R.Wieser wrote:

Hello all,

I've recently installed FF 52 (my older FF 16 didn't have the demanded
encryption levels anymore, and I saw no way to upgrade them), and have a
number problems with it. One of them is that it is a blabbermouth, and I
can't seem to be able to completely shut it up.

First point in case: "location.services.mozilla.com"

Even though I've set, in "about:config" the entry "geo.enabled" to False and
I cannot find any other settings for it, it *still* (tries to) connect to
it.

Second point in case: "tiles.services.mozilla.com"

For this I've even set all the "browser.newtabpage" booleans to false, and
it *still* (tries to) connect to it.

Does anyone have any idea how to kill this "connect to the mothership"
behaviour ?

The preferred solution would be that *all* the "phoning home" is set to Off,
after which I than can switch the settings/services I think I need to On
(and wil get informed that that will need some "phoning home").

A super-duper cherry-on-top would be that these settings (somehow) become
default, so that when I create another profile I do not need to go thru the
whole dance again.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

P.s.
FF 52 seems to be a slow beast in comparision to FF 16. Both in starting up
(even after the first time of the day) as well as in "inspect element".
Anything I can do about either ?

I'm using FF 60 on Windows 7, so Firefox has changed since then;
however, I don't know if it has changed regarding its location services.
For example, since version 55, HTTP-only (non-SSL sites) cannot access
the Geolocation API in Firefox for geolocation.

Did you check that you are not using a proxy with Firefox (or any web
client)? Go to Options - General - Network Proxy and click Settings
button. If set to "system settings", go to Control Panel - Internet
Options - Connections tab - LAN settings.

I also have geo.enabled = False. In TCP View (with the option disabled
to show disconnected endpoints [awaiting a kill]), none of the
firefox.exe processes are connecting to location.services.mozilla.com.

Someone else mentioned the "do not track" option. All that does is send
a *header* sent by your client to the server. All the header does is
*ask* the site not to track you. All the option does is decide whether
or not your client sends the DNT header to the server.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/...TP/Headers/DNT

Rare few sites honor that request. Asking the bad guys not to be bad is
stupid. To disable the "do not track" option also requires setting
"tracking protection" (which uses the Disconnect.me blacklist) to Never.
After disabling those two options and doing a fresh load of Firefox (in
its safe mode to eliminate any extension connections), I still did not
see firefox.exe connecting to location.services.mozilla.com.

Since disabling the DNT and tracking options didn't get a connection to
location.services.mozilla.com

Did you go into options - Security & Privacy - Permissions and check
that the whitelist of sites for Location was empty? I don't know if the
global geo.enabled option overrides all per-site preferences you already
saved.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb...ctlocale=en-US

If you have a 3rd party firewall, you can rein in unruly apps making
connections to where you don't want. Some will prompt when a process
tries to make an outbound connection and let you decide if and when to
allow the connection(s). There are URL filters, too. I use Avast
(free) and it has a URL filter option; however, since I don't see
firefox.exe making connections to location.services.mozilla.com with
geo.enabled = False, I don't need to add a URL filter that won't fire.
Another option is to add a redirection to localhost (127.0.0.0) or
0.0.0.0 in the hosts file for location.services.mozilla.com hostname.

Presumably you are loading Firefox to a blank page, not to some site.
If so, have you worked your way through Mozilla's article on how to stop
Firefox from making automatic connections? See:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb...ic-connections

Link Prefetch
This is disabled in my instance of Firefox by installing the uBlock
Origin extension. Prefetching is considered a workaround to ad blocking
because resources will get fetched at domains you intended to block
using an ad blocker. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_p...and_criticisms
For me, network.prefetch-next = False.

DNS Prefetch
No need to prefetch domains listed in a page unless I choose to actually
visit them. DNS prefetching will populate the DNS cache (in this case,
the internal one in Firefox, not the DNS Client's cache in Windows) with
tons of entries that are worthless since I won't be going to most of
them. This is rude to the DNS providers in generating lookups on hosts
the user never visits. I have netowrk.dns.disablePrefetch = True.

