I'm using Firefox 70 and I am navigating Facebook normally. about:preferences#privacy ETP is set to standard not strict

Test it with turning on the Do Not Track feature https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-turn-do-not-track-feature

does it work?

Yamama_sh said

I'm using Firefox 70 and I am navigating Facebook normally. about:preferences#privacy ETP is set to standard not strict

Thanks for the response. Tried that, but unfortunately Standard doesn't help me access Facebook. Also I need to enable the Adblocker on websites generally and Standard seems to switch that off - I have been using Custom settings, finding by experiment which ones work best for my needs. None of the upgraded settings seems to enable Facebook. My impression is that the latest Firefox upgrade is designed to block FB altogether....

Yamama_sh said

Test it with turning on the Do Not Track feature https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-turn-do-not-track-feature does it work?

Again I've tried Do not Track and still nothing.

Ok, I was checking online to see if anyone else had experienced a similar problem after upgrading, and found this on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/dnchac/problems_with_some_sites_facebook_reddit_after/

They found opening a private window in Firefox worked for accessing FB when nothing else would. And indeed I have just discovered this works for me also, so that's great, but as the writer points out it's not really a long term solution for accessing FB, and so far no explanation as to why this would work. There is a bit of a discussion which doesn't make any much sense to me. I would be grateful if someone could look into this as there does seem to be a glitch which is affecting some people and probably needs fixing. Thanks.

Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-caused-malware

Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.

Make sure you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.

• Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
  https://www.malwarebytes.com/
• AdwCleaner:
  https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/
  https://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml
• SuperAntispyware:
  https://www.superantispyware.com/
• Microsoft Safety Scanner:
  https://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx
• Windows Defender:
  https://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-defender
• Spybot Search & Destroy:
  https://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
• Kasperky Free Security Scan:
  https://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan

You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.

• Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:
  https://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/disinfection/5350

https://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/utility

dryas1 said

Ok, I was checking online to see if anyone else had experienced a similar problem after upgrading, and found this on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/dnchac/problems_with_some_sites_facebook_reddit_after/ They found opening a private window in Firefox worked for accessing FB when nothing else would. And indeed I have just discovered this works for me also, so that's great, but as the writer points out it's not really a long term solution for accessing FB, and so far no explanation as to why this would work. There is a bit of a discussion which doesn't make any much sense to me. I would be grateful if someone could look into this as there does seem to be a glitch which is affecting some people and probably needs fixing. Thanks.

Some users are experiencing problems with local storage to disk in Firefox 70. For some, sites fail to load or load partially, and multi-phase logins fail, for others, sites report they are not accepting cookies. These issues all seem to be related, but there isn't yet a best workaround or clear solution.

Private windows don't put local storage on disk, so the problem doesn't affect private windows.

One thing users have found to help as a short-term Band-aid is:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste next and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the dom.storage.next_gen preference to switch the value from true to false

I'm not sure what the difference is between old and next generation storage, so whether this is really a good idea is "to be determined."

Thank you for all your responses. I don't think it's a malware problem, but the local storage issue might be relevant and I will try the suggestion made here. However, I am feeling really frustrated with this new security update because it has messed with a number of my other preferred settings and I'm not finding a way round it. I agree social media tracking has been a big problem. But there seems to be an assumption that we all want social media blocked from all sites, and the blocking of social media access includes access to comments or discussions of all kinds. I want to be able to access these from most websites, but I don't want to see ads. As far as I can work out blocking ads also means blocking all social media access. I fact I haven't managed to enable comments on any website on Firefox (except on private pages) so far, whereas as it is all too easy to switch on unwanted ads. Eg. my home page is irishtimes.com, but without blocking it has some very prominent video ads all over the place. I used to be able to access comments on the articles, and now I can't see any of them. I just tried a couple of the recommended ad blocker addons (while switching off default blocking) and they are not doing a thing for me. Also my Avast online security addon is not active in Firefox any longer - this was previously a way to personalise blocking of major trackers on each website. It looks like the security addons are being overridden by the new Firefox security settings by default.

I appreciate it takes time to work out these kinds of software glitches, but I hope these problems are going to be taken seriously by Mozilla. Thanks.

At least one user's ad blocker stopped working due to the storage problem. I'm not sure what the connection is. You can bypass the old storage folder if needed as follows:

Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, on the Profile Folder row, click the "Open Folder" button. This should launch a new window listing various files and folders in Windows Explorer.

Leaving that window open, switch back to Firefox and Exit, either:

• "3-bar" menu button > Exit
• (menu bar) File > Exit

Pause while Firefox finishes its cleanup, then right-click the storage folder and rename it to something like storageOLD.

When you start Firefox up again, it will need to reestablish a storage folder and extensions will need to re-create their settings and databases, so this could take a couple minutes.