How to stop Firefox from making automatic connections

[#1]

Some people are concerned about the connections Firefox makes to the Internet, especially when those connections are made for no apparent reason (see Mozilla's Firefox Browser Privacy Notice for additional information). This article explains various reasons why Firefox may make a connection to the Internet and how you can stop it from doing so, if you wish.

Table of Contents

• 1 Automatic updates and Security
  • 1.1 Auto-update checking
  • 1.2 Blocklist updating
  • 1.3 Anti-phishing list updating
  • 1.4 Anti-malware list updating
  • 1.5 Tracking protection list updating
  • 1.6 Secure website certificates
• 2 Prefetching
  • 2.1 Link prefetching
  • 2.2 DNS prefetching
  • 2.3 Speculative pre-connections
  • 2.4 Add-on list prefetching
• 3 User-invoked content
  • 3.1 Home page loading
  • 3.2 Extensions
  • 3.3 Live Bookmarks updating
  • 3.4 Downloads restarted
  • 3.5 Search plugin icon loading
  • 3.6 Firefox Sync
• 4 Mozilla content
  • 4.1 Snippets
  • 4.2 Geolocation for default search engine
  • 4.3 "What's new" page
  • 4.4 Add-on metadata updating
• 5 Diagnostics
• 6 Media capabilities
  • 6.1 OpenH264 codec
  • 6.2 WebRTC
  • 6.3 Send Video To Device
• 7 Malware
• 8 Loopback connection

Automatic updates and Security

Auto-update checking

Warning: Disabling update checking is not recommended and will leave you open to security vulnerabilities that get fixed in newer versions.

Firefox occasionally checks to see if any updates are available for itself and for your search engines. To disable these checks:

1. Click the menu button and choose Options.Preferences.
2. Select the Advanced panel.
3. Select the Update tab.
4. Check Never check for updates (not recommended: security risk) and uncheck Search Engines.
5. Close the about:preferences page. Any changes you've made will automatically be saved.

Firefox also checks to see if any updates are available for your add-ons (extensions, themes). To disable this check:

1. Click the menu button and choose Add-ons. The Add-ons Manager tab will open.

2. In the Add-ons Manager tab, select the Extensions panel.
3. At the top of the tab, click the "Tools for all add-ons" menu, uncheck Update Add-ons Automatically and then select Reset All Add-ons to Update Automatically.

Blocklist updating

Warning: Disabling the blocklist is not recommended, as it may result in you using untrustworthy add-ons, revoked certificates or unstable graphics drivers.

Firefox may be updating its blocklist, which is used to block malicious extensions, vulnerable plugins, revoked certificates and graphics drivers known to cause crashes. For more information, see Blocklisting (MozillaWiki), Blocklisting/Graphics (MozillaWiki), the Revoking Intermediate Certificates: Introducing OneCRL blog post and the article Add-ons that cause stability or security issues are put on a blocklist. To disable this feature:

1. In the address bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!I accept the risk! to continue to the about:config page.
2. In the about:config page, search for the preference extensions.blocklist.enabled.
3. Observe the Value column of the extensions.blocklist.enabled row.
   • If it is set to false then do nothing.
   • If it is set to true, double-click on it to set it to false.

Anti-phishing list updating

Warning: Disabling the anti-phishing protection is not recommended, as it will leave you vulnerable to untrustworthy websites that might try to steal your financial information and/or your identity.

The phishing protection list may be updating itself. To turn this off:

1. Click the menu button and choose Options.Preferences.
2. Select the Security panel.
3. Uncheck Block reported web forgeries.

Anti-malware list updating

Warning: Disabling the anti-malware protection is not recommended, as it will leave you vulnerable to malicious file downloads or untrustworthy websites that might try to infect you with a virus, trojan or spyware.

The malware protection list may be updating itself. To turn this off:

1. Click the menu button and choose Options.Preferences.
2. Select the Security panel.
3. Uncheck Block reported attack sites.

