Never mind, I got my answer (negative that is!!) and am happy to stick to FF41 indefinitely - 42 was something and nothing, and 43 never worked properly for me (Avast Webrep disabled for example).
glnz wrote:How do I get back the earlier Firefox? I think it was still working in FF 43.
This is really bad.
One link to download 41 is here:
https softexia.com/windows/web-browsers/firefox-41
but I'm sure there are many others. (See below to Malliz's post).
Last edited by rbruce1314 on February 23rd, 2016, 4:36 am, edited 2 times in total.
Oh Golly Gosh . I never even though to think ( ) or check that Mozilla themselves would still allow you get the old stuff. After all, they're keen enough to get you to update automatically....... : mind you that's the first thing I switch off........
malliz - If I run /pub/firefox/releases/43.0b9/win64/en-US/Firefox Setup 43.0b9.exe , how do I move all my settings and add-ons and bookmarks and wanted cookies (now sitting in my "normal" latest FF 44) into this "new" FF 43?
Thanks.
Last edited by glnz on February 23rd, 2016, 2:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
rbruce1314 wrote:I never even though to think or check that Mozilla themselves would still allow you get the old stuff.
You can get all Release of this browser all the way back to when it was Phoenix 0.1, later as Firebird and then Firefox starting 0.8. Keep in mind that older Releases are potentially vulnerable, often with critical security concerns that have been fixed since which is why Mozilla does not make the earlier Releases so visible. https://www.mozilla.org/security/known- ... s/firefox/
glnz wrote:malliz - If I run /pub/firefox/releases/43.0b9/win64/en-US/Firefox Setup 43.0b9.exe , how do I move all my settings and add-ons and bookmarks and wanted cookies (now sitting in my "normal" latest FF 44) into this "new" FF 43?
Thanks.
The 43.0b9 is not new and is old now from when it was a test build on the Beta channel when Firefox 43.0 was on it before Release. The b9 means it is the ninth Beta build as there can be say six to twelve builds for a version. It should use the same Profile unless you select a different one if you start Firefox with the Profilemanager.
Keep in mind that if you were to install this build you would be on the Beta channel and not Release and would get updates to new Build builds on Beta channel as the current is at 45.0b8.
Your useragent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:44.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/44.0 shows you have 32-bit Windows XP.
Actually this old 43.0b9 Beta build would not work for you anyways since it is a 64-bit (Win64) build and not 32-bit. You need 64-bit Windows 7, 8 (8.1), or 10 in order to run Win64 Firefox.
James - thanks for warning about beta. I should have written above that this choice of download was for my Win 7 Pro 64-bit machine, not the XP 32-bit machine I am writing on now, for which of course I would pull the 32-bit download.
But whatever FF 43 downloads I pull, right now my profile is in my FF 44. How do I move it to a "new" FF 43, on any PC, so that the FF43 has all my bookmarks, cookies, add-ons, etc. (and looks just like it did a few weeks ago)?
You do realize your Profiles is not in Program folder unless you tried to put a new Profile there on purpose when creating a new one in Profilemanager. When you install a Firefox version (besides Aurora channel builds) it will make use of last Profile in use unless you set to start with a specific one in shortcut or selected in Profilemanager. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
glnz wrote:James - thanks for warning about beta. I should have written above that this choice of download was for my Win 7 Pro 64-bit machine, not the XP 32-bit machine I am writing on now, for which of course I would pull the 32-bit download.
But whatever FF 43 downloads I pull, right now my profile is in my FF 44. How do I move it to a "new" FF 43, on any PC, so that the FF43 has all my bookmarks, cookies, add-ons, etc. (and looks just like it did a few weeks ago)?
After a few mishaps courtesy of FF, I now regularly backup my profile to an external hard drive.
Assuming you're on Windows it's at C:/users/xxxx/*App Data/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles
*At this point you need to have 'show hidden files and folders' ticked in 'organise > folder and search options > view.
Once you've got that safe, you can do what you like. Including a full uninstall if you want to. Install new, then navigate back to the Firefox profile folder and copy/paste. BUT, as said above, uninstalling the program does not in itself destroy the profile unless you want it to......
Which also answers your other question - the saved profile is portable to any other FF installation on any machine.
Assuming you're on Windows it's at C:/users/xxxx/*App Data/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles
Well, not exactly. glnz is running Win XP so the path is not the same as for newer versions of Windows. For XP it would be C:\Documents and Settings\<Windows login/user name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile folder>
To save all your Firefox settings, bookmarks etc you can download MozBackup from numerous places.
Have been using it for years and it works great. Don't believe it is supported anymore though.
As far as the loss of the "Ask me every time" option is concerned, IE still offers an equivalent "Prompt" option in their Advanced Privacy settings so I will be using IE for my regular browsing from now on until Mozilla sees fit to make privacy a priority again. Did not expect to see that MS seems more interested in privacy than the folks at Mozilla who can't stop telling the world about how committed they are to our privacy.
To refer to this as the solution to a "bug" is complete insanity to me and to many others if I go by the comments in this thread.
Send your feedback to Mozilla too, perhaps we will be heard. https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback/firefox?
Personally, I think removing the "Ask Me Every Time" is one of the worst moves that Firefox executives could ever do. I can tell that they didn't even think this thru because the add-ons don't work the way that the built in cookie manager did. It was very good and did the job. Here's a few articles that I think everyone should read:
Microsoft TechNet Defining Malware: FAQ
Q. Do some websites use cookies to exploit user information?
A. Unfortunately, yes. Some may deceive users or omit their policies. For example, they may track your Web surfing habits across many different websites without informing you, and then use this data to customize the advertisements you see on websites, etc., typically considered as an invasion of privacy.
