Yesterday I open Firefox and was asked to update to a newer version.
After doing so I had lost all my bookmarks, saved passwords, and
anything associated with Firefox.

Now I am wondering if I have been hacked.

Anybody else experiencing issues?

Thanks

On 7/26/2022 5:33 AM, swalker wrote:
>
> Yesterday I open Firefox and was asked to update to a newer version.
> After doing so I had lost all my bookmarks, saved passwords, and
> anything associated with Firefox.
>
> Now I am wondering if I have been hacked.
>
> Anybody else experiencing issues?
>
>
> Thanks
>

As I do with SeaMonkey, you should always make a copy your entire
profile (or all of your profiles if you have more than one) before
updating Firefox.

--
David E. Ross
"A Message to Those Who Are Not Vaccinated"
See my <http://www.rossde.com/index.html#vaccine>.

swalker <sw@newsguy.com> on Tue, 26 Jul 2022 07:33:22 -0500 typed in
alt.windows7.general the following:
>
>Yesterday I open Firefox and was asked to update to a newer version.
>After doing so I had lost all my bookmarks, saved passwords, and
>anything associated with Firefox.
>
>Now I am wondering if I have been hacked.
>
>Anybody else experiencing issues?

No, but then I stopped using Firefox as it began the bloatware
useless feature creep "to improve my browsing experience."
--
pyotr filipivich
This Week's Panel: Us & Them - Eliminating Them.
Next Month's Panel: Having eliminated the old Them(tm)
Selecting who insufficiently Woke(tm) as to serve as the new Them(tm)

On Tue, 26 Jul 2022 07:26:06 -0700, "David E. Ross"
<nobody@notme.invalid> wrote:

>On 7/26/2022 5:33 AM, swalker wrote:
>>
>> Yesterday I open Firefox and was asked to update to a newer version.
>> After doing so I had lost all my bookmarks, saved passwords, and
>> anything associated with Firefox.
>>
>> Now I am wondering if I have been hacked.
>>
>> Anybody else experiencing issues?
>>
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>
>As I do with SeaMonkey, you should always make a copy your entire
>profile (or all of your profiles if you have more than one) before
>updating Firefox.

I had a backup and looking at it apparently FF erased the old one from
my desktop and made a new one which contained only 4 items.

I have a clone of the drive that is only a week old so I might be able
to recover it from the old drive ut it will have to be done without
using the clone to get to it. Need to ponder how to do that.

Thanks for the comment

swalker <sw@newsguy.com> wrote:

> Yesterday I open Firefox and was asked to update to a newer version.
> After doing so I had lost all my bookmarks, saved passwords, and
> anything associated with Firefox.
>
> Now I am wondering if I have been hacked.
>
> Anybody else experiencing issues?

The folks in the Firefox newsgroup might know over at ---.
..--------------------------------------------------------'
'---> alt.comp.software.firefox

On 7/26/2022 12:35 PM, swalker wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Jul 2022 07:26:06 -0700, "David E. Ross"
> <nobody@notme.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 7/26/2022 5:33 AM, swalker wrote:
>>>
>>> Yesterday I open Firefox and was asked to update to a newer version.
>>> After doing so I had lost all my bookmarks, saved passwords, and
>>> anything associated with Firefox.
>>>
>>> Now I am wondering if I have been hacked.
>>>
>>> Anybody else experiencing issues?
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>
>> As I do with SeaMonkey, you should always make a copy your entire
>> profile (or all of your profiles if you have more than one) before
>> updating Firefox.
>
> I had a backup and looking at it apparently FF erased the old one from
> my desktop and made a new one which contained only 4 items.
>
> I have a clone of the drive that is only a week old so I might be able
> to recover it from the old drive ut it will have to be done without
> using the clone to get to it. Need to ponder how to do that.
>
> Thanks for the comment
>

profiles.ini - has a defunct profile folder listed, and the real one

about:profiles - Used in Firefox, should show info about the profiles

Firefox has a profile manager, which can be triggered from the command line.

The profiles folders should be "near" the Firefox profiles.ini file.

*******

An old fashioned profiles.ini looks like this. Pretty simple to understand.

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1 <=== uses relative path syntax
Path=Profiles/m3kxg6ox.default <=== a path relative to where the profiles.ini file lives
Default=1

*******

A new style profiles.ini looks like this.

The evidence suggests a destructive migrate was done at some time.
But likely not recently. This may have happened two years ago.

[Profile1]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=Profiles/2fqxkeft.default <=== only two files in here
Default=1

[InstallE7CF276E110C211B]
Default=Profiles/narsvlg6.default-esr <=== fully populated profile folder (cookies.sqlite)
Locked=1

[Profile0]
Name=default-esr
IsRelative=1
Path=Profiles/narsvlg6.default-esr <=== this profile appears to be in usage

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1
Version=2

*******

Paul

On 7/26/2022 8:26 AM, David E. Ross wrote:
> On 7/26/2022 5:33 AM, swalker wrote:
>>
>> Yesterday I open Firefox and was asked to update to a newer version.
>> After doing so I had lost all my bookmarks, saved passwords, and
>> anything associated with Firefox.
>>
>> Now I am wondering if I have been hacked.
>>
>> Anybody else experiencing issues?
>>
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>
> As I do with SeaMonkey, you should always make a copy your entire
> profile (or all of your profiles if you have more than one) before
> updating Firefox.