In addition, when you download an application file, Firefox will verify its signature. If it is signed, Firefox then compares the signature with a list of known safe publishers. For files that are not identified by the lists as “safe” (allowed) or as “malware” (blocked), Firefox asks Google’s Safe Browsing service if the software is safe by sending it some of the download’s metadata. To turn off this part of malware protection:

1. In the address bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!I accept the risk! to continue to the about:config page.
2. In the about:config page, search for the preference browser.safebrowsing.downloads.remote.enabled.
3. Observe the Value Column of the browser.safebrowsing.downloads.remote.enabled row.
   • If it is set to false then do nothing.
   • If it is set to true then double-click on it to set it to false.

Tracking protection list updating

The tracking protection list may be updating itself. To turn this off:

1. Click the menu button and choose Options.Preferences.
2. Select the Privacy panel.
3. Uncheck Use Tracking Protection in Private Windows.

Secure website certificates

When you visit a secure website (i.e. "https"), Firefox will validate the website's certificate. This may involve communicating with a third-party status provider specified by the certificate over a protocol named OCSP to confirm that the certificate is still valid. To turn this off:

1. Click the menu button and choose Options.Preferences.
2. Select the Advanced panel.
3. Select the Certificates tab.
4. Uncheck Query OCSP responder servers to confirm the current validity of certificates.

Prefetching

Link prefetching

Firefox will prefetch certain links if any of the websites you are viewing uses the special prefetch-link tag. For more information, please see the Link Prefetching FAQ. To disable Link prefetching:

1. In the address bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!I accept the risk! to continue to the about:config page.
2. In the about:config page, search for the preference network.prefetch-next.
3. Observe the Value column of the network.prefetch-next row.
   • If it is set to false then do nothing.
   • If it is set to true, double-click on it to set it to false.

DNS prefetching

In order to reduce latency, Firefox will proactively perform domain name resolution on links that the user may choose to follow as well as URLs for items referenced by elements in a web page. For more information, please see the DNS Prefetching blog post. To disable DNS prefetching:

1. In the address bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!I accept the risk! to continue to the about:config page.
2. In the about:config page, search for the preference network.dns.disablePrefetch.
3. Observe the Value column of the network.dns.disablePrefetch row.
   • If it is set to true then do nothing.
   • If it is set to false, double-click on it to set it to true.

Speculative pre-connections

To improve the loading speed, Firefox will open predictive connections to sites when the user hovers their mouse over thumbnails on the New Tab Page or the user starts to search in the Search Bar, or in the search field on the Home or the New Tab Page. In case the user follows through with the action, the page can begin loading faster since some of the work was already started in advance. To disable this feature:

1. In the address bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!I accept the risk! to continue to the about:config page.
2. In the about:config page, search for the preference network.http.speculative-parallel-limit.
3. Observe the Value column of the network.http.speculative-parallel-limit row.
   • If it is set to 0 then do nothing.
   • If it is set to a different value, double-click on it to set it to 0.

Add-on list prefetching

Each time the Add-ons manager is opened, Firefox prefetches a list of add-ons to improve responsiveness of the Get Add-ons pane. This connection is not made if the add-ons manager is not opened.

User-invoked content

Home page loading

Your home page may be loading. To change your home page to something that doesn't generate connections to the Internet:

1. Click the menu button and choose Options.Preferences.
2. Select the General panel.
3. Either set When Firefox starts to Show a blank page or set it to Show my home page and click Restore to Default. Close the about:preferences page.

Extensions

An extension you have installed may be making a connection to a website that it relies on. For example, a connection to a website to synchronize your bookmarks, a connection to a website to update a list of sites to block, etc. Or it is possible an extension could be changing the expected behavior of Firefox in other ways. For example, FasterFox extension has an option to prefetch all links. To disable or remove your extensions, see the Disable or remove Add-ons article.

Firefox also checks to see if any updates are available for your add-ons (extensions, themes). To disable this check:

Warning: Disabling add-on update checking is not recommended and leaves you open to security vulnerabilities that get fixed in newer versions.

1. Click the menu button and choose Add-ons. The Add-ons Manager tab will open.

2. In the Add-ons Manager tab, select the Extensions panel.
3. At the top of the tab, click the "Tools for all add-ons" menu, uncheck Update Add-ons Automatically and then select Reset All Add-ons to Update Automatically.

