[conspire] Firefox troubles after moving to Debian Buster: how can I use my old profile?!

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Peter Knaggs (peter.knaggs at gmail.com):

> I've been on Firefox 68.0 on Ubuntu 18.10 for a while,
> but then it suddenly stopped being upgradable, so
> in an attempt to go back to using Debian I installed
> Debian 10 (buster) on a different machine and
> copied my .mozilla directory across from my
> Ubuntu 18.10 machine.
> 
> But now when I launch Firefox 85.5.0esr
> in Debian 10, I'm running into this curious trouble,
> it's giving me this message:
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This installation of Firefox has a new profile.
> It does not share bookmarks, passwords and
> user preferences with other installations of
> Firefox (including Firefox, Firefox ESR, Firefox
> Beta, Firefox Developer Edition, and Firefox
> Nightly) on this computer.
> 
> To sync information you've already saved to Firefox with this
> installation of Firefox, sign in with your Firefox Account.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------


Hi, Peter!  First, to be clear, this problem is brand-new to me, 
so if others here have encountered it, they can probably give you
more-intelligent comments than I can.

Searching the diagnostic message, what I see is a claim that 'this is
only supposed to happen if the installation directory is changing',
i.e., the new version of Firefox is searching for .mozilla trees
somewhere different from where the former version did.  (But I suspect
that's not it.)

I also see a suggestion of loading URI 'about:profiles', seeing if
perchance there are now _multiple_ profiles (Firefox having erroneously
added one), and trying setting the second profile as your main profile,
in hopes that the second profile is your real one.  I think that sounds
promising, so I'd definitely try that first before anything else.  I 
have a hunch that's it.



> If Firefox is going to be making strange decisions
> like this, seemingly abandoning their "on-premises" users,
> it looks like it's time to switch to something else...
> 
> What browser would you recommend for folks who have
> to manage their profile information locally on their own machine?

Quite a lot of people have been unhappy for various reasons about
_numerous_ Firefox changes starting with v. 48 in autumn 2016, not least
the jarring decision to make Firefox unwilling to load extensions 
that aren't crypto-signed by Mozilla, Inc. at http://addons.mozilla.org/
was one, and the sudden dropping of all XUL/XPCOM support with only
relatively cruddy and markedly more limited WebExtensions API support as
a substitute.  And there have been other dissatisfactions that aren't
immediately coming to mind.  Personally, the requirement for
mandatory crypto-signing (signing by them but not by, say, me) was the
deal-breaker for me.

Of course, it's possible that if you get the profile thing under
control, those bits of other people's disgruntlement will matter less to
you.

Here's what I wrote on the question you posed (well, on at least a
related question) recently on Devuan Project's Dng mailing list:



Quoting golinux at devuan.org (golinux at devuan.org):

> Just great! So how can we keep off this cloudflare thing?
>
> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/25/mozilla_turns_on_dns_over_https_by_default
_for_usa/
>
> Rick Moen?  Anyone?

It's been obviously coming (for newer Firefox versions) for quite some
time.  Since my _personal_ view is that Firefox (Release Edition and
Beta) went unacceptably off the rails starting with Firefox 48 on
2016-08-02 (and similar damage to Firefox ESR then being only a matter
of time), I see this as unfortunate but as just another nail in the
coffin.

As noted in TheReg's article (and linked Mozilla blog item), the new
DoH default in Firefox 73.0.1 can be simply unchecked somewhere in
the program's Settings (for now).

Also, for those who care about new Firefox versions but haven't read the
coverage, it should be noted that the new default is (claimed to be) set
only in downloadable binary versions of the browser offered at
mozilla.org to USA users, not to those elsewhere in the world.

The direct effect on Linux users would be only on distros that do no
meaningful curating and correcion of Mozilla, Inc.'s sometimes brainless
defaults in their distro packages.  (I really have no idea if the Debian
distro package of Firefox Release Edition suffers this brain damage,
having lost interest, as I said, some years back.  Perhaps someone else
here knows.

(Seriously, I really, really wish either Debian or someone else would
gather together as much as possible of the 'No, we don't accept
mandatory extension signing and are not thrilled about losing XUL/XPCOM
without a lot better planning' consensus under one roof under revived
brand identity 'Iceweasel'.  Seems like an obvious solution, to me --
and, to correct myself just a bit, in a way, it's almost-sorta happened:
the several little scattershot Firefox pre-57 forks include Pale Moon,
Basilisk, Waterfox, Iceweasel-UXP, Iceape-UXP, and Borealis Navigator.

For those who are unfamiliar with Iceweasel-UXP, I recommend reading
their lucid and brief explanation:
https://wiki.hyperbola.info/doku.php?id=en:project:iceweasel-uxp
(But, seriously, IMO they should call it 'Iceweasel', which is a peculiar
enough name without the suffix, but at least has a history.)