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



 
 
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  #16  
Old August 1st 18, 09:24 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
R.Wieser
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Posts: 1,302
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabled to False doesn't work)

Paul,

Direct2D has existed for a good while.


I know. But as it specifically mentions D3D 11 ....

The question would be, whether actual D3D 11 constructs
are #included or it's just the bollox of the support
files.


I don't think I've got the expertise to work that out (other than installing
D3D versions in a row and see which one will cause the message to
disappear - which is something I do not really spend my time on).

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.


I already did so to see if I could move the FF 52 parts onto FF 16. I
intercepted the function calls to the different DLLs in both versions, and
tried to match them up. I gave up on it when I saw too many functions
disappearing and structures changing. :-(


But what I tried to ask was if you knew if there maybe is an earlier version
of FF which supports encryptions just like FF 52 does, but doesn't have that
"phone home" stuff yet.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


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  #17  
Old August 1st 18, 10:02 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabledto False doesn't work)

R.Wieser wrote:
But what I tried to ask was if you knew if there maybe is an earlier version
of FF which supports encryptions just like FF 52 does, but doesn't have that
"phone home" stuff yet.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


That's just not going to happen.

Who knows whether anything in the latest crypto package,
has dependencies elsewhere in the executable. Even if
it is tie-ins to some logging subsystem or something,
it might still have been made non-modular enough to
prevent easy swappage.

While some students did a project where they were
supposed to draw a high level block diagram by
examining the code, there are so many files in
the package, what single individual has ever looked
at each and every file ? The bundle might have 600000 files,
the tarball about 400000 files. Many files are test
cases to run on the results of compilation, so they're
not all actual source files.

Even the text editor that was used to edit the
files isn't all that consistent. I ran the Linux
"file" command through the tree, and it coughed up
all sorts of line-ending combinations. It's a mess
in there.

I even tried single-stepping in Windbg in there one
day, and gave up after two hours. I was in the
print code. I single stepped through three routines
with different names, which seemed to be doing the
same things, but with a slightly different subset
of print preferences. It was almost like V1 of some
print routine was called first, then a V2 version,
then a V3 version, sequentially. Like the author of
that mess, couldn't be bothered to clean up and
remove the code that was no longer relevant. Now
imagine if the crypto person started doing that
to a module.

Maybe it's dead-easy to back port the crypto,
but my exposure to the code so far doesn't
build confidence.

Paul
  #18  
Old August 1st 18, 10:57 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
R.Wieser
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Posts: 1,302
Default FireFox 52 - how to disable location services (setting geo.enabled to False doesn't work)

VanguardLH,

For example, since version 55, HTTP-only (non-SSL sites) cannot
access the Geolocation API in Firefox for geolocation.


FF 52 is the last version that will run on XP. All versions above it are a
no-go for me.

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.


Lucky you. :-) But alas, mine still does. Both the location and tiles
URLs are attempted at each start of FF.

Someone else mentioned the "do not track" option. All that does
is send a *header* sent by your client to the server.


I only realized later that they where (probably!) talking about that DNT
entry. I forgot all about it, as I regard it as absolutily meaningless.

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


Whoops ... I got the feeling that Paul indicated to *enable* the setting ?

As for the rest, I disable the tracking protection (and anything else I
could think).

Did you go into options - Security & Privacy - Permissions and
check that the whitelist of sites for Location was empty?


:-) That list got cleared as a result of intitial setup checklist.

I don't know if the global geo.enabled option overrides all
per-site preferences you already saved.


The next time I get presented with a per-site preference setting will be the
first one.

If you have a 3rd party firewall, you can rein in unruly apps
making connections to where you don't want.


Thats pretty-much what I'm doing now (redirecting/blocking requests for
certain domains). But I don't like it to have to do it that way.

Presumably you are loading Firefox to a blank page, not
to some site.


A local webpage ("file://") actually.

If so, have you worked your way through Mozilla's article on how
to stop Firefox from making automatic connections?


For the relevant sections, yes (found that page a couple of months ago).

Speculative pre-connections
I deliberately do NOT use their new-tab page with thumbnails of
places that I've previously visited.


On FF 16 I could (and did) set the "browser.newtab.url" entry to my local
homepage. With FF 52 thats no longer possible, and I'm now every time
presented with a "customize your new tab page" sprocket with a drop-down
which shows two options: The (selected) "show blank page" and "show your top
sites" (and a "learn about new tab" link, wisking you away to a Mozilla
website).

I tried some different combinations, but even when I allowed the tiles to
show the sprocket and menu kept being displayed. :-(

All-in-all you could say that I'm not a happy camper.

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.


As mentioned, I see them (location and tiles) at least every time I start
the browser. And I will probably see shavar (and possibly others) pop up
somewhere today to. Grrr...

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


  #19  
Old August 1st 18, 11:11 AM 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)

JJ,

Some features just can't be disabled.


Than they are not "features", amirite ? :-)

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


That was also the first thing I did, and it worked alright-ish. I changed
them all to http (no "s"), and send them to a local IP :
http://127.0.0.254/tiles.services.mozilla.com/something. That way I could
easily monitor and/or catch any attempts to connect, and could even return
some fake data if I wanted.

You just had to remember to disconnect your computer from the web
(physically) when you wanted to create a new profile, and go thru the whole
three-or-four pages of them before reconnecting. One slip-up and ...

After that I wrote something to intercept the domain resolving, and send
them into the woods (same IP as above), or block it altogether. It works
well, and I do not need to worry about new profiles and/or if the domain is
actually been retrieved from a user-alterable configuration setting.

Neither of the above gives me the feeling that the browser is *mine* to
control though ...

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


  #20  
Old August 1st 18, 11:19 AM 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,

Who knows whether anything in the latest crypto package,
has dependencies elsewhere in the executable. Even if
it is tie-ins to some logging subsystem or something,
it might still have been made non-modular enough to
prevent easy swappage.


I think you misunderstood: I was trying to ask if you maybe knew of an
earlier FF vesion which supports the same encryptions as 52 does (or at
least has enough of them to work with what the current websites demand)

Maybe it's dead-easy to back port the crypto,
but my exposure to the code so far doesn't
build confidence.


My attempt was to see if I could maybe create a few "glue" DLLs, which would
translate the requests from an older version of FF into a form understood by
the newer DLLs (as provided with FF 52). But as mentioned, the
disappearance of certain functions caused that to be cut short.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


 




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