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Hardening Firefox – a checklist for improved browser privacy

(andrewmarder.net)
263 points amarder | 4 comments | 30 Aug 25 11:26 UTC | HN request time: 1.116s | source
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olivergregory ◴[30 Aug 25 18:06 UTC] No.45076771[source]▶
Set the browser.ml.chat.enabled and browser.ml.enabled to false as they intensively use the processor and drain the battery. All that to just find the best name for your tab groups. I prefer to have my laptop last one more hour instead.
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1. marc_abonce ◴[30 Aug 25 20:11 UTC] No.45077629[source]▶
I didn't know about this 2 settings but they were already disabled in my about:config. I wonder if Debian distributes a non-default about:config with Firefox.
replies(1): >>45078264 #
2. tremon ◴[30 Aug 25 21:46 UTC] No.45078264[source]▶
They do, see /etc/firefox-esr/firefox-esr.js -- but the aforementioned settings are not in that file by default, and [0] seems to suggest Debian does not alter the compiled-in defaults either.

Some quick digging in the source suggests that it's simply not enabled by default in ESR 128. I don't know if that's because it's only enabled by default in a later release, or because it's disabled in all ESR releases; I suspect the former. Compare [1] and [2]:

  -pref("browser.ml.enable", false); # in upstream/128.14.0esr
  +pref("browser.ml.enable", true); # in upstream/142.0.1
The other pref, browser.ml.chat.enable[d] is not mentioned in that file at all.

(edit: according to [3a] and [3b], it's browser.ml.enable and browser.ml.chat.enabled... yay for consistency, I guess)

[0] https://sources.debian.org/src/firefox-esr/128.14.0esr-1~deb...

[1] https://salsa.debian.org/mozilla-team/firefox/-/blame/upstre...

[2] https://salsa.debian.org/mozilla-team/firefox/-/blame/upstre...

[3a] https://salsa.debian.org/mozilla-team/firefox/-/blame/esr128...

[3b] https://salsa.debian.org/mozilla-team/firefox/-/blame/esr128...

replies(1): >>45079818 #
3. marc_abonce ◴[31 Aug 25 02:30 UTC] No.45079818[source]▶
Thanks for the heads-up! Yeah, I'm running ESR 128 right now so when I upgrade to the next ESR I'll keep an eye on these settings.
replies(1): >>45082103 #
4. styanax ◴[31 Aug 25 10:36 UTC] No.45082103{3}[source]▶
You can preload them now in your profile `user.js` - FF will ignore any settings it does not know about, it's "safe" to leave old things that got deleted and add new things coming in the next ESR without harm (that I'm aware, been doing it for years). A user.js is portable, not relying on any given vendor configurations.