5 ms·

How to stop Firefox from making automatic connections

174 points by bsilvereagle 11y ago

hackuser 11y ago
It would be great if non-technical end-users could control their enviroment and disable these things; this page, while a great step forward, still is much too long and complex - it's too long for me to read the whole thing. Firefox needs a button in preferences that says 'enable only connections specifically initiated by the user' - worded better and with appropriate warnings of functionality loss. Or an add-on would be great.
- ghayes 11y ago
  It would be great to have these all as a full set of toggles on one settings page with "Fast", "Secure", "Paranoid" presets.
  - imglorp 11y ago
    Secure is an interesting preset to think about. On the one hand, pulling patches automatically protects you from the nasties. On the other hand, it also leaks information off your machine which might not be what you want.
    - 5ilv3r 11y ago
      How about a scale of "Most private" to "Most up to date and secure"
  - wlesieutre 11y ago
    You'd want it to convey that "Paranoid" doesn't mean "Most secure," which is how a lot of people would read that. A typical person against typical adversaries really does want automatic updates.
    - hackuser 11y ago
      Some of these options, such as disabling automatic updates, would reduce security. But some, such as DNS prefetching, impact only performance and disabling them would improve security (confidentiality is a key part of security), however marginally in some cases. I think a distinction needs to be made for the users.
- xlayn 11y ago
  I disagree, there is a lot of functionality aimed to keep users safe, if "non-technical end-users" can't understand and go through them; they may be better leaving them alone. On the other hand also prevents those users from changing something and find non expected behavior.
  - hackuser 11y ago
    > if "non-technical end-users" can't understand and go through them; they may be better leaving them alone. I understand this reasoning, but I think the pendulum has swung too far from end-user control to a patronizing attitude where we tell users what is good for them - in fact, we decide for them without even telling them. For example, in this case perhaps some users value confidentiality over system integrity or over performance; Mozilla doesn't empower them to make that decision; the users don't even know that a decision has been made. Mozilla could facillitate end-user control by making the options safe and by explaining them clearly. There is a balance of course, and I'm just using this issue as a example - it's hardly the most critical.
    - chc 11y ago
      Turning Firefox into Config Simulator 2016 would just alienate nontechnical users, not empower them. I don't see how it's patronizing to say, "You can set this the way you want if you care, and people who don't care aren't faced with a bunch of choices they don't want."
  - firasd 11y ago
    Interesting historical context: When Firefox split off from the old Mozilla browser, the whole Firefox (then called Phoenix) project removed a lot of menus and buttons.
131hn 11y ago
Congrats on making this public and clear. Is there such a precise (&exhaustive ) document for google chrome/ edge ?
- magicalist 11y ago
  Not as user friendly, but: https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/privacy/whitepaper.html https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/privacy/whitepaper.htm...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Cieplak 11y ago
  http://superuser.com/questions/633648/how-can-i-change-the-default-website-connection-timeout-in-chrome http://superuser.com/questions/633648/how-can-i-change-the-d...
  - heinrich5991 11y ago
    What question does this answer?
- XzetaU8 11y ago
  Chromium Command Line Switches? http://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/ http://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/
5ilv3r 11y ago
I'd like a disable-all button for web development. Also to have the old behavior back for soooo many things... like hitting enter in the URL bar actually load the URL even if it didn't change.
- joshvm 11y ago
  Not sure if this is what you need, but you can try: browser.urlbar.unifiedcomplete = false This should bring back the old search bar behaviour so you don't need two keypresses to load a webpage.
  - therealunreal 11y ago
    Thank you!
5ilv3r 11y ago
"The OpenH264 codec is not distributed with Firefox but gets downloaded at the first start of Firefox. In case you want to prohibit that, you will have to preconfigure the browser and set the media.gmp-gmpopenh264.autoupdatemedia.gmp-gmpopenh264.enabled preference to false. " I have to disable it before I START firefox?? How?
- mnarayan01 11y ago
  In your Firefox profile directory, there's a file called "prefs.js". Of course, that (obviously) requires you have a FF profile, so I'm not sure how much use it would be. I guess the "easier" way would be to just disconnect your internet, and then install and start Firefox.
  - 5ilv3r 11y ago
    Sounds like an option for domain administrators... not users. That's a bummer.
  - syrrim 11y ago
    If you start firefox with the `-P` option, then it lets you manually create a profile, before starting. I assume you could configure it at that point.
  - dmckeon 11y ago
    Alternately, before starting Firefox: echo 'user_pref("media.gmp-gmpopenh264.autoupdatemedia.gmp-gmpopenh264.enabled", false);' >> user.js Preferences set in the user.js file are applied after those in prefs.js, but are persistent - while the current prefs settings are saved to prefs.js when Firefox exits, the prefs in user.js are re-applied on every restart of Firefox - so you would have to edit user.js to persistently change Firefox' behavior. Thus user.js is handy for knowledgeable users, but could be a bit of a trap for less capable users. ("I can't make it change!") While I'm on about:config stuff, a handy way to search for config variables is a shortcut: <DT><A HREF="about:config?filter=%s" SHORTCUTURL="ac">[ac] about:config filter</A> invoked by putting, say, ac media.gmp in the address bar.
- 11y ago
yyin 11y ago
To me this is poor design. I prefer to have everything turned off by default. Then I have to learn how to turn things on. In the end, this teaches me much more about controlling the program's behaviour than having developers make decisions for me. But that's just my opinion.
- Qwertious 11y ago
  Not sure of the exact figures, but a large portion of computer users never change the options for their programs (nor are they particularly able to). For these users, sub-optimal settings are permanent, so you want to turn everything on. This is one of the problems with a single program being shared by several demographics.
edieveder 11y ago
They should put these settings in the setup.