Cookie threats!
Why is it necessary to scan cookies?
As already mentioned the cookies themselves cannot harm the computer. However they can contain certain information to lead a possible attacker to the respective computer. For example: we will consider that an attacker releases a Trojan in the wild in order to gain control over several computers. This Trojan’s payload contains in dropping a Backdoor (to open a port), changing the homepage of the browser and placing a “malicious” cookie in the browser’s cookie area. When the unsuspecting user launches the browser, then it automatically connects to the new homepage (namely the attacker’s website). Once this is done, the malicious cookie is being read and the attacker becomes aware of the fact that the computer is infected. By knowing this, it becomes a piece of cake to take over the computer using some exploits or the open port.
Let’s say that the user becomes aware of the infection and manages to remove the Trojan and the Backdoor from the computer. However, if the cookie remains on the computer, it can supply information again to the attacker if the user “manages” to access the untrusted web page again. The computer is therefore exposed once again to a possible attack.
As explained in the above scenario, the cookie is used to provide information about a computer but it is not responsible with the attack itself.
Other type of malicious attacks using cookies
A similar case is represented by the fact that cookies are vulnerable to third party attacks. Lately, the virus analysts discovered exploits (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, JavaScript) that allowed an attacker to harvest information from cookies using either different cookies or the so-called spyware software (for example login information for different servers the customer might use).
maccrunchie wrote:As far as the loss of the "Ask me every time" option is concerned, IE still offers an equivalent "Prompt" option in their Advanced Privacy settings so I will be using IE for my regular browsing from now on until Mozilla sees fit to make privacy a priority again. Did not expect to see that MS seems more interested in privacy than the folks at Mozilla who can't stop telling the world about how committed they are to our privacy.
To refer to this as the solution to a "bug" is complete insanity to me and to many others if I go by the comments in this thread.
Send your feedback to Mozilla too, perhaps we will be heard. https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback/firefox?
unfortunatly I use Linux so I'm not able to switch to IE.
I read the bug report and can't believe what I read there. They supposed that it's a bug, because some site would crash (never, ever had a "crash" because of this option). I use it since many years without a big problem.
The case is people who use it, do use it because they know why and can deal with problems. But Mozilla did the dirty on their best users, when they totally removed it. why they just remove the option from the preference dialog?
We also know how to use about:config and I have a lot of things deactived there (dom.storage, loop, opentabs).
My last hope will be the Classic Theme Restorer, this AddOn avoid move away from firefox since many versions.
Last edited by LIMPET235 on July 6th, 2016, 10:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason:Slight rephrasing of the terminology.
new versions of firefox have removed the "ask every time" option from cookie management.
This was absolutely the WRONG choice and a very bad decision. This decision shows that Mozilla has decided that privacy is not relevant, not important, not useful, and not something that Mozilla software users deserve. It has further demonstrated that Mozilla has decided that web developers MUST NOT use Firefox for their primary browser when developing web pages.
The "excuses" for this bad decision are either irrelevant, misconstrued, backwards, or non-issues:
-It exposes far too much detail about the underlying implementation of the Web
Well, this is actually important to any even semi-professional web developer. You need to see what cookie is being set, when it is being set in the page load process, what information is in it, when it expires, what path it is relevant for, etc. Without this information, the best web development you can hope for is "amateur," and testing web site functionality is eliminated. This is absolutely a backwards reason for eliminating this incredibly important feature of any web browser.
This does not provide any unnecessary information about how the web works, any more than having to install a plugin to see some kinds of content does.
-It forces the user to make a ridiculous number of decisions before visiting a Web site. For instance, amazon.com produces 8 dialog boxes, and ebay.com 15.
This is not a browser problem, this is a problem with poorly designed, improperly implemented, or just plain sloppy web sites. There is no excuse for the web site to do this, and it is not a browser issue, it is a web site issue. These sites should either be summarily blocked by users, or should receive feedback about the problems they are causing.
-Even informed users will not always have enough information to make an informed choice.
This is not a valid excuse. The cookie should provide enough information to allow a user to make an informed decision. Again, without the information provided by the site, this may be true, but this is a web site problem, not a web browser problem.
A more valid argument is that this should be the default setting on all web browsers, and changing it should be difficult. This would clean up a lot of sloppy development on a lot of web sites - especially big sites like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Amazon, eBay, etc where sloppy cookie implementation is rampant.
Removing this highly important feature from Firefox is a huge security, privacy, and tracking problem. Even with FF set to not track and to block user tracking, and several privacy plugins installed, having cookies set to prompt showed that on many sites - possibly a MAJORITY of sites - major tracking services like Omniture and Google Analytics were still setting tracking cookies and tracking users. By removing this feature from Firefox, you have compromised the privacy and security of anybody using Firefox.
While the cookie handling did need some tweaks - like "never this cookie" or "never this cookie from this site" - which would have addressed many of the site setting 10, 15, 50, or 500 cookies per page view, removing this feature to disable user privacy and reduce security was NOT a good option.
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. I never even though to think ( 
) or check 
that Mozilla themselves would still allow you get the old stuff. After all, they're keen enough to get you to update automatically....... 
: mind you that's the first thing I switch off........
