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FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabled to False doesn't work)



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 31st 18, 05:41 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
R.Wieser
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,302
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabled to False doesn't work)

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 ?


Ads
  #2  
Old July 31st 18, 07:07 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabledto False doesn't work)

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 ?



There appears to be a build time option.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1063739

"Fedora Firefox RPM are build using --disable-necko-wifi ,
which means geolocation is disabled."

There's a single mozconfig file in the build directory
which you can set as required. For example, it can
support debug or release builds. The debug build
would have .pdb symbol files for debugging purposes
in Windows. It's assumed the build recipe still uses
the compiler and linker from a Visual Studio install.
(VS makes .pdb and works with WinDBG, while gcc tool
flow makes files that work with gdb, never the twain
shall meet).

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/..._Build_Options

And using the disable-necko-wifi then shows up in about: URI

"And, having to use it explicitely means it will show up in about:buildconfig"

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=653902

"necko wifi uses the system services to identify the MAC address
of nearby wifi access points. This is used to provide opt-in
geolocation services to the web."

Building used to be easy, in that the downloadable tarball
was pretty well ready to go. The last time, yeah, I got
a tarball, but then I had to clone a mercurial (HG) tree
of some sort, because stuff was missing from the tarball
and it was never going to work.

*******

In the example here, you can run a localhost and fake
your own location. The South Pole is popular this time
of year.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...tting#24937564

*******

You can shop here for a tarball, and at least
have source to read. And don't expect "geo.enabled"
to pop up if you run grep/findstring either. Again,
that would be too convenient. We can't have you
reading the source, now can we. 52.9.0esr is the
last ESR I see in the list.

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/fire...9.0esr/source/

File firefox-52.9.0esr.bundle 988M 25-Jun-2018 08:55
File firefox-52.9.0esr.source.tar.xz 204M 25-Jun-2018 08:55

And if you get the idea into your head, of "fixing" all
the line endings so Windows text editors work properly,
don't do that to the tree you will be building from. There
is *one* source file, that will throw a compile time error,
and no amount of fiddling with it, would tame the bug.
It was probably a bug in the compiler, but I couldn't
figure out how a line ending change (on hundreds of
thousands of other files), wasn't doing something
similar. I had a script that attempted to change the
line endings on around 50000 files or so, and just one file
of those select few, became unhappy.

Paul
  #3  
Old July 31st 18, 08:21 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
R.Wieser
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,302
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabled to False doesn't work)

Paul,

There appears to be a build time option.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1063739

"Fedora Firefox RPM are build using --disable-necko-wifi ,
which means geolocation is disabled."


Geolocation is just one of the problems, and not even the most obnoxious one
either (they *promissed* they would first ask me before providing it to the
website that asks for it :-) ). I also mentioned
"tiles.services.mozilla.com", and I thought I got rid of
"shavar.services.mozilla.com", but it popped up again.

And although I think I can use that sourcefile (I can use it to try to
figure out how an SSL connection verifies the certificate
(SSL_AuthCertificateHook) - something I've been unable to find), I'm not at
all sure if I want to build a full environment just to recompile FF (with
one feature feature less). I'm not even sure if I can still find a
compiler which would work on XPsp3 and be able to handle that source ...

In the example here, you can run a localhost and fake
your own location.


Yup, I found a similar article too. And although somewhat funny, it would
do me no good: I'm running my browser with JS disabled - which means a
website would not be able to execute the request anyway. :-)

You can shop here for a tarball, and at least
have source to read


And that can never hurt. Especially not when I still have something to
figure out. So thanks.

By the way, what is that "firefox-52.9.0esr.bundle" supposed to be ? A
bundle of something, but it dosn't say what (and I do not really want to
download a gig only to throw it away 5 seconds later ...)

And if you get the idea into your head, of "fixing" all
the line endings so Windows text editors work properly,


... which is something I normally do. Way-back-when (in DOS times) I wrote a
small program for it I'm stil using (there might be better/easier programs
for it, but that one is mine :-) )

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

P.s.
Currently I'm blocking the domains another way, so they do not get out. But
it irks me to no end that, as far as I'm concerned, FF misbehaves this way.


  #4  
Old July 31st 18, 08:27 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabledto False doesn't work)

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 ?



OK, how about this. Hard to believe this is the right control.

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/disab...ation-browsers

"Click on Settings and press the Privacy tab. Here under Tracking,
check the Tell websites I do not want to be tracked check-box."

Good luck - beats building from source.

*******

With regard to speeding up your new browser,
you could test with a new video card :-/
Disabling hardware acceleration, just makes the
CPU work harder, so you should not be able to
beat a speed problem by doing that.

That's the problem with compositing at 60FPS and
relying on the video card. The user better have
a shiny fresh new video card. The chances of
us getting a buzzword compliant video card with
the right hardware interface on it now, are just
about zero. NVidia no longer even provides 32 bit
drivers, let alone new WinXP drivers. NVidia now
is 64-bit.