174 points by bsilvereagle 11y ago

It would be great if non-technical end-users could control their enviroment and disable these things; this page, while a great step forward, still is much too long and complex - it's too long for me to read the whole thing. Firefox needs a button in preferences that says 'enable only connections specifically initiated by the user' - worded better and with appropriate warnings of functionality loss. Or an add-on would be great.

ghayes 11y ago
It would be great to have these all as a full set of toggles on one settings page with "Fast", "Secure", "Paranoid" presets.
- imglorp 11y ago
  Secure is an interesting preset to think about. On the one hand, pulling patches automatically protects you from the nasties. On the other hand, it also leaks information off your machine which might not be what you want.
  - 5ilv3r 11y ago
    How about a scale of "Most private" to "Most up to date and secure"
- wlesieutre 11y ago
  You'd want it to convey that "Paranoid" doesn't mean "Most secure," which is how a lot of people would read that. A typical person against typical adversaries really does want automatic updates.
  - hackuser 11y ago
    Some of these options, such as disabling automatic updates, would reduce security. But some, such as DNS prefetching, impact only performance and disabling them would improve security (confidentiality is a key part of security), however marginally in some cases. I think a distinction needs to be made for the users.
xlayn 11y ago
I disagree, there is a lot of functionality aimed to keep users safe, if "non-technical end-users" can't understand and go through them; they may be better leaving them alone. On the other hand also prevents those users from changing something and find non expected behavior.
- hackuser 11y ago
  > if "non-technical end-users" can't understand and go through them; they may be better leaving them alone. I understand this reasoning, but I think the pendulum has swung too far from end-user control to a patronizing attitude where we tell users what is good for them - in fact, we decide for them without even telling them. For example, in this case perhaps some users value confidentiality over system integrity or over performance; Mozilla doesn't empower them to make that decision; the users don't even know that a decision has been made. Mozilla could facillitate end-user control by making the options safe and by explaining them clearly. There is a balance of course, and I'm just using this issue as a example - it's hardly the most critical.
  - chc 11y ago
    Turning Firefox into Config Simulator 2016 would just alienate nontechnical users, not empower them. I don't see how it's patronizing to say, "You can set this the way you want if you care, and people who don't care aren't faced with a bunch of choices they don't want."
- firasd 11y ago
  Interesting historical context: When Firefox split off from the old Mozilla browser, the whole Firefox (then called Phoenix) project removed a lot of menus and buttons.

131hn 11y ago

Congrats on making this public and clear. Is there such a precise (&exhaustive ) document for google chrome/ edge ?

magicalist 11y ago
Not as user friendly, but: https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/privacy/whitepaper.html https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/privacy/whitepaper.htm...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Cieplak 11y ago
http://superuser.com/questions/633648/how-can-i-change-the-default-website-connection-timeout-in-chrome http://superuser.com/questions/633648/how-can-i-change-the-d...
- heinrich5991 11y ago
  What question does this answer?
XzetaU8 11y ago
Chromium Command Line Switches? http://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/ http://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/

5ilv3r 11y ago

I'd like a disable-all button for web development. Also to have the old behavior back for soooo many things... like hitting enter in the URL bar actually load the URL even if it didn't change.

joshvm 11y ago
Not sure if this is what you need, but you can try: browser.urlbar.unifiedcomplete = false This should bring back the old search bar behaviour so you don't need two keypresses to load a webpage.
- therealunreal 11y ago
  Thank you!

5ilv3r 11y ago

"The OpenH264 codec is not distributed with Firefox but gets downloaded at the first start of Firefox. In case you want to prohibit that, you will have to preconfigure the browser and set the media.gmp-gmpopenh264.autoupdatemedia.gmp-gmpopenh264.enabled preference to false. " I have to disable it before I START firefox?? How?

mnarayan01 11y ago
In your Firefox profile directory, there's a file called "prefs.js". Of course, that (obviously) requires you have a FF profile, so I'm not sure how much use it would be. I guess the "easier" way would be to just disconnect your internet, and then install and start Firefox.
- 5ilv3r 11y ago
  Sounds like an option for domain administrators... not users. That's a bummer.
- syrrim 11y ago
  If you start firefox with the `-P` option, then it lets you manually create a profile, before starting. I assume you could configure it at that point.
- dmckeon 11y ago
  Alternately, before starting Firefox: echo 'user_pref("media.gmp-gmpopenh264.autoupdatemedia.gmp-gmpopenh264.enabled", false);' >> user.js Preferences set in the user.js file are applied after those in prefs.js, but are persistent - while the current prefs settings are saved to prefs.js when Firefox exits, the prefs in user.js are re-applied on every restart of Firefox - so you would have to edit user.js to persistently change Firefox' behavior. Thus user.js is handy for knowledgeable users, but could be a bit of a trap for less capable users. ("I can't make it change!") While I'm on about:config stuff, a handy way to search for config variables is a shortcut: <DT><A HREF="about:config?filter=%s" SHORTCUTURL="ac">[ac] about:config filter</A> invoked by putting, say, ac media.gmp in the address bar.
11y ago

yyin 11y ago

To me this is poor design. I prefer to have everything turned off by default. Then I have to learn how to turn things on. In the end, this teaches me much more about controlling the program's behaviour than having developers make decisions for me. But that's just my opinion.

Qwertious 11y ago
Not sure of the exact figures, but a large portion of computer users never change the options for their programs (nor are they particularly able to). For these users, sub-optimal settings are permanent, so you want to turn everything on. This is one of the problems with a single program being shared by several demographics.

edieveder 11y ago

They should put these settings in the setup.