Tiny Core Extensions > TCE Tips & Tricks

Firefox removed "Never check for updates" option

<< < (2/4) > >>

grandma:
Firefox used to be great and it's market share reflected that.

Then despite being pretty weak and dysfunctional Chrome took the lead it holds today, while the "OPEN SOURCE" team at Mozilla, despite what appears to be 100's ?1000's? of contributors has failed to produce a BETTER PRODUCT with each upgrade.

As mentioned in many of my posts I thrive on TC 3x running Firefox 4x - fast, light and it worked for darn near 10 years for everything. Ideally I'd re-compile it with newer SSLs and Pulse so it played videos/audios on the modern net, jack in a new User Agent to fool web sites into thinking it was the newest stuff and forget all the horrible features Firefox has added since 4x.

I stayed at around 50X - 60X since you can disable auto-updates. After around 63 ?? no such luck..

So since I have a lot of content I publish that has videos/audio and need a functional browser and hate the FF'dUp nagging, updates, pain configuration etc. I wrote a script that:

a) ZAPS /home/tc/.mozilla

b) starts FF for milliseconds until the file /home/tc/.mozilla/firefox/something.default/prefs.js exists, then

c) kills the Firefox process - it's so fast it never even appears on the screen, then

d) copy in a user.js file into the same folder with all the things I want - like autoplay media, no updates, allow full screen, allow window move and resize etc. as well as PORT access - a key to systems I run. The newer FF blocks all kinds of things and even refuses to open http sites - if they don't have https.

It's over-engineered, barely functions, and sadly what was once a great browser now requires crowbars and dynamite to get it to behave.....

There's a reason GMAIL has a BASIC HTML version and every site should...and fewer and fewer do.

A similar "OVER-ENGINEERING" process is happening at Godaddy and YouTube. I haven't been able to use GoDaddy's site since around 2011 so I have to call everything in - sad - but they know me.

As for YouTube I met a senior exec there over beers - I am about 5 miles away as the crow flies - over a mountain - and they explained there is absolutely ZERO discipline there. (DId I spell that right - OMG!) Sure, she said, it's a loose caboose walk the hallways in your bathrobe environment that encourages innovation, but the QC sucks, the new features suck, they're losing market share to other media outlets like Twitch, Rokfin and others - and if you try to give them feedback that screen bombs....wtf?

In short as an old ComSci teacher once reminded me BEFORE adding bells and whistles make it do the basics or you just have crap. It was the Borland SCRUM philosophy and they outproduced Microsoft on a dollars per line of code basis of 4000 to 1.

STEPS:

1. Open Firefox - whatever state it's in.

2. Go to about:config

3. Change it the way you want it.

4. Copy prefs.js from the /home/tc/.mozilla/firefox/something.default folder

5. Add more options you find online, like how to get it to allow communicating on specific PORTS.

6. Pack it up in user.js

7. Whenever you tce load firefox run a script that waits for the file prefs.js to be created then kills firefox. This step really isn't required. You can just restart firefox in step 9.

8. Copy your user.js into the folder side-by-side with prefs.js

9. Close all firefox sessions and restart.

10. Most of the nags and other issues disappear. However, as mentioned, after around V60 turning off auto updates seems to be a nightmare.

nick65go:
@gradma: thanks for the tips. here are my tips:
I have the /home/tc/.mozilla/ in mydata.gz (< 300 KB); I customized it using tc rules (files/folders to exclude) for tc backup. Plus few folders are read-only, or "invisible"/ -r -w -x rights (like crash*, cache, wigets) even for tc user ;) So firefox can not collect my data, and it can not send my old data out, because all the time it assume is first time run. And basicaly it has no old data to spy from.

FYI: the plugins (ublock)? are just simbolic-link from mydata.tz to other hdd/partition , so plugins can be updated independently from firefox versions.

FYI: in paranoic cases, firefox runs in chroot, so even more isolated, AND under another tc guest user rights (in chroot is whatever user, like john, but in tc is user guest).

I customized the firefox.tcz, as to do not have other (updater, data-reporter, crasher etc) ELF/executables inside.

PS: I do not undestand the role for start and kill firefox. file preference.js can be empty, is re-created by FF, but user.js has priority, and it is enough. YMMV. I "studied" firefox calling process, by adding one by one the files asked for (ldd firefox), delete a file and if not working then putting it back etc.

Juanito:
btw, firefox-ESR in the x86_64 repo and firefox in the armv7/aarch64 repos are compiled on tinycore and use alsa sound rather than pulseaudio.

Rich:
Hi grandma

--- Quote from: grandma on July 14, 2021, 01:21:53 AM --- ... I stayed at around 50X - 60X since you can disable auto-updates. After around 63 ?? no such luck.. ...
--- End quote ---


--- Quote --- ... 10. Most of the nags and other issues disappear. However, as mentioned, after around V60 turning off auto updates seems to be a nightmare.

--- End quote ---
What are you talking about? The very first post in this thread explains exactly  how to disable auto updates
and eliminate the little nag messages. I was running Firefox 79 when I wrote those instructions.

Last month I installed Firefox 89 and the same technique works with that too.

Rich:
By the way, if anyone is having an issue because some sites are rendering with very small text, see this:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,25047.msg159619.html#msg159619

I ran into that after installing Firefox 89.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page