Bug 644124 – www-client/firefox: unwanted system add-ons: follow on search

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE

[Description Michelangelo Scopelliti 2018-01-10 13:42:37 UTC]

Recent versions of firefox install in /usr/lib64/firefox/browser/features some system addons (in my case, [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]).

Many of these can be disabled in about:config; followonsearch can not be disabled.

Since such extension is a form of telemetry (see

https://blog.mozilla.org/data/2017/06/05/measuring-search-in-firefox/
https://github.com/mozilla/followonsearch/blob/master/docs/METRICS.md

and also

http://12bytes.org/tech/firefox-search-engine-cautions-and-recommendations#removing-the-8216follow-on-search8217-system-add-on ), is there a way to disable such installation(s) besides using INSTALL_MASK?

emerge --info

Portage 2.3.19 (python 3.6.4-final-0, default/linux/amd64/17.1, gcc-7.2.0, glibc-2.26-r5, 4.14.12 x86_64)
=================================================================
System uname: Linux-4.14.12-x86_64-AMD_A8-3870_APU_with_Radeon-tm-_HD_Graphics-with-gentoo-2.4.1
KiB Mem:    15883612 total,  14092032 free
KiB Swap:          0 total,         0 free
Timestamp of repository gentoo: Wed, 10 Jan 2018 07:47:10 +0000
Head commit of repository gentoo: a20019ed65067cb6f7d21601a9b80d05018a6be1

sh bash 4.4_p12
ld GNU ld (Gentoo 2.29.1 p3) 2.29.1
app-shells/bash:          4.4_p12::gentoo
dev-java/java-config:     2.2.0-r3::gentoo
dev-lang/perl:            5.26.1-r1::gentoo
dev-lang/python:          2.7.14-r1::gentoo, 3.6.4::gentoo
dev-util/cmake:           3.10.1::gentoo
sys-apps/baselayout:      2.4.1-r2::gentoo
sys-apps/openrc:          0.34.11::gentoo
sys-apps/sandbox:         2.12::gentoo
sys-devel/autoconf:       2.13::gentoo, 2.69-r4::gentoo
sys-devel/automake:       1.15.1-r1::gentoo
sys-devel/binutils:       2.29.1-r1::gentoo
sys-devel/gcc:            7.2.0::gentoo
sys-devel/gcc-config:     1.9.1::gentoo
sys-devel/libtool:        2.4.6-r4::gentoo
sys-devel/make:           4.2.1-r1::gentoo
sys-kernel/linux-headers: 4.14::gentoo (virtual/os-headers)
sys-libs/glibc:           2.26-r5::gentoo
Repositories:

gentoo
    location: /usr/portage
    sync-type: git
    sync-uri: https://github.com/gentoo-mirror/gentoo.git
    priority: -1000

kernelpanic
    location: /usr/local/portage/kernelpanic
    masters: gentoo
    priority: 0

libressl
    location: /var/lib/layman/libressl
    sync-type: laymansync
    sync-uri: https://github.com/gentoo/libressl.git
    masters: gentoo
    priority: 50

science
    location: /var/lib/layman/science
    sync-type: laymansync
    sync-uri: https://anongit.gentoo.org/git/proj/sci.git
    masters: gentoo
    priority: 50

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64"
ACCEPT_LICENSE="* -@EULA @EULA"
CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=native -mtune=native -O2 -pipe"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/lib64/libreoffice/program/sofficerc /usr/share/gnupg/qualified.txt"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/dconf /etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/language.dat.d /etc/texmf/language.def.d /etc/texmf/updmap.d /etc/texmf/web2c"
CXXFLAGS="-march=native -mtune=native -O2 -pipe"
DISTDIR="/var/cache/portage/distfiles"
FCFLAGS="-march=native -mtune=native -O2 -pipe"
FEATURES="assume-digests binpkg-logs cgroup clean-logs compress-build-logs config-protect-if-modified distlocks fixlafiles ipc-sandbox merge-sync multilib-strict network-sandbox news parallel-fetch preserve-libs protect-owned sandbox sfperms split-elog split-log strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-orphans userfetch userpriv usersandbox usersync xattr"
FFLAGS="-march=native -mtune=native -O2 -pipe"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org"
LANG="it_IT.UTF-8"
LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed"
MAKEOPTS="-j5"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --omit-dir-times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --human-readable --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages --exclude=/.git"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
USE="X a52 aac acl alsa amd64 ao berkdb blas bluetooth branding bzip2 cairo cdda cdparanoia cdr cjk cli crypt cups curl cxx dbus djvu dri dts dv dvb dvd encode exif ffmpeg fftw flac fontconfig fortran gdbm gif gimp gmp gpm gsm gstreamer gtk iconv icu imlib inotify ipv6 jbig jpeg jpeg2k lame lapack latex lcms libass libnotify libressl lzma lzo mad matroska mikmod mms mng modplug modules mp3 mpeg mtp multilib musepack musicbrainz ncurses nls nptl offensive ogg openal openexr opengl openmp pam pcre pdf png postscript qt5 raw readline scanner seccomp smp sndfile sound sox speex spell sqlite ssl startup-notification svg taglib theora threads tiff truetype udev unicode usb v4l vaapi vdpau vim-syntax vorbis wavpack webp wmf wxwidgets x264 xattr xcb xml xmp xpm xv xvid zlib" ABI_X86="64 32" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" APACHE2_MODULES="authn_core authz_core socache_shmcb unixd actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache cgi cgid dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" CALLIGRA_FEATURES="kexi words flow plan sheets stage tables krita karbon braindump author" COLLECTD_PLUGINS="df interface irq load memory rrdtool swap syslog" CPU_FLAGS_X86="mmx mmxext sse sse2 3dnow 3dnowext popcnt sse3 sse4a" CURL_SSL="libressl" ELIBC="glibc" GPSD_PROTOCOLS="ashtech aivdm earthmate evermore fv18 garmin garmintxt gpsclock isync itrax mtk3301 nmea ntrip navcom oceanserver oldstyle oncore rtcm104v2 rtcm104v3 sirf skytraq superstar2 timing tsip tripmate tnt ublox ubx" GRUB_PLATFORMS="pc" INPUT_DEVICES="evdev libinput" KERNEL="linux" L10N="it en" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LIBREOFFICE_EXTENSIONS="presenter-console presenter-minimizer" LLVM_TARGETS="AMDGPU" OFFICE_IMPLEMENTATION="libreoffice" PHP_TARGETS="php5-6 php7-0" POSTGRES_TARGETS="postgres9_5" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_6" PYTHON_TARGETS="python2_7 python3_6" QEMU_SOFTMMU_TARGETS="x86_64 i386" QEMU_USER_TARGETS="x86_64 i386" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby25" SANE_BACKENDS="xerox_mfp" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="radeon r600" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipset ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tee tarpit sysrq steal rawnat logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account"
Unset:  CC, CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, CXX, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_BUNZIP2_COMMAND, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS

[Comment 1 tt_1 2018-09-28 22:52:37 UTC]

You can checkout firefox-esr-privacy aur repo from archlinux for some privacy patches, and also have a look at the pg_overlay from pg_gentlemen.

[Comment 2 Michelangelo Scopelliti 2019-02-11 17:33:03 UTC]

Current firefox (65.0) does not install followonsearch any more.
It is now possible to disable all the installed system addons (no more need to delete the corresponding xpi file). AFAICT, it is possible to close as obsolete and/or fixed upstream.

[Comment 3 Michelangelo Scopelliti 2020-02-19 09:37:32 UTC]

No comments for over a year. Marking as RESOLVED/OBSOLETE