Firefox 60.1.0esr profile inflation

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taylorkh
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Firefox 60.1.0esr profile inflation

Post by taylorkh » 2018/07/16 13:38:16

A few days ago I upgraded Firefox on CentOS 7.5 to 60.1.0esr. In addition to obsoleting half of my addons :( I noticed that space consumed by my profile had increased dramatically. I tracked down most of the bloat to 98 "language packs" totaling 52 MB. Fortunately I can simply delete the offending files and so far they have not come back.

I have discussed this on a Firefox support forum and I was told that this was not inherent in Firefox 60 but rather something specific in the CentOS package. My investigation points to this being partly true.

I have a virtual machine running Ubuntu Mate 18.04. It has Firefox 60 but no language packs. I upgraded Firefox on several other CentOS 7.5 machines (from the CentOS repos) and found no language packs UNTIL the first time I launched Firefox. At this point they were installed apparently by something in Firefox which seems to be specific to CentOS.

Does anyone have any insight to what is going on? Can someone tell me if this happens with the upstream vendor's update (RHEL)?

I have upgraded and cleaned out 14 profiles on other machines, special and test accounts etc. Rather a PITA. I would like to find the offending setting so I can make sure that it stays set to "no language packs for me, thank you."

TIA,

Ken

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avij
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Re: Firefox 60.1.0esr profile inflation

Post by avij » 2018/07/16 14:05:12

Yes, this affects RHEL as well. Some discussion: https://access.redhat.com/discussions/3 ... nt-1322671

taylorkh
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Re: Firefox 60.1.0esr profile inflation

Post by taylorkh » 2018/07/16 14:59:29

Thanks avij ,

A very interesting read. The Firefox developer link speaks of a preference dating back to Firefox FOUR! If I look for that preference in FF 60.1 on CentOS I do NOT find it. I DO find individual preferences for EACH offending language pack (e.g. extensions.installedDistroAddon.langpack-bn-BD@firefox.mozilla.org). Neither the parent preference nor these individual preferences are present in FF 60.1 on Ubuntu. Still smells like a CentOS/RHEL inflicted issue.

Even if the parent preference was present, or if I wished to add it, I am not sure how it would help. I would have to launch FF to get to about:config. This would copy the 52 MB of unwanted files into the profile :(

I have 3 separate profiles on my main workstation. I make 30 rolling backups of critical date each evening. That would be more than 4 1/2 GB of wasted space. I am glad that disk is cheap :D and gladder (sp?) that I found this crap before I started backing it up :lol:

Ken

stevemowbray
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Re: Firefox 60.1.0esr profile inflation

Post by stevemowbray » 2018/07/16 15:25:47

You can add it to prefs.js in your profile directory without opening firefox - or to a .js file in /usr/lib64/firefox/default/preferences for all users.

taylorkh
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Location: North Carolina, USA

Re: Firefox 60.1.0esr profile inflation

Post by taylorkh » 2018/07/16 16:57:05

Thanks stevemowbray,

That is certainly an option. It also gives me an idea... If I remove FF and reinstall it I wonder what will be in /usr/lib64/firefox/default/preferences ? And then I need to do the same on Ubuntu and compare. I will do so when I get a little time and post any interesting findings.

Ken

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