*******

"In Firefox, type about:support in the URL bar, and check under
"Graphics", it should say "GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1", i.e.
one of one browser windows is using HW acceleration. If it says
"0/1", then you probably have compatibility problems (GPU driver
issues that would lead to security holes or crashes, mostly),
and it won't matter whether you enable acceleration or not."

Dunno which version of Firefox that applies to.

HTH,
Paul
  #5  
Old July 31st 18, 08:59 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabledto False doesn't work)

R.Wieser wrote:
Hello all,

I've recently installed FF 52


The .bundle file contains references to Mercurial Hg
and 7ZIP cannot take the file apart further. The
internal construction is reminiscent of tar.

You only need to download the .bundle, if following
a build recipe. Unpacking the .bundle, gives you
a Mercurial build tree with maybe clang or rust
or somesuch.

A machine with 32GB of RAM and a 64-bit OS, is
a good candidate for making a 32-bit version
of modern Firefox :-/

I had one build of Firefox, a while back, that
just barely fit in 3GB of working RAM during
the link stage. And you just know that's no longer
true. The linking stage has to be even bigger now.

Paul
  #6  
Old July 31st 18, 09:11 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
R.Wieser
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,302
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabled to False doesn't work)

Paul,

OK, how about this. Hard to believe this is the right control.


Than thats two of us. When I go to that setting it says "Firefox will send
a signal that you don't want to be tracked whenever Tracking Protection is
on". The whole point is that I want *less* blabbering, not more. :-)

With regard to speeding up your new browser,
you could test with a new video card :-/


Lolz. Thats not going to happen on old hardware running XP I'm afraid.
I'm not even sure if a "new" videocard for my hardware does still exist.

"In Firefox, type about:support in the URL bar, and check under
"Graphics", it should say "GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1",


I can't find such a line, but I noticed something which could explain some
of the slowness (though I have little problems with its overall performance)

"unavailable by default: Direct2D requires Direct3D 11 compositing"

Never knew that XPsp3 supported D3D 11 ...

Dumb question maybe, but do you have any idea if I can maybe downgrade the
browser a bit but still have the newer encryptions supported ? I sought
for a feature list once (in regard to supported encryptions), but have never
been able to find one.

Regards (and thank you)
Rudy Wieser


  #7  
Old July 31st 18, 09:22 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
R.Wieser
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,302
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabled to False doesn't work)

Paul,

A machine with 32GB of RAM and a 64-bit OS, is
a good candidate for making a 32-bit version
of modern Firefox :-/


:-p That means that even if I wanted and would know how to I would not be
able to make it work. My beefiest machine has got just 4 GB of memory.
Yep, running XP.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


  #8  
Old July 31st 18, 09:33 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Shadow
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,638
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabled to False doesn't work)

On Tue, 31 Jul 2018 22:22:03 +0200, "R.Wieser"
wrote:

Paul,

A machine with 32GB of RAM and a 64-bit OS, is
a good candidate for making a 32-bit version
of modern Firefox :-/


:-p That means that even if I wanted and would know how to I would not be
able to make it work. My beefiest machine has got just 4 GB of memory.
Yep, running XP.



Try Palemoon Portable. Last build for XP is here. Still
handles most certificates/encryption. You can always delete the folder
if it's not what you want.



Install version is he



Runs fine on 1GB RAM. 4GB should be an overkill.
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012
  #9  
Old July 31st 18, 09:36 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabledto False doesn't work)

R.Wieser wrote:
Paul,

OK, how about this. Hard to believe this is the right control.


Than thats two of us. When I go to that setting it says "Firefox will send
a signal that you don't want to be tracked whenever Tracking Protection is
on". The whole point is that I want *less* blabbering, not more. :-)

With regard to speeding up your new browser,
you could test with a new video card :-/


Lolz. Thats not going to happen on old hardware running XP I'm afraid.
I'm not even sure if a "new" videocard for my hardware does still exist.

"In Firefox, type about:support in the URL bar, and check under
"Graphics", it should say "GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1",


I can't find such a line, but I noticed something which could explain some
of the slowness (though I have little problems with its overall performance)

"unavailable by default: Direct2D requires Direct3D 11 compositing"

Never knew that XPsp3 supported D3D 11 ...

Dumb question maybe, but do you have any idea if I can maybe downgrade the
browser a bit but still have the newer encryptions supported ? I sought
for a feature list once (in regard to supported encryptions), but have never
been able to find one.

Regards (and thank you)
Rudy Wieser


Direct2D has existed for a good while.

Compositing requires 128MB of RAM, on a typical platform.
My Macintosh is the first hardware here, with a compositing
layer buttered on top. And the same minimum requirement
might still be enough. The platform there had a 128MB minimum
too. It was based on an estimate of how many panes
might reasonably be opened at once, then sorted
in Z buffer order and presented in a final representation.

The question would be, whether actual D3D 11 constructs
are #included or it's just the bollox of the support
files. Like, maybe the version of Visual Studio, when
called upon to offer graphics primitives, dredged that
up. I think there might even be an option in Visual
Studio to crank that down.

Compositing in the CPU is a bad idea, as you can
imagine. It certainly is in Linux VMs, where compiz
is running. It sucks all the life out of the VM to
do that.