Live Bookmarks updating

Live Bookmarks automatically reload themselves on a regular basis, and in doing so will make a connection to the Internet. Deleting all your Live Bookmarks will stop these connections from being made.

Downloads restarted

When you start Firefox, any interrupted downloads from your previous browsing session may be automatically resumed.

1. Press Ctrl + JCtrl + Shift + Ycommand + J to open the Downloads window.
2. Ensure nothing is currently being downloaded.

Search plugin icon loading

When you add a custom search plugin that doesn't come with an included icon, Firefox might look up the icon at a remote address that is specified in the search plugin once and cache it for future use.

Firefox Sync

If you're using Firefox Sync, it will establish regular connections in order to synchronize your data to Mozilla's Sync servers and across your connected devices. In order to choose what data gets synchronized or to disconnect from Sync, see the How do I choose what types of information to sync on Firefox? article.

Mozilla content

Snippets

If you use the built-in default homepage about:home, Firefox will show some Mozilla related content around the search box ("Snippets"), which is updated once a day. If you'd like to disable connections to Mozilla's snippets server:

1. In the address bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!I accept the risk! to continue to the about:config page.
2. In the about:config page, search for the preference browser.aboutHomeSnippets.updateUrl.
3. Double-click on it and set its value to a blank string.

Geolocation for default search engine

In order to set the right default search engine for your location, Firefox will perform a geolocation lookup once by contacting Mozilla's servers and store the country-level result locally. This connection happens on the first start of Firefox - in case you want to prohibit that, you will have to preconfigure the browser and set the browser.search.geoip.url preference to a blank string.

"What's new" page

After a browser update, Firefox might show an additional tab next to your usual homepage to offer more information on changes or new features included in the update. To disable this page from being shown:

1. In the address bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!I accept the risk! to continue to the about:config page.
2. In the about:config page, search for the preference browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone.
3. Double-click on it and set its value to ignore.

Add-on metadata updating

The Add-ons manager displays information about each add-on you have installed and provides personalized recommendations in the Get Add-ons pane. To keep this data updated, Firefox will request information from the Mozilla Add-ons gallery once a day (for more information, see this blog post). To disable these updates:

1. In the address bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!I accept the risk! to continue to the about:config page.
2. In the about:config page, search for the preference extensions.getAddons.cache.enabled.
3. Observe the Value column of the extensions.getAddons.cache.enabled row.
   • If it is set to false then do nothing.
   • If it is set to true, double-click on it to set it to false.

Diagnostics

Firefox can submit certain diagnostics data including Telemetry, Firefox Health Report and Crash Reports data to Mozilla to provide information that helps improving the browser. In order to disable the sharing of this data, refer to Data Choices Tab.

In addition, Mozilla will ask a small sample of users to rate their experience with Firefox to get a better insight into the sentiment about the browser. For more information about this see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Advocacy/heartbeat. The rating feature will establish a connection to Mozilla's servers at startup, which you can turn off like this:

1. In the address bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!I accept the risk! to continue to the about:config page.
2. In the about:config page, search for the preference browser.selfsupport.url.
3. Double-click on it and set its value to a blank string.

Media capabilities

OpenH264 codec

Firefox will make use of the OpenH264 codec provided by Cisco in order to support the H.264 video codec in WebRTC, a technology allowing for peer-to-peer video communication on the web. For more information about this, see the OpenH264 Now in Firefox blog post. The OpenH264 codec is not distributed with Firefox but gets downloaded at the first start of Firefox. In case you want to prohibit that, you will have to preconfigure the browser and set the media.gmp-gmpopenh264.enabled preference to false.

WebRTC

WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a technology which provides direct browser-to-browser communication (audio, video, filesharing). As it is drafted and implemented at the moment, WebRTC can lead to your local IP address being exposed to websites even when you are behind a VPN or a NAT router - in the WebRTC API this data would be used to set up a peer-to-peer connection between two local clients.

If you would like to disable WebRTC:

1. In the address bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!I accept the risk! to continue to the about:config page.
2. In the about:config page, search for the preference media.peerconnection.enabled.
3. Observe the Value column of the media.peerconnection.enabled row.
   • If it is set to false then do nothing.
   • If it is set to true, double-click on it to set it to false.

