Mozilla Firefox Browser Stable Version Releases

I can. Firefox 50 starts noticeably faster for me.

 

For me ghostery doesn't work with Firefox 50 (on two machines).

Clicking on the ghostery icon just gives a blank white window.

Is anyone else seeing this?

 

I'm disgusted, I was just forced to upgrade to Firefox 50, because some extensions "could not be verified", and there was no way to enable them anyway. And now all of my bookmarks are lost, and for some reason my backup file is not accepted and restore also doesn't work.

Also, I'm guessing I will now have to use the new Ghostery version which kinda sucks. About my bookmarks file, isn't it possible to rename it to a JSON or HTML file? I just tried but the FF bookmark manager does not accept the file. Is there a way to fix it?

 

@Rasheed187 ,

If you want to use Ghostery you can get all the versions from here - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ghostery/versions/

 

Use uBlock origin or Privacy badger instead, Ghostery is turning into spyware.

 

I've never experienced this myself. I guess that your profile is corrupt. So, if you haven't a backup of your complete profile it might be the best solution to create a new one by executing firefox -p. Then you can try to transfer data from the old to the new profile. More info about your bookmarks here. You should have several backup files (in my case there are 15) of your bookmarks in the bookmarkbackups subfolder in your profile. But copying the places.sqlite file might be sufficient unless it is corrupt.

 

Export to HTML and Export to JSON are the built-in options. So assuming it was produced by Firefox it should be one of those, right? Even if it doesn't already have the proper extension, you can look at the contents and tell what format it is. While doing so you can also look it over and try to determine if it looks like a good file or has an area of obvious corruption. If you suspect corruption try a different backup file. Or rather, a copy of a different backup file. So you don't put a precious backup file at risk.

Have you searched for reports about import/export format changes in FF 50 and/or related bugs? Another thing you could try: grab a portable FF 50 and see if it will import your bookmarks backup file. That's a quick and easy way to eliminate both your profile plus installation, and get a read on how a clean Firefox 50 behaves. Edit: Given that Firefox with defaults may have online behaviors that some people don't want, I should have mentioned going offline for testing (if possible and deemed important).

 

I had the "extensions could not be verified" issue once. Here's the fix:

http://www.ghacks.net/2016/08/14/override-firefox-add-on-signing-requirement/

 

Guys thanks for all of the suggestions. Yes, it seems like this is the case. Because I just noticed that FF does correctly import the bookmarks file in another sandbox. So I guess I will first have to fix my profile, the only problem is that I don't feel like configuring all of my extensions again, but perhaps I have no choice.

Perhaps this is indeed a good chance to stop using Ghostery. I have always used it alongside uBlock, but it should be able to block all/most trackers anyway.

Thanks, glad to see it's still possible to use older versions, nice find.

 

For some weird reason, my latest backups that I made were not saved as JSON, but after changing the file extension into JSON it did work in another FF. I use Sandboxie so I could luckily easily test this. I've just also made another backup in HTML. Thanks for the other feedback.

Thanks, but it's now too late for this. Hopefully Mozilla will stop with these practices. I mean, if I have disabled automatic updating of FF and extensions they shouldn't try to verify stuff.

 

Good news, it was easier to fix than I thought. I copied the profile from another FF sandbox that was working correctly. After that I copied my extensions and imported my bookmarks, and now everything is up and running again. The only thing I needed to do was configuring some of my extensions like uBlock and NoScript, but that wasn't a big deal. But I've learned my lesson, before an update, always backup the profile folder.

 

You can export / import the settings of both NoScript and uBlockO, which saves heaps of time.

 

Good. So now that you aren't stressed... do you have a moment to describe, once more, what happened? You said you were forced to upgrade to FF 50. Do you mean you felt you had no choice or an upgrade happened despite being disabled? You stated the reason was extensions "could not be verified". Which sounds like an extension signing issue, rather than an extension compatibility issue. I'm not sure how that fits in. Was the previous version/config one that enforced signing checks? I'm just curious if there is something to be learned from what you ran into, or whether it was just a wacky profile corruption that doesn't lend itself to explanation.

 

I was forced to upgrade, because certain extensions would not work anymore in FF version 42. Member Victek already linked to an article explaining this issue. So I downloaded FF v50, and apparently my profile got corrupted, with as result that the FF bookmarks manager didn't work correctly anymore.

Because of Sandboxie, I use multiple FF versions (for extension testing), so I copied my profile from another sandbox that was not corrupted, and that fixed everything. After that, I only needed to import my bookmarks file and extension settings. The good news is that FF v50 feels a bit more snappy.

Yes, I forgot I actually saved those settings, so I will now import them, good thinking.

 

What do you mean by "would not work anymore"? I'm aware that some extension developers drop support for older FF versions when they create newer versions of their extension. Is that what happened? You wanted to use updated extensions that no longer supported FF 42?

I'm familiar with addon signing and the autoconfig based SIGNED_TYPES.clear() approach to disabling it. However, https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/Extension_Signing indicates that FF 42 was a version that only warned about unsigned addons and in some versions after that it wasn't mandatory (could be disabled by pref even without doing the autoconfig thing). So I'm thinking you really didn't run into a signing problem until after you installed FF50. However, there is one thing that I'm confused about at the moment...

