xpinstall.signatures.required
Mozilla Firefox has been my preferred browser from the start. However, with the UNWANTED CENSORSHIP implied by Mozilla, I will have to remove this BIG BROTHER application.
Advice about unsafe appliactions, applaudable. A security setting for the dumb idiots that need it, OK. But removing the override, ABSOLUTELY BIG BROTHER !
I use multiple SAFE ADD-ONS that are NOT SIGNED, and therefore suddenly don't work anymore. Please, please, go back to the original Firefox mentality where the USER was ENABLED TO ENHANCE FIREFOX! Stifling development by demanding signing is STUPID, and in the long term detrimental to the development of firefox.
I WANT TO BE BOSS ON MY OWN MACHINE! I hate windows 10 for its big brother approach, and so I'm stuck at windows 7. Now I'm stuck at Firefox 40, just to be able to use the add-ons that I want.
IS THERE A BRANCHING OF THE FIREFOX PROJECT THAT DOES NOT INCORPORATE THE " BIG BROTHER " APPROACH??
Please, let me know or REMOVE this UNWANTED FEATURE.
Thank you.
All Replies (4)
xpinstall.signatures.required still works in Firefox 45. Simply toggle that pref to false to disable that 'feature'. As far as future versions of Firefox, switch to the ESR version which will 'buy' you almost another year without having to deal with "signing". And by then almost every existing extension will probably be 'dead' for reasons other than "signing".
So on 48.0.1 it DOESN'T work anymore. Firefox devs are assholes. Simple and clear. There's a HIDDEN setting 'xpinstall.signatures.required' for those who KNOW what they are doing, and who need to use unsigned add-ons. But from this day on it doesn't work anymore. Firefox devs don't care and since they are big they can bully the little. And they do. Who needs this hidden option? Let's say there's a country (let's call it Estonia, for fun) where every citizen has to have an ID-card, and ALL the online government services (and most private) are only accessible with this card (which looks like a credit card with person's picture). Now at some point the gov dropped support for some operating systems (so they could increase their salaries), so the ID-card software doesn't run on some operating systems (OS) anymore. But older version of the software runs, and it's secure, and the OS (for example, for fun, let's call one of them MS POSReady2009) is safe and up to date (ends in 2019), just that the gov wants to "save money", and there's not much the smallish group of (often financially less well off) users can do. Up to this moment there was a way, but now Firefox is also saying to these users "we don't care". We don't care that you can't afford a newer computer, we don't care that your kid is hungry and her shoes are old, and you have a medical condition. We don't care. We care about Firefox, we care about our image, we care about our plan. And even if there's only a very small chance that this switch, this option somehow damages their corporate image, or impacts their plan they still won't allow it. That's Firefox today.
Modified by goldencut
Why not get the extensions signed, or use alternatives that are signed. Otherwise use an unbranded Firefox version that allows use of unsigned add-ons.
goldencut said
So on 48.0.1 it DOESN'T work anymore. Firefox devs are assholes. Simple and clear. There's a HIDDEN setting 'xpinstall.signatures.required' for those who KNOW what they are doing, and who need to use unsigned add-ons. But from this day on it doesn't work anymore. Firefox devs don't care and since they are big they can bully the little. And they do. Who needs this hidden option?
Firefox devs do care.
If you have used Firefox long enough you would know that when a change is made by default in a Release and can still be changed by a Preference, the Preference has pretty much always been temporary. The change had already been made before Firefox 48.0.
And I bet you many of the people who discovered this preference do not know how to do things with Firefox like say creating and managing Profiles.