For different methods and granular controls on how to mitigate this issue, see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Media/WebRTC/Privacy.

Send Video To Device

Firefox contains a "Send Video To Device" feature that is disabled by default, to send HTML5 video content to a Roku, Chromecast or similar device in the same network. When this feature is enabled, Firefox will send SSDP packages (Simple Service Discovery Protocol, multicast address 239.255.255.250, port 1900) to the local network, to discover and pair with such a device. This can trigger a firewall dialog asking you if you want to allow such connections.

To disable this feature:

1. In the address bar, type about:config and press EnterReturn.

   • The about:config "This might void your warranty!" warning page may appear. Click I'll be careful, I promise!I accept the risk! to continue to the about:config page.
2. In the about:config page, search for the preference browser.casting.enabled.
3. Observe the Value column of the browser.casting.enabled row.
   • If it is set to false then do nothing.
   • If it is set to true, double-click on it to set it to false.

Malware

If your computer is infected with a virus, trojan, spyware, or other malicious software, then Firefox's Internet connection may be being piggybacked in order for the malware to communicate with its author or to deliver advertisements, etc. If you suspect this is the case, consider seeking advice from a forum specializing in malware removal. For more information, see Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware.

Loopback connection

Note: This does not apply to Linux systems.

A loopback connection (to IP address 127.0.0.1) can be made by Firefox on non-Unix machines. In this case the browser is communicating with itself as expected, and it is not recommended that this communication be blocked. See bug 100154 for more information.

Based on information from Connections established on startup - Firefox (mozillaZine KB)

[John99]

Continued from /forums/contributors/704981?page=4#post-42599 this article is linked from http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/legal/privacy/firefox.html so maybe it should continue to be maintained.

[scoobidiver]

I agree because while there's an alternative for the automated update service disabling (redirect to Advanced panel - Accessibility, browsing, network, updates, and other advanced settings in Firefox instead), there's no alternative for the blocklist feature disabling.

But it must be in the admin article category like the Firefox Integrity Check article or relevant to nothing so that it can't be searched.

I updated it. It needs review.

[AliceWyman]

Why should this article be placed in the Administration category and excluded from normal searches? Just because it is linked from a mozilla.org page? ... In any case, we still don't have clarity on the process for un-archiving and updating articles, as I asked here: /en-US/forums/contributors/704981?page=3#post-41956

[scoobidiver]

AliceWyman said

Why should this article ... excluded from normal searches?

You're right, we can let it searchable if it's unarchived.

[scoobidiver]

Whatever its archiving status decided by an admin, a reviewer can approve the revision in pending review.

[AliceWyman]

Assuming an admin decision is needed, I'd rather wait for an admin to decide whether to un-archive this article and keep it maintained.

If an admin decision isn't needed then I'd rather do both at once (unarchive the article and then immediately approve the pending revision) so that the article shows up on the KB dashboard, as a change that hasn't yet been localized.

[AliceWyman]

I went ahead and un-archived this article, since there has not been any reply by admin to this thread. There also hasn't been any reply to my posts asking for policy clarification for unarchiving articles ... see my last post here: /forums/contributors/704981?page=4#post-42610

After un-archiving this article, I approved the last revision by scoobidiver. I also made one small edit to that revision, to add "to open the Where to find and manage downloaded files in Firefox" after the keyboard instructions, which is still pending. I consider that a minor edit but I didn't approve it myself, to give admin another chance to review.

[AliceWyman]

Related article discussion:

• /forums/knowledge-base-articles/706488
• /forums/contributors/704981?page=2#post-36524

Background for this article is here:

• Bug 401267 - KB article: Firefox makes unrequested connections

[AliceWyman]

(For the record)

Revision id: 17495
Created: Sep 28, 2011 4:11:30 AM
Creator: AliceWyman
Reviewed: Yes
Ready for localization: No
Reviewed: Nov 16, 2011 3:11:46 PM
Reviewed by: mluna
Is approved? Yes
Is current revision? Yes

[Chris_Ilias]

See:

• https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/how-to-opt-out-of-add-on-metadata-updates/
• https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=776710

[AliceWyman]

I added an "Extension Add-on metadata updating" section (needs review).