IIRC, there was an issue (can't remember the details, and a few searches I did were unfruitful) where previously signed extensions were no longer accepted as being properly signed and Mozilla had to resign them all. I think it might have involved a signature related expiration, but I just don't know. I'd like to refresh my memory on that subject, and if you ran into it in this case, maybe you can help. If anyone remembers that and can point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.

 

Some bugs that may be of interest from the FF 50 release notes. I left out most of the SafeBrowsing v4 related ones. Plus a bunch of telemetry ones (figuring people here will disable it).

906420 - [DnD] dataTransfer.items undefined in Firefox (implement DataTransferItem and DataTransferItemList)
918721 - [XHR2] getResponseHeader() returns null instead of empty string for header without value (X-Custom-Header-Empty )
962433 - Use Reader Mode for printing articles
1025965 - Rename browser.safebrowsing.enabled to browser.safebrowsing.phishing.enabled
1100181 - (CSP 1.1) look at connect-src directive when submitting pings
1136707 - Unchecking Play DRM Content disables Clear Key
1150371 - DRM UI shows up when the Clear Key CDM is in use
1162050 - Remove draggesture and dragdrop events
1186932 - Implement support for form submission of a picked directory
1186948 - remove Flash from navigator.plugins when it's click-to-play
1188657 - Keep SSLTLS key logging working with all Firefox builds from Mozilla
1206246 - Show indication when some permissions have been granted to the current site
1223838 - Enable perElementReferrer by default
1234813 - navigator.sendBeacon() throws an exception if blocked by content policies
1250922 - Add gpsd location provider
1258041 - Update the tracking protection list selection UI to account for the DNT-related changes
1259335 - Remove deprecated navigator.battery API
1263793 - Verify remote newtab signatures using the content signature service
1264164 - Support Referrer Policy HTTP header
1264165 - Implement link referrerpolicy attribute
1265008 - Enable the Kinto.js OneCRL client for release channels
1265767 - Implement a subset of the Blink FileSystem API for compat reasons
1268728 - Remove ability to enable RC4
1270357 - Implement runtime.connectNative for LinuxMac
1270359 - Implement runtime.connectNative for Windows
1271775 - Create an initial implementation of auto-migration of the most-useful browser data on initial startup of a clean (non-reset) profile behind a pref
1272197 - [Presentation WebAPI] implement connect disconnect launch command
1272436 - Implement only-if-cached RequestCache mode
1273351 - Get rid of permission requirement for PointerLock API
1274332 - Add testpilot.firefox.com to the xpinstall whitelist
1274959 - Do we want to support link files in HTMLInputElement - filePickerdirectory upload APIblink fileSystem API
1275238 - Certificate Transparency support in mozillapkix (RFC 6962)
1276132 - [EME] Compile in EME code by default, behind hidden prefs
1276412 - Enable containers in Nightly only
1278198 - [Widevine] Use of EME defined 'persistentState' attribute not supported by the CDM on Firefox beta47
1278410 - Remove geo fuzzing
1279077 - Add WebM EME support for Widevine
1280692 - sendBeacon should use 'no-cors' per default
1280861 - Add network identification telemetry to Windows version too
1281077 - system add-ons should not be disabled by users
1281188 - Add network identification telemetry to Mac version
1281505 - set network.predictor.prefetch-enabled = true by default only on nightly
1281963 - Hide navigator.plugins and navigator.mimeTypes when resisting fingerprinting (Tor 17207)
1282680 - Windows nativeMessagingHost registry locations to include 32 & 64 bit locations
1282871 - enable importing Family Safety root by default
1283010 - Windows nativeMessagingHost registry keyvalue differ from docChrome
1283053 - dom.input.dirpicker should not be enabled by default in nightly
1283325 - Make EME Plugins Gecko Media Plugins storage OriginAttribute aware
1283368 - Implement cookie prefixes spec
1285052 - Enforce a maximum max-age for HPKP
1285265 - Only enable captive portal detection on nightly
1285607 - Enable Simplify Print Feature by default
1287827 - Remove Firefox Hello from FF49
1288683 - Enable webkitdirectory and Entries API
1289255 - Implement DataTransferItem.webkitGetAsEntry
1289634 - Enable Widevine EME and don't enable Primetime EME in default build configuration
1291472 - Add more application reputation extensions
1296004 - Disable bug 1186948 (via pref)
1296059 - Pref-off WebGL2 in 50
1297479 - Create a pref to turn off our undo UI for automigration

 

Thanks.

 

No, the extensions were supported and should have worked in FF 42. Extensions are never auto-updated on my system. But because they couldn't get verified, FF decided to disable them. The only way to solve it was to upgrade.

BTW, about FF 50, I noticed that in older versions you could click on the star button (on the address-bar) to bookmark sites, it's still possible but it also pops-up a dialog window, can this be disabled? Another thing that I haven't been able to figure out is how to make FF open sites in a new tab after paste and go, how to fix this?

 

Tab Mix Plus

 

Are you using Classic theme restorer? The addon has an option you tick to get rid of the annoying pop up (General UI2).

Bo

 

I use both of these extensions but couldn't find the setting, can you help me with this?

 

"Tab Mix Plus options/Events/Tab Opening/Open tabs from:"

Checking the Address bar should result in a new tab opening with paste and go.

 

Open Classic theme restorer, Click the General UI2 tab, Tick "Bookmarks star:hide popup (if page is not bookmarked)".

Bo