>BTW I am looking for a way to search/browse Youtube without JS. Any ideas?
mps-youtube, you'll find the project on github, it's a very sweet program.
>When Firefox starts: Show your home page (I would set it to blank)
agreed, indeed I did that too :)
>Check spelling as you type: ON (I don't know if that includes any
connections but I would leave it of for the test)
It doesn't AFAIK.
>Allow Firefox to automatically install updates (recommended): ON (I would
set it to OFF for the test)
It will make just one connection each 24 hours AFAIK
>Default search engine: Google (and all the other PRISM ones are inabled too)
Yeah.. You can easily remove those via GUI though. Google throws hundreds of
thousands of greens at them in exchange of user data, u know, open sores
biz..
>Always use private browsing mode: ON (inconvenient)
How is that inconvenient? I have done so for years. Well, I have also not
allowed js (except for very very few websites) for years, I know I am a
strange guy.. But in which way is it 'inconvenient'?
>Accept cookies from websites: ON (should be OFF with only exceptions
allowed, when needed)
I don't know.. I mean, I know it will get you a higher fingerprint (eff
panopticlick again) to disable cookies, and it is inconvenient in that many
websites won't work properly. Also, if private browsing, as soon as you close
your browser all of them get purged. I close my browser very often. I don't
like having programs I don't use opened.
>Tracking protection block list: Disconnect.me basic (perhaps should be
'strict'?)
Indeed I set it to strict (remember I only use noscript, no adblocker addon
whatsoever - in fact I find it unnecessary being javascript always turned off
here and adds are basically just javascript nowadays, rarely a plain image
file..)
>Send "Do Not Track": Only when using Tracking Protection (should be
"Always")
Well, it is a nonsense useless feature anyway, isn't it? I mean no shark is
gonna respect it, let's be realistic. But yeah I did set it to always :P
>Prevent accessibility services from accessing your browser: OFF
Indeed, via GUI again
>Block dangerous and deceptive content: ON (this requires connection to
Google hosts where the blacklists are hosted)
Yeah, as mentioned already, disable every reference to goobles and to 'safe'
browsing (always makes me lul - **safe** browsing, sponsored by google)
>Query OCSP responder services: ON (this also requires connection to hosts)
True
>telemetry
That one also in the GUI. In about:config it is toolkit.telemetry.enabled.
Telemetry, again, should not be enabled by default..
>browser.safebrowsing.allowOverride
Yes, leave that one as it is (true)
>Another thing which I notice. Even after closing the browser and waiting for
some minutes (process terminated) tcpdump shows packets related to fsf.org
hosts and also to the OCSP hosts. I don't know why this is happening and why
the computer is trying to connect to those hosts without any software asking
for it. Any ideas?
As you said above, you'll inevitably connect to hosts if you want it to work
but why in the world would it make connections when the browser is closed I
have no idea. Is that even possible? I mean, are you sure ones you closed the
browser it's process was correctly killed? That is strange.
>Closed Firefox and ran it again. Without opening any web pages whatsoever I
go to Preferences and immediately tcpdump shows a load of connections to
amazonaws.com, mozilla.com, phicdn.net, digicert.com...
That's even stranger. Are you testing this without any addon?
>Always use private browsing mode is again ON and Accept cookies is ON too
(although turned off before restart). Another attempt and another fail. I go
to prefs.js and remove
Hmm, do note that user.js has the precedence AFAIK, so you will need to
change those inside that file (user.js) and not
prefs.js
>still on / back on
Yeah, I believe you'll need to set the modifications you want to be permanent
into user.js. See, if you have say browser.safebrowsing.allowOverride set to
false is user.js and you modify it in about:config or prefs.js (which is the
same) to set it to 'true' when you restart the browser user.js will override
it.
>After 42 minutes of tuning a program which refuses to respect my preferences
and which clearly does background communication as per my earlier test, all I
can do is wipe it away from my system
No, mate, again - user.js overrides prefs.js :)
------
Wow, this was long. I believe this is the longest comment in my over 3 years
here (and I am a daily -and quite verbose- visitor..). But it is nice to see
that I am not the only one who has spent time on achieving the almost
impossible getting a decent browser out of Firefox. Cheers colleague :)
