4 ms·

Since I didn't have any luck finding an answer to this at Mozilla, does anyone know why McAfee SiteAdvisor is able to automatically enable it's add-on in Firefo

by grok2 10y ago

Since I didn't have any luck finding an answer to this at Mozilla, does anyone know why McAfee SiteAdvisor is able to automatically enable it's add-on in Firefox? Even after I disable it in the add-ons manager, the next update to McAfee software re-enables the add-on by itself. (This add-on places a green or red check-mark against google (and possibly other) search results to indicate if it's safe or not to click on a link in the search results). When using the McAfee security suite, they don't provide any option to choose what it's add-on does.

jonathanyc 10y ago
I really really hate those. As far as I could tell when I investigated, these guys actually modify the file system from under the browser (Firefox, Chrome) so there's not much the browser can do.
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  Those virus protection programs act more like viruses every day...
Sylos 10y ago
Type "about:config" into the URL-bar and hit enter. Confirm to the dialog that you'll be cautious and then search in that page for "xpinstall.signatures.required". I'm guessing, that this is disabled for you. If it is, and you want to get rid of the McAfee-extension, then remove the McAfee extension and re-enable xpinstall.signatures.required. It shouldn't be able to reinstall then. If it does anyways, check about:config, again, if that preference is re-enabled. If it is re-enabled, either some add-on in your add-on-list is malicious and re-enabling it, which then allows McAfee to reinstall, or McAfee is abusing the prefs.js-file in your Profile-folder ([0]), which can be used to set about:config-values. All in all, that this is an about:config-toggle to begin with, is kind of crap, as it makes this sort of stuff possible. Mozilla has plans to eventually remove this about:config-toggle from standard Firefox and instead provide a separate unbranded version of Firefox which then does still have that toggle for people who want to use unsigned extensions, but for now, this change has been put on hold, because things have been going fine, and it would just mean additional organizational chaos as well as people, who don't know about the unbranded version, screaming about Mozilla creating a walled garden. But if all of the above applied for you, you should probably report this to Mozilla, as that might be enough reason to get them moving on this change. [0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-...
- Sylos 10y ago
  Someone below commented that they actually removed the flag with this release, so, ignore that last paragraph...
- grok2 10y ago
  xpinstall.signatures.required is true in about:config on my Firefox. It seems like that doesn't matter. The only other add-ons I have are NoScript, Pocket and LastPass and I trust these. The McAfee add-on only has a "Disable" button and when I disable and restart, it does get disabled. I am unable to remove it and the external McAfee installer/configuration manager does not have any settings to prevent it from getting installed. And every-time McAfee updates itself, it re-enables it's add-on and I have to go in and manually disable it. I am surprised that no-one else is facing the same problem and is not complaining about it (Google search didn't show me any results regarding this topic and I found only mentions of similar problems (pre 2014) on the Mozilla forums).

by grok2 10y ago

jonathanyc 10y ago

I really really hate those. As far as I could tell when I investigated, these guys actually modify the file system from under the browser (Firefox, Chrome) so there's not much the browser can do.

brokenmachine 10y ago
Those virus protection programs act more like viruses every day...

Sylos 10y ago

Type "about:config" into the URL-bar and hit enter. Confirm to the dialog that you'll be cautious and then search in that page for "xpinstall.signatures.required". I'm guessing, that this is disabled for you. If it is, and you want to get rid of the McAfee-extension, then remove the McAfee extension and re-enable xpinstall.signatures.required. It shouldn't be able to reinstall then. If it does anyways, check about:config, again, if that preference is re-enabled. If it is re-enabled, either some add-on in your add-on-list is malicious and re-enabling it, which then allows McAfee to reinstall, or McAfee is abusing the prefs.js-file in your Profile-folder ([0]), which can be used to set about:config-values. All in all, that this is an about:config-toggle to begin with, is kind of crap, as it makes this sort of stuff possible. Mozilla has plans to eventually remove this about:config-toggle from standard Firefox and instead provide a separate unbranded version of Firefox which then does still have that toggle for people who want to use unsigned extensions, but for now, this change has been put on hold, because things have been going fine, and it would just mean additional organizational chaos as well as people, who don't know about the unbranded version, screaming about Mozilla creating a walled garden. But if all of the above applied for you, you should probably report this to Mozilla, as that might be enough reason to get them moving on this change. [0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-...

Sylos 10y ago
Someone below commented that they actually removed the flag with this release, so, ignore that last paragraph...
grok2 10y ago
xpinstall.signatures.required is true in about:config on my Firefox. It seems like that doesn't matter. The only other add-ons I have are NoScript, Pocket and LastPass and I trust these. The McAfee add-on only has a "Disable" button and when I disable and restart, it does get disabled. I am unable to remove it and the external McAfee installer/configuration manager does not have any settings to prevent it from getting installed. And every-time McAfee updates itself, it re-enables it's add-on and I have to go in and manually disable it. I am surprised that no-one else is facing the same problem and is not complaining about it (Google search didn't show me any results regarding this topic and I found only mentions of similar problems (pre 2014) on the Mozilla forums).