Mozilla Firefox: "All extensions disabled due to expiration of intermediate signing cert"

submitted by sawboss from news.ycombinator.com

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[–]Vulphere 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Now it's fixed.

2-years certificate had lapsed.

validity: notBefore: May 4 00:09:46 2017 GMT notAfter: May 4 00:09:46 2019 GMT subject: C=US, O=Mozilla Corporation, OU=Mozilla AMO Production Signing Service, CN=signingca1.addons.mozilla.org/emailAddress=foxsec@mozilla.com

[–]sawboss[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks. I'll hit it tomorrow.

[–]FormosaOolong 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That's so weird. I was fine all yesterday, and now adblockers and DDG/SP are all disabled.

[–]magnora7 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Man they really messed that up, didn't they

[–]ikidd 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Actually sounds like they had no control over it. But they did have control over requiring extensions be signed, and they had control over the Studies that introduced that MrRobot shite, prompting a lot of people to disable that, and short of an update, the only way they had to send a hotfix for it.

[–]sawboss[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Yes.

[–]HorseMeat 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (17 children)

If you are using Tor Browser, you should use this temporary fix:

In about:config change xpinstall.signatures.required from true to false. This will allow you to use the addons bundled with the Tor Browser until a fix arrives.

[–]happysmash27 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (16 children)

Same with most Linux distributions of Firefox as well as Waterfox and probably Palemoon.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (14 children)

What is the point of these Firefox derivatives if they are phoning home to Mozilla about your extensions every 24h just like Firefox?

[–]wizzwizz4 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

They changed other things in the browser. Not every derivative has to be perfect. Although… Waterfox does claim "no telemetry".

I don't think this bug is due to phoning home, though. I think it's just bog-standard certificate expiration, that's only checked once every 24 hours.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (12 children)

Checking every 24 hours is phoning home? They are monitoring me to ensure I haven't installed any non-signed Add Ons.

[–]wizzwizz4 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

I don't think it requests the certificate anew, though. According to my theory, the bug would still occur if you disconnected the internet connection. That's why they couldn't just patch it server-side, and had to push something through to the actual installed copies of Firefox – using the push-through system that's easy to turn off and I can't remember whether it's on by default.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

I think it's all enabled by default. I'm done with Mozilla, someone out there respects their own goddamn users.

I just read a story about how they popped up special Mr Robot ads to everyone a few years ago.

[–]ikidd 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

What's the choice, Google Chrome, or Google Edge, or Google Chromium, or Google Vivaldi?

Overall, Firefox is the closest thing we have to a large userbase browser with fair support that isn't part of the Google spying machine.

[–]wizzwizz4 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Well, there are Firefox forks.

[–]wizzwizz4 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

The Mr Robot ad only came up to users who hadn't opted out – which I know isn't good enough; I disagree with Mozilla's new "opt-out" policy too – and they apologised for it.

Mozilla needs to change, but is this really what made you want to drop it? A certificate expiration that was only an issue because Mozilla had limited ability to push things out to people's Firefox instances?

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

The expiration doesn't bug me, it's the phone home and non privacy focused settings enabled by default. Yeah man I'm old and sick of this shit.

[–]wizzwizz4 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

So, this was just what made you re-evaluate and realise that you wouldn't put up with it any more? Mozilla's great, but the decisions they're having to make with Firefox to keep the funding from Google can only really be described as "compromised".

[–]HorseMeat 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

For Firefox, you can use the official hotfix provided by Mozilla.

[–]happysmash27 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I had to set xpinstall.signatures.required to false on Waterfox Mobile, which I found out about on my desktop Waterfox where all my addons still worked.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

The Mozilla browser became completely useless through that, so I decided to change over to Vivaldi, deleting the Firefox. So long, and thanks for all the shoes.

[–]sawboss[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Vivaldi

What are the selling points for you? Are they SJW scum like Mozilla?

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Are they SJW scum like Mozilla?

I'm not interested in anything like that. Vivaldi just offers a wide range of individual customization options, which is very important for me. In addition, most add-ons from the Chrome Store also run with Vivaldi.

[–]sawboss[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

cool

[–]Siona 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

One of their most outspoken people is this: https://twitter.com/GwenDragonTek

Who obviously ticks all of the SJW boxes.

But... he/she(?) mostly argued against banning Dissenter: https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/36490/firefox-and-chrome-banned-dissenter?page=1

So YMMW.

I'm not using Vivaldi for mostly two reasons:

1) It's not FOSS. 2) It doesn't seem finished. Every other version there's a new bug (like extensions not opening when you click on then, fullscreen mode not working, etc. mostly UI stuff) that breaks my workflow.

[–]sawboss[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It doesn't behave like FF and it's less responsive. I'm pretty sure it consumes more CPU while idling than FF.

[–]Optimus85 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

The ads are back!!! Aaaarrrggghhhh!!!

[–]swordofdamocles42 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

i bet google is behind this to push more people on to chrome....

before google got involved, FF was the shizzle.

, now each update makes it worse i wish they would just go back to version 12. with current addons

[–]sawboss[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

[–]swordofdamocles42 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

cheers... i'm looking for a lightwheight browser than will allow addons namely an adblocker and youtube downloader

[–]sawboss[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#ublock-origin

https://www.downloadhelper.net

[–]swordofdamocles42 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

nice one thank you :D

[–]FormosaOolong 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Did they fix it already? Or is everything working for me bc I haven't updated?

[–]sawboss[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

edit: fuck :(

I have not experienced any issues with FF 66 on Ubuntu 18.10. Obviously thousands of other people did have troubles though.

[–]m68k 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I mostly use Seamonkey for my main browsing, but I do use the latest Firefox for other things that require an updated browser. I'm currently testing Waterfox (meant to do this for a while now), though I'll most likely continue to use Firefox. ATM, addons are not coming back for me, and cannot download them in Firefox, but download fine in Waterfox.

Edit: So it's Sunday, and the two profiles that I have using the latest Firefox still cannot get the addons restored, even when downloading them from the site (“Download failed. Please check your connection”). I decided to make a new test profile, and attempted to download the addons. And to my surprise, they downloaded fine, no “Download failed. Please check your connection” error message.

I’m guessing that I now have two botched profiles, which I can’t seem to get addons working on them. Even though I can simply make two brand new profiles, someone over at Firefox should not be screwing around with people’s profiles because “they know better”. I was planning to move my other profiles from Firefox version 54 over to the updated Firefox, but now I scrapped that plan. Might totally go with Waterfox or something along the line. What’s to say this won’t happen again, where the new profiles I make don’t end up getting botched the same. Just hope the Lab Computers at my job that I’m in charge of are not borked the same. I already hate dealing with Windows computers, don’t need another thing driving me nuts. XD