[AliceWyman]

Michael Verdi approved this (thanks, Michael).

[feer56]

Hi everybody!

User andy747 has edited the auto update checking section; Subsection:

{for fx4} Firefox also checks to see if any updates are available for your add-ons (extensions, themes). To disable this check:

1. [[T:Open Add-ons|type=Extensions]]
2. At the top of the tab, click the Tools for All Add-ons menu and uncheck Update Add-ons Automatically, then select Reset All Add-ons to Update Automatically.

{/for}

Since this is for Firefox 4, should we remove this section since andy747 is saying that the only way to disable is through about:config via PM. Unfortunately, we do not have version 4 to test the instructions out so should we remove the section or leave it as is?

[Marcus320]

Please add following point to the list:

Fetching of search plug-in icons

Search plug-in icons are fetched if provided as "http: URI". That is done once per search plug-in, upon which Firefox caches its icon by replacing the "http: URI" with a "data: URI" containing the base64 encoded icon.

This is of importance e.g. to Firefox on LiveCD distributions using "http: URI" for search plug-in icons, resulting in fetching of the icons on each LiveCD session.

Providing search plug-in icons as "data: URI" from the beginning (e.g. by letting Firefox fetch the icon from "http: URI" and then using the resulting "data: URI" on the LiveCD) will disable this feature.

See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Creating_OpenSearch_plugins_for_Firefox for details on search plug-in creation.

[Marcus320]

Please add following point to the list:

"What’s New" Page After Updates

See http://www.ghacks.net/2011/08/18/disable-firefoxs-whats-new-page-after-updates/ for information.

Setting browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone to "ignore" will disable the "what's new" page. (Note: On Thunderbird the parameter seems to be called mailnews.start_page_override.mstone.)

[Marcus320]

Please add following point to the list:

Reporting Data Choices

Those are all found in the Edit menu -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Data Choices:

• Telemetry
• Health Report (see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-health-report-understand-your-browser-perf )
• Crash Report

[andy747]

feer56 said

Hi everybody! User andy747 has edited the auto update checking section; Subsection: {for fx4} Firefox also checks to see if any updates are available for your add-ons (extensions, themes). To disable this check:

1. [[T:Open Add-ons|type=Extensions]]
2. At the top of the tab, click the Tools for All Add-ons menu and uncheck Update Add-ons Automatically, then select Reset All Add-ons to Update Automatically.

{/for} Since this is for Firefox 4, should we remove this section since andy747 is saying that the only way to disable is through about:config via PM. Unfortunately, we do not have version 4 to test the instructions out so should we remove the section or leave it as is?

This section is wrong even for Firefox 4.

Added in Firefox 4, "Update Add-ons Automatically" checkbox changes "extensions.update.autoUpdateDefault" setting, which controls the automatic installing of addon updates.

The "extensions.update.enabled" setting controls addons auto-update check and should be in the section instead.

For more info see: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=701987

[hartnegg]

Hi,

besides adding documentation for new features like health report, I would also like to add the corresponding AutoConfig options to the sections. Currently it says only how to disable things in the GUI. This specific article is probably read by a lot of admins, and what they need is the name of the corresponding pref.

For example when the article describes the update function with that Firefox updates itself, one could add one line: AutoConfig: pref("app.update.enabled",false);

Klaus

[hartnegg]

Full agreemant for Telemetry and Heath Report, these are badly missing here.

Regarding Crash Report: Per https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/legal/privacy/firefox.html#crash-reporter I would say that this is not automatic, it asks the user for permission.

So strictly speaking it does not belong into this article. However I would suggest to add a section 'other data transmissions' and make a short mention there, because it probably is relevant for many of the people who read this article.

[hartnegg]

This always shows me "Uncheck Firefox, Add-ons, and Search Engines" in the section about auto-updates, although this text fragment seems to be correct only for version 3.5. I tried inserting a '=' before 35, and clicked preview, but the text is still shown. Is there a document that describes the syntax in which these documents must be written?