Um, good luck with that project... I guess :-)

Browsers and old OSes - the war never ends.

I often dreamed of moving the crypto suite
from a modern FF to an older one, but
what are the odds that is modular. Maybe
I can find a Vegas bookie to give me odds.

Paul
  #10  
Old July 31st 18, 09:43 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabled to False doesn't work)

In message , Paul
writes:
[]
"In Firefox, type about:support in the URL bar, and check under
"Graphics", it should say "GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1", i.e.
one of one browser windows is using HW acceleration. If it says
"0/1", then you probably have compatibility problems (GPU driver
issues that would lead to security holes or crashes, mostly),
and it won't matter whether you enable acceleration or not."

Dunno which version of Firefox that applies to.

HTH,
Paul

It says "GPU Accelerated Windows 1/1 Direct3D 9" in "Version
27.0.1", for what it's worth (-:
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

live your dash. ... On your tombstone, there's the date you're born and the
date you die - and in between there's a dash. - a friend quoted by Dustin
Hoffman in Radio Times, 5-11 January 2013
  #11  
Old July 31st 18, 09:48 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabledto False doesn't work)

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
[]
"In Firefox, type about:support in the URL bar, and check under
"Graphics", it should say "GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1", i.e.
one of one browser windows is using HW acceleration. If it says
"0/1", then you probably have compatibility problems (GPU driver
issues that would lead to security holes or crashes, mostly),
and it won't matter whether you enable acceleration or not."

Dunno which version of Firefox that applies to.

HTH,
Paul

It says "GPU Accelerated Windows 1/1 Direct3D 9" in "Version
27.0.1", for what it's worth (-:


So yours is working a treat.

Paul
  #12  
Old July 31st 18, 10:22 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabledto False doesn't work)

Paul wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
[]
"In Firefox, type about:support in the URL bar, and check under
"Graphics", it should say "GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1", i.e.
one of one browser windows is using HW acceleration. If it says
"0/1", then you probably have compatibility problems (GPU driver
issues that would lead to security holes or crashes, mostly),
and it won't matter whether you enable acceleration or not."

Dunno which version of Firefox that applies to.

HTH,
Paul

It says "GPU Accelerated Windows 1/1 Direct3D 9" in "Version
27.0.1", for what it's worth (-:


So yours is working a treat.

Paul


More info here, using some keywords from your returned results.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Blocklistin...aphics_Drivers

Paul
  #13  
Old August 1st 18, 12:17 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabledto False doesn't work)

R.Wieser wrote:
Paul,

OK, how about this. Hard to believe this is the right control.


Than thats two of us. When I go to that setting it says "Firefox will send
a signal that you don't want to be tracked whenever Tracking Protection is
on". The whole point is that I want *less* blabbering, not more. :-)

With regard to speeding up your new browser,
you could test with a new video card :-/


Lolz. Thats not going to happen on old hardware running XP I'm afraid.
I'm not even sure if a "new" videocard for my hardware does still exist.

"In Firefox, type about:support in the URL bar, and check under
"Graphics", it should say "GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1",


I can't find such a line, but I noticed something which could explain some
of the slowness (though I have little problems with its overall performance)

"unavailable by default: Direct2D requires Direct3D 11 compositing"

Never knew that XPsp3 supported D3D 11 ...

Dumb question maybe, but do you have any idea if I can maybe downgrade the
browser a bit but still have the newer encryptions supported ? I sought
for a feature list once (in regard to supported encryptions), but have never
been able to find one.

Regards (and thank you)
Rudy Wieser


There are supposed to be controls in about:config
that affect D3D usage.

The set of three is just about video playback, and
the example is probably irrelevant for the majority
of web content.

I basically picked these up, while looking for the
"right abbreviation" for them. I still cannot find
any substantive and modern description of the
dependencies. The "allow-d3d9-fallback" causes graphics
artifacts or even crashing, and should be selected with
care. You can always edit the setting later with a
text editor, if the browser won't stay running long
enough to switch it back.

layers.allow-d3d9-fallback : true

media.mediasource.webm.enabled : true
media.hardware-video-decoding.enabled : false
media.windows-media-foundation.allow-d3d11-dxva : false

Paul
  #14  
Old August 1st 18, 01:08 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,881
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabled to False doesn't work)

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.
  #15  
Old August 1st 18, 04:18 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
JJ[_11_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 744
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabled to False doesn't work)

On Tue, 31 Jul 2018 18:41:32 +0200, 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 ?


Some features just can't be disabled.

In my browser, I hijaaked all unwanted URLs in settings from about:config,
and make them invalid URLs. Just in case.

e.g.

https://tiles.services.mozilla.com/something

Became:

zhttps://tiles.services.mozilla.com/something

As for the "location.services.mozilla.com" host name, the setting is not
stored by default, so you'll have to add it manually (using "String" as the
value type). The setting name is:

browser.search.geoip.url

In FF 57, it defaults to:

https://location.services.mozilla.co...ZILLA_API_KEY%
 




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