2019-05-05 13:37:35

Hi all,
Well, it looks like Mozila did something pretty nuts. They forgot to renew a security certificate, and, millions of addons and usersa are effected. Why? Because every single addon is pretty much disabled, including add blockers and privacy-centric addons. I am trying to see about fixing this, in an older version you have to apparently disable something in about:config so I will try that.
My question is this: how, on earth, did they forget to renew this certificate? Surely an expiry date is listed. I know companies make mistakes, but this is a really big one.

2019-05-05 13:41:43

Oh wow! That’s extremely irresponsible. They will probably lose a lot of users over this. I do know that a lot of people have switched web browsers already not because of this problem even.

2019-05-05 13:52:37

@aaron, i also was thinking, why the hell are my addons not working even my mozilla firefox is latest version, and my addons are also the latest ones.
thanks for your confermation that my browser hasn't any problem

2019-05-05 14:07:39

A hotfix is already rolling out. You need to check in Options, Privacy, enable studies. If studies are enabled, you should get one that fixes the issue for now, until a more permanent fix is released. You can disable studies after you get the fix. That said, holy crap Mozilla, how stupid can you be? If your entire addon infrastructure relies on a certificate, you should make damn sure said certificate does not expire. It's really interesting timing for me personally, as I've recently been on a sort of browser tour. Been using Chrome for two years, but decided to check out the alternatives. Used Firefox for a week, and by some strange coincidence, stopped using it just as this issue started occurring. I'm back to Chrome for now after testing a few alternatives.

Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
"Cause in a game of life or death, you either live, or you die."
"Wake the fuck up, samurai. We have a city to burn."

2019-05-05 15:54:44

Hi,
This happened yesterday. It was fixed about 6 hours after it started occuring.

A learning experience is one of those things that say, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."

2019-05-05 16:31:30

Hi,
Unfortunately studies is not an option for me because I'm using an older version by choice, as I've heard mixed reports about the newer versions of Firefox.

2019-05-05 17:03:03

thanks google chrome i'm using it since 2018. Mozilla had big lag here, also some problems and i switch it too chrome. Well that's big problem for them.

Yours kindly

2019-05-05 17:27:49

Oh yeah, this move confused the hell out of me! Thanks for clarification on what's up. Time after time I do a little checkup on addons and stuff and so I did it today and couldn't understand, what's wrong.

2019-05-05 18:15:05

Aaron, unles you have a compelling reason not to upgrade, such as incompatible addons etc, it would be very benefitial for you to upgrade to the latest firefox. NVDA and Jaws do work better, and it will allow you to resolve the problem you're having.

A learning experience is one of those things that say, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."

2019-05-05 20:00:23

You can get the fix here without enabling Studies:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19826903

2019-05-05 21:04:49

I just enabled studies, and got the fix immediately. I had read about this yesterday, and I agree, it's extremely unprofessional on Mozilla's behalf to have let something like this happen. Luckily, I use Chrome the majority of the time, but there are certain sites which work a little better with Firefox, so I keep it around. I suspect that a lot of people aren't going to be so forgiving, though.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2019-05-06 00:19:32

I'll put it to you like this:
A few months ago, the audiogames website stopped working on my windows 8 pc upstairs because I hadn't used that particular pc for a while, and firefox was very much out of date. So, I upgraded my windows 8 pc to the latest firefox, but instead of just working as expected, Firefox literally crashed. After reinstalling, and even resetting the profile from scratch, firefox refused to actually start, even with a fresh, new profile.
This is why, on my windows 7 pc, I am keeping my portable copy as is, with auto updating disabled, because, it, quite simply, works, or would work, with no addon structure changes and websites running as expected.
It's more than just addons though. Many sighted users are reporting that later versions of Firefox are employing more methods of telemetry, and even when stuff is disabled, it still sends the data, kind of like Microsoft. It's making people lose trust in Mozila, slowly but surely.

2019-05-06 02:14:36

newest firefox is actually better than the o lder versions no lags here.

2019-05-06 06:31:44

Hi,
I am on a very old ff version (55/ 56) because I use jaws 18 and can't aford to upgrade to the latest one, not to start a flame war here or anything, but even if I had the money to spare (which I don't) the later versions of jaws are slower than 18, be it 2018 2019 and pay for just browser compatability, bah!
I guess I will have to switch browsers if firefox hotfixes can't be applied to this version, because well addons are important, and I will not only need to pay $400 $500 to FS (rough estimates here) to use latest version of firefox but deal with slower versions of jaws as well how's that for fun?
Grryf

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.
Follow me on twitter

2019-05-07 14:08:37

Hi folks,
I found a fix for older versions.
Essentially, someone extracted, and then created a file containing, the official certificate from Mozilla. Why they couldn't do this in the firstplace is beyond me, with Mozilla's official recommendation being, as always, to update to the latest version. It's made a lot of people angry on reddit, and this guy's basically become a hero of the day to them.
On the URL which details this, it has a bit saying "begin certificate". Copy all of that, including "end certificate", into notepad, go to save as, and save it as icfix.pem, in quotation marks, somewhere that you remember, so that notepad actually saves it as a pem file.
The URL can be found here:
https://www.velvetbug.com/benb/icfix/
bkspmk/addons_fix_for_5602_older/emk82vv/
Then in my older version of Firefox, I went to options, advanced, certificates, clicked the authorities tab, clicked import, selected the pem file, some checkboxes came up which I left unchecked.
Then you can do one of two thigns after checking that the certificate is imported, under Mozilla.
You can either wait it out for the next 24 hours until it reschedules it's addon chek, or you can try to force it to do so using dev tools by going into addons and pressing NVDA plus f2 to pass next key through, f12 which will then bring up a console, and pasting:
Components.utils.import("resource://gre/modules/addons/XPIProvider.jsm");
XPIProvider.verifySignatures();
if it asks you to allow pasting, just type "allow pasting" no quotes, no caps, and just like you'd normally ype it. Then re-paste it. Then press enter.
Now, on my end, the log just said log undefined, but when I checked my addons, they were all enabled again. REstarted Firefox and got my ad block back!
The original URL was found on a reddit thread
This was originally found on a reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/
hope this helps.

2019-05-07 14:37:52

thank god i'm not using fire fox

And as anyone who's gone mountain climbing knows ,The serene snow-covered peaks that look so tranquil from a bdistance, Are the deadliest
sound is my vision
i rarely check my private messages on the forum, so if you want to contact me please use my email, or dm me  at oussama40121 on tw