Firefox 68.0 unwanted extensions

[nikalseyn1]

I updated to FF 68 a couple of days ago and declined all of the recommended extensions yet when I ran Ccleaner some 6 unwanted junk were now listed as extensions, with no apparent way to get rid of them. When I go to addons/extensions, they are not listed. However, it appears somebody is playing tricks with us as, even tho I declined them, I now have Bing, Google, Duckduckgo, wikipedia, twitter and ebay all listed as extensions by Ccleaner with no way within Ccleaner to delete them---only to disable them---which I most certainly did. Pulling a stunt like this makes for an unhappy camper after all these years of touting FF to all. My question is: how do I totally delete these unwanted extensions and then get rid of the recommended extensions at the bottom of my extensions listing? I neither need nor want FF or anyone "recommending" extensions to me. I did go into options, etc. and unchecked the boxes under Firefox Data Collection and Use, but there are still "recommended" extensions listed when I check my addons. Why in the world would FF disregard my wish to not select it's extension recommendations and put the 6 mentioned above on anyway? Why is there not a way to get rid of these unwanted things, easily like regular extensions, which at least show up when I check instead of having to rely on a third party cleaner program to tell me they've been added?

[DanRaisch]

I now have Bing, Google, Duckduckgo, wikipedia, twitter and ebay all listed as extensions

You're misinterpreting because those are not extensions. They are search plug-ins and have been in all versions of Firefox for a good number of years. They can be "removed" (deselected) using menu path Tools->Options->Search->One Click Search Engines.

BTW, it's strongly recommended on these forums that you NOT let Ccleaner touch anything to do with Firefox (or Thunderbird.) The clean up utility has a nasty record of removing elements of Firefox that are necessary for it to run.

[James]

Why is there not a way to get rid of these unwanted things, easily like regular extensions, which at least show up when I check instead of having to rely on a third party cleaner program to tell me they've been added?

i would not consider Ccleaner to be reliable, more so when it is referring to search engines as questionable Extensions.

What Search Engines in Firefox is
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/ad ... ne-firefox
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/ch ... gs-firefox

You can add more search engines from say https://mycroftproject.com/

[Brummelchen]

those are only listed in about:support and nowhere else in firefox.
idea behind was to update those with the internal hotfix feature (studies) in firefox outside the regular period.

[Diorser]

The default Firefox search plugins are seen as extensions in about:support.
They can be apparently "removed" in about:preferences, but cannot be disabled as "extensions".

Code: Select all

Amazon.co.uk	amazon@search.mozilla.org
Bing         bing@search.mozilla.org
DuckDuckGo   ddg@search.mozilla.org
eBay		ebay@search.mozilla.org
Google	google@search.mozilla.org
Qwant		qwant@search.mozilla.org
Wikipédia 	wikipedia@search.mozilla.org

Not clear if all search requests are sent in the background to all these "X@search.mozilla.org" which are injected by " chrome/browser/search-extensions" from firefox/browser/omni.ja file.

In user profile, the search configuration is now stored in search.json.mozlz4 .

[jscher2000]

In Firefox 68, the built-in search engine plugins changed from .xml (OpenSearch) files to .xpi (extension) files. These extensions are very simple: They contain a search URL to send a search to the corresponding search site when you use them. They contain a second URL to retrieve search suggestions so you can see matches to your text as you type in the address bar or other search bar. And when multiple locales are supported, they contain such URLs for each locale. You can see these URLs here (for English-speaking locales):

* Amazon (English): https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-release ... sages.json
* Bing: https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-release ... ifest.json
* eBay (English): https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-release ... sages.json
* Google (US): https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-release ... sages.json
* Twitter (English): https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-release ... sages.json
* Wikipedia (English): https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-release ... sages.json

[jscher2000]

Not clear if all search requests are sent in the background to all these "X@search.mozilla.org" which are injected by " chrome/browser/search-extensions" from firefox/browser/omni.ja file.

No, the extension ID is not used as an email address when running extensions.

In user profile, the search configuration is now stored in search.json.mozlz4 .

I have a decompression tool to read the contents of the file here: https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/searchjson.html

[malliz]

Theat's the problem with ccleaner its so dumb it just tries to scrub everything something that has not improved in many years and is the reason you should never let it anywhere near Firefox or mission critical software

[dickvl]

The search plugins are stored in extensions.json as part of the extensions and language packs with location app-builtin.
All builtin search plugins:
resource://search-plugins/

[Brummelchen]

The search plugins are stored in extensions.json as part of the extensions and language packs with location app-builtin.

omni.ja
which is packed and optimized in special for firefox. anyhow thee is no need to uninstall or more, judt dont use it.
https://mycroftproject.com/

[Diorser]

firefox/browser/omni.ja is simply a zip file without any compression.

To easily read/edit the content of search.json.mozlz4 in uncompressed json format , there is a good extension which is mozlz4-edit.
https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/a ... zlz4-edit/