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Settings enabling themselves on update

  • 8 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • Last reply by cor-el

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Every time Firefox updates it keeps re-enabling settings on its own.

Specifically 2 settings on the general tab keep enabling themselves in the "browsing" section, "Recommend extensions as you browse" and "Recommend features as you browse"

I have disabled these settings dozens of times now, and every time Firefox updates it keeps re-enabling these 2 settings on its own.

Just now I updated to v128.0 and these 2 settings turned themselves on again.

Why is Firefox not respecting my settings? Why is Firefox allowed to modify my settings without my permission?

I have deleted and reinstalled Firefox already. I don't use profiles and am not signed into the browser, so no settings are getting carried over that way.

Every time Firefox updates it keeps re-enabling settings on its own. Specifically 2 settings on the general tab keep enabling themselves in the "browsing" section, "Recommend extensions as you browse" and "Recommend features as you browse" I have disabled these settings dozens of times now, and every time Firefox updates it keeps re-enabling these 2 settings on its own. Just now I updated to v128.0 and these 2 settings turned themselves on again. Why is Firefox not respecting my settings? Why is Firefox allowed to modify my settings without my permission? I have deleted and reinstalled Firefox already. I don't use profiles and am not signed into the browser, so no settings are getting carried over that way.

All Replies (8)

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This is on windows PC since I forgot to specify. Has been happening for at least the past couple dozen updates or so. Maybe longer.

This is also not an issue with write protections or anything like that.

The settings stay disabled until the next update then they revert to enabled.

Modified by krazzykid2006

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It's still happening with those 2 settings. Every. Single. Update.

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This appears to be a bug where the background task that registers the default agent to use the default profile instead of a temporary profile, which effectively resets several pref to their default values that causes them not to get written to prefs.js. This should be fixed in Firefox 130, scheduled for release September 3.

  • 1903615#c18 - Upgrading Firefox to version 127.0 and 127.0.1 each forced enabling recommending extensions/features

(please do not comment in bug reports
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html
)

Modified by NoahSUMO

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cor-el said

This should be fixed in Firefox 130, scheduled for release September 3.
  • 1903615#c18 - Upgrading Firefox to version 127.0 and 127.0.1 each forced enabling recommending extensions/features
Did they forget to push that fix with Firefox 130.0? I just updated to it and the exact same 2 settings re-enabled themselves without my permission yet again. Those 2 settings were disabled before the update to 130.0 So did they only "fix" it going forward? Because it certainly did not take my current settings into account....

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Try putting this in a file called user.js in your Profile Directory:— user_pref("extensions.htmlaboutaddons.recommendations.enabled", false); user_pref("browser.dataFeatureRecommendations.enabled", false); WARNING: I may not have identified the preferences correctly but it shows you the principle at least.

If you don't know where your Profile Directory is it can be opened from about:support

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I'm sorry that this wasn't clear enough (I had thought about clarifying this but had forgotten it). If you update from 129 to 130 then you run the Firefox 129 updater and that version still has the issue. If you update from 130 to 131 next month then this should no longer happen as the 130 updater has this fix.

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