[Marcus320]

feer56 said

The "extensions.update.enabled" setting controls addons auto-update check and should be in the section instead. For more info see: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=701987

+1 to that. See also https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/952162

[Marcus320]

Please add following point to the list:

DNS Prefetching

See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Controlling_DNS_prefetching for information.

Setting network.dns.disablePrefetch to "true" will disable the DNS prefetching.

[jscher2000]

According to Bug 1003680 comment 12 there is a workaround using about:config:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

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

(3) Double-click the network.http.speculative-parallel-limit and set it to 0 (zero).

Is this appropriate for the article?

I think it is a broader question whether this can happen on pages other than the new tab page: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/991116

[AliceWyman]

I updated the link to How does built-in Phishing and Malware Protection work? in the "Anti-phishing list updating" section and I added that link to the "Anti-malware list updating" section.

I also added "malicious file downloads" (for fx31 and above) to the warning under "Anti-malware list updating" and I reworded the "Infected with malware" section, to include a link to Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware.

[philipp]

hi, i think we will have to add a new section for firefox 36 to this article: this feature sends out and receives ssdp packets, which also causes various firewalls to trigger a dialog asking about this behaviour once firefox 36 is installed for the first time: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1054959

currently there doesn't seem to be a way around this: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1111967

[AliceWyman]

Hi, philipp. I'll add a Need changes entry for [Fx36] to add a section about SSDP.

[philipp]

hi alice, thank you - i think i've stumbled across this "needs changes" dashboard for the very first time, i didn't know it existed beforehand :-)

[philipp]

and while we're at it i think the downloading of tiles for the new tab page is missing in the article as well...

[AliceWyman]

jscher2000 said

According to Bug 1003680 comment 12 there is a workaround using about:config: (1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful. (2) In the search box above the list, type or paste specu and pause while the list is filtered (3) Double-click the network.http.speculative-parallel-limit and set it to 0 (zero). Is this appropriate for the article? I think it is a broader question whether this can happen on pages other than the new tab page: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/991116

This was overlooked. Bug 1003680 comment 12 says this:

---

Gijs Kruitbosch 2014-05-02 07:49:34 PDT

<snip> it's the speculative connection code. This was implemented in bug 790882, and there was some discussion in bug 814169 about having a pref to disable the feature. The bug was wontfixed, so there isn't a simple on/off pref.

However, as bug 814169 comment 16 points out, you can set the following pref:

(In reply to Honza Bambas (:mayhemer) from comment #16)
> Try setting 'network.http.speculative-parallel-limit' to 0.

And I've verified that that stops the speculative connections.
<snip>

---

Here's the bug where this was implemented and Michael Verdi's comment:

• Bug 790882 - [New Tab Page] Speculatively open connections for sites when hovering them (Fixed in Firefox 22)

Verdi [:verdi] 2013-05-09 13:19:11 PDT

(In reply to :Gavin Sharp (use gavin@gavinsharp.com for email) from comment #18)
> Sounds like we've made a call on privacy here. I agree that a user doc on
> SUMO would be valuable (though I think it should cover speculative
> connections in general, not just this one), flagging that with
> user-doc-needed.

It looks like this is the article we'd add this information to:  https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-stop-firefox-automatically-making-connections

Is there a way for someone to turn this off if they want?

---

I added a Needs Change entry for this article, which will show up when editing the article, as well as in the KB Dashboard overview "Needs update" column and in the Need Changes list: [Fx22] New Tab Page speculative connection on hovering sites (see discussion)

Feel free to make the edit yourself.

[AliceWyman]

philipp said

and while we're at it i think the downloading of tiles for the new tab page is missing in the article as well...

[Fx22] New Tab Page speculative connection on hovering sites /en-US/kb/how-stop-firefox-automatica.../5298

[philipp]

it's not just the speculative loading/pre-fetching but also the content of directory and enhancement tiles which are downloaded from cloudfront cdn.

when i think about it there's also the openh264 plugin from cisco that gets automatically downloaded sometime after the first start and there are update-pings in regular intervals...

so quite an amount of work to update the article it appears :-/

[AliceWyman]

philipp said

so quite an amount of work to update the article it appears :-/

If you could start new discussion threads on the other needed changes with more detail, or even draft the revision(s) yourself, that would be great.

