measure (to prevent installation of malicious add-ons from the internet) is out of date, which invalidates all add-on signatures. There is an announcement at the top of the page: Add-ons disabled or failing to install in Firefox - Mozilla Add-ons Community Blog
Enable studies for a hotfix, or wait for the next version 63.0.4.
I do think, that they should have provided a simple button to continue using legacy/unsafe add-ons, giving the end user the choice between security and convenience (they did add a cloud storage/firefox-account which is the same choice).

Sounds like a conspiracy. Who is mozilla really? Next time on the ‘making your own version of history’ channel.

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There is no problem with losing files or data… or creating backups. Quantum ( and as a result: killing all addons ) and updating password storage is progress in development, adding all addons to a blacklist is also no bug. This all is Mozilla decision and we have to deal with it.

About Quantum / addons:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-add-technology-modernizing

About addon signature:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-on-signing-in-firefox

Okay, maybe there is really a bug with certificates. I have activated the studies… but still no hotfix. As I said: I have to wait… maybe days or weeks… I maybe have to repair… investing time to fix my profile or creating a new one.

And there is no own version of history. Quantum is a decision… and also the addons-blacklist.

I don’t understand why you’re having so much trouble with your profile. I’m using a profile (the EXACT SAME profile) generated in Netscape 3, upgraded through Netscape 4.8, migrated to Phoenix 0.5 (forerunner to Firefox) and upgraded straight through to the current. It’s been transferred through probably a dozen different machines over the years and, other than being a bit cluttered, is working just fine.

Is Mozilla perfect? No, of course not. They are only people.

Have they made some questionable decisions? Of course (WebExtensions comes to mind). They are only people.

Are they the only ones who occasionally screw up? Ask all the Win10 users who lost ALL their userdata some time ago due to an update. And they paid for that privilege!

No, if you’re expecting perfect software, you’ll always be disappointed as it’s written by people. People who are, by definition, imperfect. At least the people at Mozilla are doing what they can – even over a weekend – to make things right. Can you see Microsoft, Apple or Google doing the same?