Is the existence of a back door method of updating Firefox preferences something that will be disclosed to users? What about a UI knob to disable it?
It will even be documented for them: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Normandy/PreferenceRollout
> What about a UI knob to disable it?
app.normandy.enabled
Options -> Privacy & Security > Allow Firefox to install and run studies
They're using the studies system to push this hotfix faster for those that have it enabled.Edit: Source:
See: https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/certificate-issue-causing-ad...
> In order to be able to provide this fix on short notice, we are using the Studies system. You can check if you have studies enabled by going to Firefox Preferences -> Privacy & Security -> Allow Firefox to install and run studies.
Normandy seems to be the internal name for this system: https://github.com/mozilla/normandy
> Options -> Privacy & Security > Allow Firefox to install and run studies
That is not true. I've had that disabled forever Despite that, when I went into about:config, app.normandy.enabled was set to true, and app.normandy.user_id was defined.
So, overnight Firefox decides it won't let me use uBlock Origin any more and now I find out all my browsing history has been logged to Firefox servers.
All of this stinks.