Firefox can still erase a hard drive

[LoudNoise]

The really dopey thing about Ed's bug is the heart ache it is going to cause. A hell of a lot of people "uninstall and reinstall" Firefox when they are having an extension or a profile problem. Before, while pointless, it didn't cause any real harm. Now people are going to wipe out their bookmarks because Skype cannot produce a decent add on.

[VanillaMozilla]

You might want to comment in the bug report.

[rom2]

Somebody said in one of those bug reports that his friend was considering boycotting Firefox and switching to Opera. That's like trying to scare а hedgehog with a naked butt. LOL I think starting a lawsuit against Mozilla would be a much better solution. Those people would find that spending 30 minutes to implement displaying a warning would be cheaper than a legal fight.

[steviex]

Um... Read the EULA.... http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/legal/eula/

6. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. EXCEPT AS REQUIRED BY LAW, MOZILLA AND ITS DISTRIBUTORS, DIRECTORS, LICENSORS, CONTRIBUTORS AND AGENTS (COLLECTIVELY, THE "MOZILLA GROUP") WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR IN ANY WAY RELATING TO THIS AGREEMENT OR THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE PRODUCT, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF GOODWILL, WORK STOPPAGE, LOST PROFITS, LOSS OF DATA, AND COMPUTER FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES AND REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY (CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE) UPON WHICH SUCH CLAIM IS BASED. THE MOZILLA GROUP'S COLLECTIVE LIABILITY UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF $500 (FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS) AND THE FEES PAID BY YOU UNDER THE LICENSE (IF ANY). SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR SPECIAL DAMAGES, SO THIS EXCLUSION AND LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

[steviex]

Um... Read the EULA.... http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/legal/eula/

5. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY. THE PRODUCT IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITH ALL FAULTS. TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, MOZILLA AND MOZILLA'S DISTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSORS HEREBY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES THAT THE PRODUCT IS FREE OF DEFECTS, MERCHANTABLE, FIT FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGING. YOU BEAR THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO SELECTING THE PRODUCT FOR YOUR PURPOSES AND AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PRODUCT. THIS LIMITATION WILL APPLY NOTWITHSTANDING THE FAILURE OF ESSENTIAL PURPOSE OF ANY REMEDY. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES, SO THIS DISCLAIMER MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

6. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. EXCEPT AS REQUIRED BY LAW, MOZILLA AND ITS DISTRIBUTORS, DIRECTORS, LICENSORS, CONTRIBUTORS AND AGENTS (COLLECTIVELY, THE "MOZILLA GROUP") WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR IN ANY WAY RELATING TO THIS AGREEMENT OR THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE PRODUCT, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF GOODWILL, WORK STOPPAGE, LOST PROFITS, LOSS OF DATA, AND COMPUTER FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES AND REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY (CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE) UPON WHICH SUCH CLAIM IS BASED. THE MOZILLA GROUP'S COLLECTIVE LIABILITY UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF $500 (FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS) AND THE FEES PAID BY YOU UNDER THE LICENSE (IF ANY). SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR SPECIAL DAMAGES, SO THIS EXCLUSION AND LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

[rom2]

I still think that the mere initiating a lawsuit would do the trick. It would be cheaper for them to fix the problem than to even call their lawyer to take a look at the lawsuit papers. Making this public might be beneficial as well. I envision headlines like this: "Open source browser purported safe erases hard drive". LOL

[the-edmeister]

Good job, Ed. I'd confirm it and put in my vote too, but maybe better if someone else does it. They may be tired of me. Let me know if it doesn't get confirmed after a few days.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=434123
I installed SeaMonkey 1.1.9, and then I installed 3.0RC1, then I uninstalled 3.0RC1.
My conclusion and thus my Bug report was wrong. I jumped to the wrong conclusion when the \Mozilla\ folder was deleted the first time, because I didn't actually have SeaMonkey installed. With SeaMonkey installed only the \Firefox\ folder under the \Mozilla\ folder was deleted, the \Profiles\ folder and registry.dat file for SeaMonkey wasn't touched.
C:\Documents and Settings\Eddie\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox was the folder that was deleted this time.
C:\Documents and Settings\Eddie\Application Data\Mozilla was what was deleted without SeaMonkey actually being installed, the first time around.