P.S. I started a new discussion thread with "[Attn: Admin]" in the title, on whether or not this article should be maintained: /kb/how-stop-firefox-automatically-ma.../5985

[AliceWyman]

This got overlooked. I'll add a Needs change entry.

[AliceWyman]

This got overlooked. I'll add a Needs Change entry for:

Add Health Report, Telemetry, etc.

[AliceWyman]

There are lots of changes needed to make this article current, as philipp noted in his [Fx36] thread. I've been looking through the list of discussion threads that were started but never acted on and adding them as "Needs change" entries. I discovered that his article was previously archived but was un-archived and updated based on the following discussion:

/en-US/kb/how-stop-firefox-automatica.../1873 [Approved] Updates to make this article current (was: Consider unarchiving, it is linked from Mozilla) ... where John99 said on September 19, 2011

Continued from /forums/contributors/704981?page=4#post-42599 this article is linked from http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/legal/privacy/firefox.html so maybe it should continue to be maintained.

The article was then un-archived and updated.

The mozilla privacy page that John99 referred to now redirects to https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/ where I don't see any links to this article ... but it does cover the following items, some of which is missing from this article:

---

Browser and add-ons updates
Add-ons Blocklist 
Snippets (for the default home page)  
Firefox Health Report
Security 
 Secure Website Certificates   
 Firefox Forgery and Attack Protection  
Usage statistics (also called "Telemetry" in non-release builds) 
Tiles 
Default Search  

---

If we no longer need or wish to update this article then it should be archived. Hopefully Joni will see this, and make a decision.

[philipp]

in case we decide to maintain the article i'd propose an overhaul of this article and grouping related topics into expandable/collapsible sections

for example (bold would be sections, italic content that is missing at the moment):

Automatic updates & Security Auto-update checking Blocklist updating Anti-phishing list updating Anti-malware list updating OCSP

Prefetching Link prefetching DNS Prefetching New Tab Page prefetching Add-on list prefetching

User Invoked Content Home page loading Extensions (maybe move the autoupdating of extensions here) Live Bookmarks updating Downloads restarted Firefox Hello

Mozilla Content Tiles Snippets Geolocation for Default Search What's new page after update Add-on metadata updating

Diagnostics Health Report Telemetry Crash Reports

Media Capabilities Open h264 WebRTC STUN/ICE (bug 959893) SSDP for roku/chromecast detection in local network (EME in future?)

Loopback connection Infected with malware

[ideato]

Also the article is too long, maybe we have to split it a little ?

[John99]

On balance I would be for retaining the article.

I realise there are security concerns with publishing some of this sort of information

• as in Posting answers on the support forum that are potentially harmful (e.g., bypassing the blocklist) /forums/contributors/711071

However some of the content or proposed content is a lot less controversial, and useful; although admittedly hardly likely to be a high traffic article.

Some find the snippets highly annoying, especially those on low band width connections. Some are always going to complain about any Mozilla content, and I think the Tiles were. initially rather controversial.

I am all for the diagnostics, and I can see the potential benefits, but I am certain a vocal minority will expect options to disable these to be openly published.

[AliceWyman]

P.S. This is what the current "New Tab Page" section says, that needs to be updated : {for fx22}

New Tab Page

To improve the loading speed of commonly visited websites, Firefox will open connections to sites when the user hovers their mouse over thumbnails on the New Tab Page. In the event that the user clicks on the thumbnail, the site can begin loading faster since some of the work was already started in advance. Currently, there is not a way to disable this kind of prefetching, but you can always turn off New Tab Page thumbnails. {/for}

[AliceWyman]

I drafted a rewrite of this article based on philipp's suggested outline. (I also edited the intro and added a link to Mozilla's Firefox Browser Privacy Notice.)

See /kb/how-stop-firefox-automatically-ma.../90998

There's a lot that needs to be filled in and it will greatly expand this article.

[philipp]

since https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1079413 certain kb articles can be assigned to have collapsible sections - if we fill in all the blanks here, this article may be another candidate for it...

