Re: [gentoo-user] Firefox 38.1.0 :-(

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Mick.

On Sat, Aug 01, 2015 at 04:19:32PM +0100, Mick wrote:
> On Thursday 30 Jul 2015 19:59:25 you wrote:
> > On Thursday 30 Jul 2015 19:23:03 Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > > Hello, Gentoo.

> > > Over the course of the last 24 hours, Firefox 38.1.0 became stable in
> > > portage, so I merged it in.

> > > What a mistake!

> > > All my existing configuration (including for NoScript+), all my
> > > bookmarks, all record of previous visits to site - gone, deleted,
> > > vanished.  I'm not happy about that.

> > > The usability of the program has gone down, down, down.  Not a lot seems
> > > to work properly, anymore.  For example, it used to be that you could
> > > mark a selection of "your" cookies then delete them in one operation.
> > > Now you have to mark a single cookie and delete it, mark the next cookie
> > > and delete it, ....  Even the screen area where the current URL is
> > > displayed is now displayed in low-contrast miniscule type, so that I can
> > > barely read it.

> > > What on earth are the upstream developers thinking about?  Destroying
> > > somebody's configuration is not a nice thing to do.

> > > I've a feeling that all this must have been discussed here quite
> > > recently, so apologies if I'm dredging up old stuff.  Still, a
> > > recommendation as to how I might proceed would be welcome.  Should I go
> > > back to 31.8.0 and stay there, or would I be better going with some fork
> > > of firefox?

> > > Has my old config/cookies/... actually been physically destroyed, or is
> > > it just being disregarded by 38.1.0?  Looking at my ~/.mozilla/firefox
> > > doesn't give me much hope.

> > > Yours, in anger.

> [snip ...]
> > Someone else has already posted about losing their FF profile and settings.
> > This however has not happened here.

> > Sorry I can't shed more light on this problem.

> Until it happened here too ...  :-(

> So, I find myself with one box having the problem of ALWAYS wanting to start
> up with some 'dev-edition-default' profile, which has a dark bacground theme
> and is void of previous user settings.  The old profile with the user's
> bookmarks, extensions, etc. is called 'default'.  Firefox starts with the
> Profile Manager pop-up giving me a choice which profile to use, but selecting
> the 'default' profile and asking it not to ask again at start up does not work
> as expected.

No, indeed it doesn't.

> The 'default' profile selection does not stick.  Deleting the new
> 'dev-edition-default' profile causes it to be recreated afresh at the
> next start up.

Yes.  This is the sort of developer attitude that is making me want to
use a proper browser.  What the heck does a browser need "prefiles" for,
anyway?  It's supposed to be a web browser, for goodness sake.

> Anyway, the box without this problem does not have USE="bindist" set, while
> the PC with the above problem does.  I just removed bindist from make.conf
> (not sure why it was there) and I rebuilt Firefox.  The stuck dev-edition-
> fault profile problem is gone!  :-)

But the bindist USE flag is about branding, and restrictions on the use
of trademarks, and stuff like that.  And if you look at the ebuild, you
will see that this is indeed the only way that bindist is used.  So all
the messing around that firefox does with these silly profiles is done by
some sort of "clever" programming.

> HTH.

> --
> Regards,
> Mick

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).