I'd feel like I had egg on my face with that Bug report, if I wasn't so pi$$ed off that the uninstaller deletes all Firefox Profiles without regard as to the version they are used for. The "company line" about Profiles not being for the "normal home-user" has reached its' limit, as far as I am concerned, that "Remove all Firefox data ..." option is gonna cause a lot of grief for Firefox 3.0 users over the next year and a half, or until they fix it with Firefox 4.0. "They" better decide real soon whether the threat to do away with "Profiles" altogether is gonna materialize or not before "they" get to far into development of 4.0. Two other Gecko browsers, SeaMonkey and K-Meleon actually "embrace" the concept of user Profiles, they even provide different (from each other) means of launching their browsers with a different user Profile within a formal interface; unlike Firefox which requires a good deal of knowledge to launch the Profile manager.

Off topic for this thread, but I made a distressing discovery when installing 3.0RC1 using the Standard "type of setup", it didn't want to install to C:\Program Files\Mozilla\ as was discussed in another thread, but rather the installer wanted to use the location of the default 2.0.0.x installation that I have. It very purposely looked to overwrite the existing 2.0 version!
C:\Progam Files\InternetBrowsers\MozillaFirefox\2.0.0.12_nonmultimedia is the folder it wanted to install 3.0RC1 into, which would have overwritten that installation!


Ed

[VanillaMozilla]

So the bug is incorrectly described but there's still a bug there?

[the-edmeister]

Is it a Bug?
Or am I using Firefox in an "unapproved" manner by having more than one version installed and running more than one Profile? What is the median or "norm" for a piece of software that is so extensible, and that the creators promote modifying it by hosting thousands of 3rd party addons for it?

I think that at a minimum the uninstallation dialog is misleading because it tells you that "Firefox will be uninstalled from the following location" at the top and when you check-mark the box to "Remove my Firefox data and customizations" the dialog that appears doesn't specifically state that all "data and customizations" for every version of Firefox that is installed is gonna be removed.


Ed

[steviex]

What about the issue of the profile in a custom location, taking out the entire folder that it is located in...

[the-edmeister]

I just retitled that Bug report to eliminate SeaMonkey from the title.

I just tested that with a two layer folder setup with the Profile two layers from the root of that logical drive; no, the "custom location" isn't touched at all - everything is intact, only the \Firefox\ folder in \App Data\ with the Profiles folder and profiles.ini file in it was deleted, as before.


Ed

[gparent2]

Voted. This is unacceptable.

Do you think they'll accept a fix if somebody codes it?

[steviex]

Yep.. If you propose it, and it works, and it passes all the tests they throw at it....

[Canyonero]

Voted. This is unacceptable.

Do you think they'll accept a fix if somebody codes it?

This seems more like a case where a patch would be more beneficial than more bickering about what is "right". So if you have one, put it up. There isn't a ton to test here in terms of performance or anything. Just have to make sure it deletes what it should/doesn't delete other stuff.

[the-edmeister]

IMO, the only way to fix this problem is to remove that preference entirely - not to offer to remove "all data and customizations". Firefox doesn't keep track of what "belongs to" the named Program installation/version that is being uninstalled. The same profiles.ini file and \Profiles\ folder is used for every Firefox version from 0.9 to 3.0, every Profile for all those versions is intermixed as if there is only one Program installation.

I have found nothing in Firefox code that identifies specific "data" to a specific Program installation, so deleting a specific set of data isn't possible, as far as I can see. The only way to clean up after a Firefox installation is to wipe that folder path as is being done right now; and that isn't totally complete because the \Local Settings\ path isn't cleaned up - unless my testing setup precluded that from occurring.


Ed