Control how often safe browsing lists update?

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semigeek
Posts: 322
Joined: April 16th, 2014, 8:54 pm
Location: Colorado

Control how often safe browsing lists update?

Post by semigeek »

Mozilla support says Firefox updates its safe browsing checklists "about every 30 minutes", and tells you how to disable features if you don't want them. Is there a config preference to control the interval itself? (I didn't see one under safebrowsing.) I think once a day would be fine, if not once a week.
Brummelchen
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Joined: March 19th, 2005, 10:51 am

Re: Control how often safe browsing lists update?

Post by Brummelchen »

Mozilla support says Firefox updates its safe browsing checklists "about every 30 minutes"
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Safe_Browsing
-> urlclassifier.gethash.timeout_ms
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the-edmeister
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Joined: February 25th, 2003, 12:51 am
Location: Chicago, IL, USA

Re: Control how often safe browsing lists update?

Post by the-edmeister »

Default value for urlclassifier.gethash.timeout_ms is 5000 .




.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Mine has wandered off and I'm out looking for it.
Brummelchen
Posts: 4480
Joined: March 19th, 2005, 10:51 am

Re: Control how often safe browsing lists update?

Post by Brummelchen »

in your browser - quantum shows 30 seconds (=30.000). get biased for quantum ;)

forget it, had a wrong look into urlclassifier.update.response_timeout_ms = 30.000
Last edited by Brummelchen on March 10th, 2018, 10:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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mightyglydd
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Location: Hollywood Ca.

Re: Control how often safe browsing lists update?

Post by mightyglydd »

the-edmeister wrote:Default value for urlclassifier.gethash.timeout_ms is 5000
Yep, same here with 58 and 59rc.....
#KeepFightingMichael and Alex.
semigeek
Posts: 322
Joined: April 16th, 2014, 8:54 pm
Location: Colorado

Re: Control how often safe browsing lists update?

Post by semigeek »

Brummelchen wrote: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Safe_Browsing
-> urlclassifier.gethash.timeout_ms
Thanks for the link. That pref actually doesn't sound like it has anything to do with refreshing the blacklists, and its value is only 5000, presumably milliseconds (as usual in Firefox, also suggested by "_ms").

There are prefs that record the last update time, and the next scheduled time, but I don't see anything that looks obviously like the interval. There's only urlclassifier.max-complete-age, which doesn't sound exactly right but has the more interesting value of 2700 seconds, 45 minutes.

But looking at the prefs for the last update time and the next scheduled time, the interval is 30 minutes not 45. Actually it's 1811 sec, or 30:11, which is kind of weird. Where would that have come from?
atlanto
Posts: 97
Joined: March 7th, 2015, 4:19 pm
Location: Japan

Re: Control how often safe browsing lists update?

Post by atlanto »

Actual value comes from the server(safebrowsing provider).
(Request Frequency | Safe Browsing APIs (v4) | Google Developers)
Firefox seems to be adopting minimum wait duration as update interval.
Also, it is restricted 5 minutes as minimum, 24 hours as maximum if server-responded value exceeds min/max.
There is 30min as a default value(hard coded) but it is applied for some specific case(e.g. error recovery/retry), I *guess*.
They are not configurable anyway.


Steps To Inspect: (on 58(58.0.2), not available on 52(52.6.0))
1. Go to about:config and set browser.safebrowsing.debug to true.
2. Go to about:url-classifier.
3. Open Browser Console.
4. Click "Trigger Update" button for Provider mozilla.
5. After "Last update status" became "success", look at Browser Console.
There must be something like
>listmanager: 17:02:16 GMT+0900: update success for ... from ... : 3600
>listmanager: 17:02:16 GMT+0900: Waiting 60min
>listmanager: 17:02:16 GMT+0900: Setting last update of mozilla to 1520755336400
>listmanager: 17:02:16 GMT+0900: Setting next update of mozilla to 1520758936400 (60min from now)
3600 is minimum wait duration and it means 3600sec = 60min. The timer for next update is set to 60min.(just after "Waiting" message logged)
6. Click "Trigger Update" button for Provider google4.
7. After "Last update status" became "success", look at Browser Console.
There must be something like
>listmanager: 17:02:36 GMT+0900: update success for ... from ... : 1792
>listmanager: 17:02:36 GMT+0900: Waiting 29.866666666666667min
>listmanager: 17:02:36 GMT+0900: Setting last update of google4 to 1520755356335
>listmanager: 17:02:36 GMT+0900: Setting next update of google4 to 1520757148335 (29.866666666666667min from now)
1792(in this case) is minimum wait duration and it means 1792sec = 29.866666666666667min. The timer for next update is set to 29.866666666666667min.(just after "Waiting" message logged)
8. Go to about:config and set browser.safebrowsing.debug to false.

In case of 52(52.6.0)...
1. Go to about:config and set browser.safebrowsing.debug to true.
2. Reset browser.safebrowsing.provider.google.nextupdatetime and browser.safebrowsing.provider.mozilla.nextupdatetime.
3. Exit Firefox and wait for several minutes...
4. Start Firefox and wait for a few minutes.
5. Open Browser Console.
6. Find log message like
>listmanager: 09:45:06 GMT+0900: update success for ... from ... : 1712
>listmanager: 09:45:06 GMT+0900: Waiting 1712000ms
>listmanager: 09:45:06 GMT+0900: Setting last update of google to 1520815506545
>listmanager: 09:45:06 GMT+0900: Setting next update of google to 1520817218545 (1712000ms from now)

--
I have no further information.
BTW, 1357898 - Remove the urlclassifier.max-complete-age pref, fyi.
semigeek
Posts: 322
Joined: April 16th, 2014, 8:54 pm
Location: Colorado

Re: Control how often safe browsing lists update?

Post by semigeek »

atlanto wrote:Actual value comes from the server(safebrowsing provider).
(Request Frequency | Safe Browsing APIs (v4) | Google Developers)
Thanks, that does make sense. This service works as it does, and you use it or turn it off.
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