Why I’m done with Chrome

Re:Why I’m done with Chrome by mehrdadn on Sunday September 23, 2018 @06:15PM (#18053589)

Question: How do I sign extensions I wrote for myself so I can actually use them, without uploading a copy of the extension somewhere? That's my roadblocker right now. I don't know how to migrate make my own extensions work on my own system without uploading them to other people's servers. (Yes, I want Firefox stable. I don't want to run a buggy browser.)

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Re:Why I’m done with Chrome by EwanToo on Sunday September 23, 2018 @06:26PM (#18053638)

You can run either Firefox ESR or the unbranded builds [1] if you want unsigned extensions, but I'm curious what your concerns are with the unlisted extensions option from Mozilla?

1 - https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/Extension_Signing#Unbranded...

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Re:Why I’m done with Chrome by mehrdadn on Sunday September 23, 2018 @06:32PM (#18053664)

> You can run either Firefox ESR

Then I have the exact same problem when support dies in the coming months though.

> or the unbranded builds [1]

Interesting, so does this mean that if I want stable builds, I'd have to manually update to the exact unbranded counterpart of that stable version?

> I'm curious what your concerns are with the unlisted extensions option from Mozilla?

I guess because I really don't see what business they have forcing me to upload my extensions to their servers? Same reason why people don't like uploading Chrome stuff to Google servers?

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Edit:

I'm trying out the unbranded builds and running into a problem when I try to use my existing profile: disabling signature checking doesn't work. However, it works on a fresh profile. Not sure what the problem is...

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Re:Why I’m done with Chrome by cpeterso on Sunday September 23, 2018 @08:58PM (#18054292)

> Then I have the exact same problem when support dies in the coming months though.

Good news! Even Firefox ESR 60 always you to disable the mandatory signature checks by setting the "xpinstall.signatures.required" pref = false. The Mozilla add-on wiki was a little unclear, so I just manually verified that the "xpinstall.signatures.required" pref works correctly in Firefox ESR 60. :)

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/Extension_Signing

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Re:Why I’m done with Chrome by hcs on Sunday September 23, 2018 @08:31PM (#18054185)

I know this is exactly what you're trying to avoid, but could you upload an example unsigned extension? I'll try to figure it out, could be a bug somewhere.

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Re:Why I’m done with Chrome by mehrdadn on Sunday September 23, 2018 @08:38PM (#18054211)

Thank you for offering to help! I actually just figured out how to fix it right now myself. The solution is to delete the following lines in prefs.js, then restart unbranded-Firefox twice:

  user_pref("extensions.databaseSchema", 27);
  user_pref("extensions.e10s.rollout.policy", "50allmpc");

The first start takes longer, so I can tell it's resetting something internally (not sure what). However, the second restart is what makes it start working. Not sure why.

Edit:

For anyone else trying to auto-obtain the latest stable Firefox nightly, here's a hacky command (change for your OS as needed):

  curl -s "https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/Extension_Signing" | sed -n "0,/Windows 64-bit Installer/{s/.*href=\"\\(https:[^\"]*\\.zip\\)\">Windows 64-bit Installer<.*/\\1/p}"

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Re:Why I’m done with Chrome by hcs on Sunday September 23, 2018 @08:57PM (#18054288)

Glad to hear you worked it out, good luck! Looking around there are a few levels of cache around whether addons are enabled, I guess those are what you need to clear it.

It's a temporary hack, but you might also want to look at temporarily loading extensions with about:debugging, this works even in official release.

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Re:Why I’m done with Chrome by mehrdadn on Sunday September 23, 2018 @09:00PM (#18054303)

Yeah the temporary thing was already working in the official release, but it's temporary so I was looking for the normal way. Thanks! :)

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Re:Why I’m done with Chrome by ctnb on Sunday September 23, 2018 @06:50PM (#18053754)

You have to use Firefox Developer Edition and change 'xpinstall.signatures.required' to True in about:config

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Re:Why I’m done with Chrome by mehrdadn on Sunday September 23, 2018 @06:52PM (#18053768)

What about the part where I wrote

> Yes, I want Firefox stable. I don't want to run a buggy browser.

? Is the developer edition running the same code as stable?

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Re:Why I’m done with Chrome by hcs on Sunday September 23, 2018 @07:05PM (#18053834)

Developer Edition is essentially Beta with a few changes (which means additional telemetry by default so probably not up your alley):

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/04/simplifying-firefox-releas... (edit for better link)

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Re:Why I’m done with Chrome by mehrdadn on Sunday September 23, 2018 @07:10PM (#18053849)

Yeah, I neither want beta nor telemetry...

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Re:Why I’m done with Chrome by hcs on Sunday September 23, 2018 @07:37PM (#18053956)

fwiw even Nightly is quite stable these days, I can't remember when it last kept me from getting work done. And the addt'l telemetry is just a pref away.

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