[jsavage]

I'm in favor of archiving this article. The Privacy Notice should address these concerns, and I'm not entirely comfortable with telling users how to bypass these options - in case things break.

I'll ask UA for their thoughts.

[AliceWyman]

BIG OOPS!

I said before, The mozilla privacy page that John99 referred to now redirects to https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/ where I don't see any links to this article ...

Well, I was wrong. There's a link to https://support.mozilla.org/kb/how-stop-firefox-automatically-making-connections#w_auto-update-check... under Things you should know, in the first "Learn More" section of Mozilla's Firefox Browser Privacy Notice:

---

Browser and add-ons updates

Browser Updates: Once per day, Firefox sends the following info to Mozilla when it checks for browser updates: your Firefox version information, language preference, operating system and version. You can turn off updates by following these instructions but it may leave you open to security vulnerabilities.

---

Joni said

I'm in favor of archiving this article. The Privacy Notice should address these concerns, and I'm not entirely comfortable with telling users how to bypass these options - in case things break. I'll ask UA for their thoughts.

By UA you mean User Advocacy .... would that be Tyler Downer or someone else?

Before archiving this article, maybe you should contact whoever is responsible for that page and get the link changed? The Update Firefox to the latest version article (at the very end) links to https://support.mozilla.org/kb/advanced-panel-accessibility-browsing-network-upda#w_update-tab so maybe that should be used instead.

[AliceWyman]

philipp said

Diagnostics Health Report Telemetry Crash Reports

If we do update this article then we can link to Advanced panel - Accessibility, browsing, network, updates, and other advanced settings in Firefox (Health Report, Telemetry, and Crash Reports are all listed, along with "more info" links, under the "Data Choices Tab" section).

[AliceWyman]

See also: /en-US/kb/how-stop-firefox-automatica.../5985#post-11422 [Attn: Admin] Should this article be maintained? ... and rewrite draft

AliceWyman said

philipp said

Diagnostics Health Report Telemetry Crash Reports

If we do update this article then we can link to Advanced panel - Accessibility, browsing, network, updates, and other advanced settings in Firefox (Health Report, Telemetry, and Crash Reports are all listed, along with "more info" links, under the "Data Choices Tab" section).

[jsavage]

Yes, I asked Tyler and he's in favor of keeping this article. Let's make our updates and review when ready.

[philipp]

i have put updates for the missing parts into the article - please someone proof-read it before it is getting reviewed.

in addition the article will be of quite monstrous length now - is this a case where we could add collapsible sections joni?

[AliceWyman]

Should the "Firefox Hello" section be {for fx34} and above? WebRTC {for fx33} or earlier? What about the Speculative Pre-connections section, which is a rewrite of the New Tab Page section that was {for fx22} and above? What about Diagnostics (Health Report and Telemetry) ? The "Data choices tab" ... was that added in fx21?

Other than adding {for fx} for those sections (and some may argue not to bother for fx21 or fx 22 and below) it looks OK to me as far as proofreading goes.

As for the monstrous length, removing the Table Of Contents (TOC) would shorten it ... and that won't be needed if collapsable secions are implemented.

[philipp]

ah yeah, you're right - "Firefox Hello" should be {for fx34}! as i'm not editing the KB that often i'm not sure about guidelines around this, but during writing the changes my thinking was that only firefox 31 esr is still supported still and to not bother with any differentiation before that.

webrtc has been in the browser for quite a while & the underlying bug that describes the issue from the webrtc-section was filed from firefox 26 - i didn't investigate the "regression" range any further... pretty much the same applies to the speculative pre-connections, i think they came for the new tab thumbnails in firefox 22, for the search bar in firefox 24 and what i just found out about for search on about:home & about:newtab in firefox 34 (bug #781006), so maybe there is a case to at least document the later part.

[Marcus320]

Hello everyone and thanks for updating this - it was overdue. I just wanted to point out that there is one more point which could be added: see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-stop-firefox-automatically-making-connections/discuss/5030.

It's affects the first start of Firefox, similarly to "OpenH264 Codec" or "Geolocation for Default Search".