(I retyped all of this so hopefully I didn't typo any of it)
Relevant preferences for start page:
defaultPref("browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.aboutHome.enabled", false);
defaultPref("datareporting.policy.firstRunURL", "");
defaultPref("trailhead.firstrun.branches", "nofirstrun-privacy");
Settings you may want to save:
defaultPref("general.warnOnAboutConfig", false);
defaultPref("browser.tabs.warnOnClose", false);
Disable Pocket:
defaultPref("extensions.pocket.enabled", false);
defaultPref("browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.section.topstories",
false);
defaultPref("browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.section.highlights.includePocket",
false);
defaultPref("browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.showSponsored", false);
Disable snippets by firefox:
defaultPref("browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.snippets", false);
The rest is privacy/security stuff, which should probably be copied from
the union of 1. firefox specific guides 2. whatever tor browser does. Of
note is whether the URL bar and/or search bar send what you type anywhere.
Another decision is whether to "lock" preferences vs just changing the
default.
On Friday, January 29, 2021 at 3:00:47 AM UTC-8 Emma Borhanian wrote:
>
> > #1 requires monkey patching
>
> I thought of this as "monkey patching", because I automated altering the
> file with sed, but I guess it's not technically monkey patching if you're
> changing the source file.
> On Friday, January 29, 2021 at 2:50:41 AM UTC-8 Emma Borhanian wrote:
>
>> This is an arms race though and eventually mozilla will make any
>> particular methods of overriding the default search not work. It's really
>> annoying.
>>
>> I looked into using other browsers but IceCat
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_IceCat> seems to not receive security
>> updates frequently enough to be a viable secure browser. It seems we are
>> stuck with firefox and playing this arms race game for setting default
>> search forever.
>>
>> On Friday, January 29, 2021 at 2:47:48 AM UTC-8 Emma Borhanian wrote:
>>
>>> I might be interested in contributing code for this, but I'm not sure
>>> how to package it.
>>>
>>> On Friday, January 29, 2021 at 2:43:20 AM UTC-8 Emma Borhanian wrote:
>>>
>>>> You can use an autoconfig
>>>> <https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-autoconfig>
>>>>
>>>> file in the firefox-esr install directory in the template to control
>>>> everything except default search, which mozilla has added a bunch of
>>>> protections to in order to prevent default search page hijacking. You can
>>>> use this to disable "first run" welcome tabs, etc.
>>>> You probably also want to put privacy/hardening settings in the
>>>> autoconfig file.
>>>>
>>>> To change the default search page you actually need two mechanisms:
>>>> 1. Reverse engineer the way the firefox-esr directory configures
>>>> default search.
>>>> 2. Reverse engineer the way the profile directory configures default
>>>> search.
>>>>
>>>> You need both because:
>>>> #1 will be undone every time you update firefox. If you run firefox
>>>> before re-doing it, the change will be cached in your profile directory,
>>>> and method #1 will no longer work for you because the profile will
>>>> #2 doesn't work unless you already have a profile directory. A startup
>>>> script that ran on dispvm creation that both created a profile directory
>>>> and modified it using #2 would allow you to avoid needing #1, but it
>>>> seemed
>>>> cleaner to me to just do #1 as well.
>>>>
>>>> #1 requires monkey patching modules/SearchService.jsm to not fetch the
>>>> default search from mozilla's servers, and changing the search default in
>>>> chrome/browser/search-extensions/list.json.
>>>> #2 is documented here
>>>> https://blog.onee3.org/2018/04/manually-add-a-search-engine-to-firefox-quantum/
>>>> On Friday, January 29, 2021 at 1:58:22 AM UTC-8 Josefa Hays wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I use dispvm's all the time (both Fedora and Debian dispvms). Thus, I
>>>>> am
>>>>> quite annoyed to see varios "first run" issues every time i start
>>>>> Firefox in a disp-vm. I would like to perform the following changes in
>>>>> the template-vms, preferably from CLI, so I don't have to start
>>>>> Firefox
>>>>> in the template:
>>>>>
>>>>> * disable "first run" wellcome tabs
>>>>> * change startpage to https://duckduckgo.com
>>>>> * In Fedora-30 dispvm: disable the bookmark-bar in the top
>>>>>
>>>>> I've been poking around in ~/.mozilla/ files and configs, but so far
>>>>> no
>>>>> luck.
>>>>> Anybody got this working who can share their configs? (Maybe we could
>>>>> put a guide on in wiki/docs? I guess it is quite a common "problem"
>>>>> for
>>>>> people that use disp-vm's on a regular basis?)
>>>>>
>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>> Jo
>>>>>
>>>>
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