Speculative pre-connections
I deliberately do NOT use their new-tab page with thumbnails of places
that I've previously visited. I will choose where to visit at the time
I decide to go somewhere. I'll use my bookmarks, not a bunch of
thumbnails that generate connections to those sites (which allows them
to track if they are one of your favorites). I don't recall how I got
the current Firefox to open a blank new tab page. In the past, Firefox
presented a gear icon at the top right-side of the tab page that let me
pick options, like blank. At some version, the gear icon disappeared.
I think it's the browser.newtabpage.enabled = False that gets rid of
Mozilla's stupidity in thinking I just must have a cutsy thumbnail of
previously visited sites. That would obviate me having Firefox clearing
everything on its exit since I don't want any history remembered,
either.

Live Bookmarks.
Don't need them, don't want them, another privacy/tracking issue. See
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/live-bookmarks.

Firefox Sync
I do have this enabled but only bookmarks, passwords, add-ons, and
options (so Firefox on different computers will have all this same
info). I suspect that's the cause the firefox.exe connections to
amazonaws and cloudfront.

Snippets
More **** shoved at you because, gee, Mozilla wants to pre-determine how
you will use their web browser during searches.

Geolocation for default search engine
This is not about the geo.enabled option which determines if Firefox
will respond to site requests for that info. This about which region to
pick for your default search engine. The search sites already do that
via IP geolocation, so it is superfluous in the client. Before I read
this article, I had a URL specified for this option yet I was not seeing
connections to location.services.mozilla.com.

What's New page
Shows after an update. Gee, like I really need to find out AFTER an
update what got changed. They should be presenting a URL to let me see
BEFORE the update what changed. This is worthless to me. I end up
having to delve into Mozilla's site to find the release notes for the
proposed new version before I install it.

Diagnostics
I have both options disabled under Options - Security & Privacy -
Firefox Data Collection and Use section. I haven't tested but perhaps
disabling these options resulted in toolkit.telemetry.enabled = False in
my Firefox setup (although I thought this option was deprecated, so it
didn't control anything). The datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled
option is also disabled for me. You can also go to about:telemetry. If
I go to about:crashes, nothing there because I don't upload any to them.
In that same Options section is Deceptive Content protection. That is
Mozilla using Google's SafeBrowser blacklist; however, it means Google
gets to track to where you navigate to determine if the target is in
their blacklist. I disabled that option. I already use uBlock Origin
for blacklisting and uMatrix configured only to block 3rd party
scripting. Although this section of the article talks about the
heartbeat function, I'm not sure it's there anymore

WebRTC
I have media.peerconnection.enabled = False. However, that is a brute
force method of controlling WebRTC (which can reveal your intranet IP
address for tracking, different than your WAN-side IP address from your
router or modem). This means Google Voice is useless in Firefox to me
after they integrated with Hangouts which uses WebRTC for chatting. I
have to use Google Chrome but with the WebRTC Leak Prevent extension
which is more intelligent: ipleak.net still reports WebRTC is not
leaking my intranet IP address but Google Voice will still work.

Network Detection
I disabled this as soon as I discovered it. It has Firefox attempt to
connect to a Mozilla server to determine if the client is on the other
side of a proxy aka captive portal, like those you see at resorts or
cafes that require you to accept their TOS and perhaps login before you
can use their Internet connection. Do a Google search on this and you
find lots of admins reporting ills with this feature. For me, the
network.captive-portal-service.enabled is set to False.

I've tried many different settings trying to get firefox.exe to connect
to location.services.mozilla.com but I don't see it in TCP View. I
start Firefox with a blank home page (about:blank). In fact, I'm having
a tough time to get connections to location.services.mozilla.com even
with geo.enabled = True and after reloading Firefox. I even went to
moviefone.com which uses geolocation. Turns out I had to disable both
uBlock Origin and uMatrix to get that site run everything which included
geolocation (probably because they use a script to use the geolocation
API in Firefox). Then I got a prompt from Firefox asking me if I want
to allow that site to use geolocation. Still saw not connection to
location.services.mozilla.com, so either the connection is so quick that
I cannot see it in TCP View or the site tested if geolocation was
available in my client but I hadn't touched anything at the site that
used geolocation.