If that is a serious suggestion I can only conclude one of two
possibilities: 1) FF is not ready for other than testing purposes or 2)
you are paranoid. Since I have no reason to conclude the second, lets go
with number one. Now days, FF and TB are trying to set speed records
with new version and subversion releases. It's happening quite
frequently and most of the consumers are not really very computer
literate. Backing up a profile would be an all-evening project for them
and restoring one a real adventure. If ordinary citizens are to use a
product, it must not make such demands on their computer competence.

I know nothing about your mother or grandmothers* but would you advise
them to do such backups and restores on their own. (Not everyone has you
sitting in the wings to do it for them you know.) Of course not! You
would advise them to use another, more mature product wouldn't you.

* Mother and grandmothers as opposed to parents and grandparents is
surely sexist. However, I think it has more emotional impact on most.
--
Jeff Barnett

pyotr filipivich <phamp@mindspring.com> wrote in
news:u900eh9dn9q0dhntqqttm3cm58hl5vsr4p@4ax.com:

> swalker <sw@newsguy.com> on Tue, 26 Jul 2022 07:33:22 -0500 typed in
> alt.windows7.general the following:
>>
>>Yesterday I open Firefox and was asked to update to a newer version.
>>After doing so I had lost all my bookmarks, saved passwords, and
>>anything associated with Firefox.
>>
>>Now I am wondering if I have been hacked.
>>
>>Anybody else experiencing issues?
>
> No, but then I stopped using Firefox as it began the bloatware
> useless feature creep "to improve my browsing experience."

May I ask what browser(s) you prefer?

Thanks.

After finding my MOZ backup I copied it to a thumb drive and opened FF
to update everything and apparently somebody somewhere fixed the
problem. Everything is back to normal. Like it never happened.

Obviously the release wasn't ready for prime time.

Thanks to all.

On 27/07/2022 03:17, swalker wrote:
>
> After finding my MOZ backup I copied it to a thumb drive and opened FF
> to update everything and apparently somebody somewhere fixed the
> problem. Everything is back to normal. Like it never happened.
>
> Obviously the release wasn't ready for prime time.
>
> Thanks to all.

Your PC glitched.
No problems here when I upgraded to FF 103 yesterday afternoon.

--
Brian Gregory (in England).

"Jeff Barnett" <jbb@notatt.com> wrote

| If that is a serious suggestion I can only conclude one of two
| possibilities: 1) FF is not ready for other than testing purposes or 2)
| you are paranoid. Since I have no reason to conclude the second, lets go
| with number one. Now days, FF and TB are trying to set speed records
| with new version and subversion releases. It's happening quite
| frequently and most of the consumers are not really very computer
| literate. Backing up a profile would be an all-evening project for them
| and restoring one a real adventure. If ordinary citizens are to use a
| product, it must not make such demands on their computer competence.
|

I back up my history, bookmarks and prefs. With
TBird I back up the whole works. It's Rube Goldberg
software designed by committee. Whether you think
that's sensible or not, if you don't want to risk loss
then you need to back up.

On Wed, 27 Jul 2022 03:59:34 +0100, Brian Gregory
<void-invalid-dead-dontuse@email.invalid> wrote:

>On 27/07/2022 03:17, swalker wrote:
>>
>> After finding my MOZ backup I copied it to a thumb drive and opened FF
>> to update everything and apparently somebody somewhere fixed the
>> problem. Everything is back to normal. Like it never happened.
>>
>> Obviously the release wasn't ready for prime time.
>>
>> Thanks to all.
>
>Your PC glitched.
>No problems here when I upgraded to FF 103 yesterday afternoon.

No problems here, either (also running 103).

In fact, I don't remember ever having a problem with any version of
Firefox.

On 7/27/2022 7:58 AM, Mayayana wrote:
> "Jeff Barnett" <jbb@notatt.com> wrote
>
> | If that is a serious suggestion I can only conclude one of two
> | possibilities: 1) FF is not ready for other than testing purposes or 2)
> | you are paranoid. Since I have no reason to conclude the second, lets go
> | with number one. Now days, FF and TB are trying to set speed records
> | with new version and subversion releases. It's happening quite
> | frequently and most of the consumers are not really very computer
> | literate. Backing up a profile would be an all-evening project for them
> | and restoring one a real adventure. If ordinary citizens are to use a
> | product, it must not make such demands on their computer competence.
> |
>
> I back up my history, bookmarks and prefs. With
> TBird I back up the whole works. It's Rube Goldberg
> software designed by committee. Whether you think
> that's sensible or not, if you don't want to risk loss
> then you need to back up.

So as to "not scare the kids at home", you could probably
find a single folder to ZIP up and store, if all you wanted
was an "emergency resource for later". When restoring later,
that's when you would be more selective about what to put back.
Perhaps one of the folders inside Profiles is moribund and
not in need of maintenance.

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox <=== ZIP up this folder, as a backup
Profiles Exit from prog, before making backup!
profiles.ini

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird <=== ZIP up this folder, as a backup
Profiles Exit from prog, before making backup!
profiles.ini

And part of the reason they are similar, is not "design intent",
it's the fact that Thunderbird is 90% Firefox code, so most
of the code in Thunderbird is actually a Firefox engine.
They use ESR versions of Firefox as the engine, to cut down
on the churn when new copies of Firefox are used as source
for TBird. The copy of Firefox inside TBird must be refreshed,
if you believe they may have fixed security issues in Firefox.

Paul

So it would be easy and quick for you to write a program to do backup
and restore.
How about it ?

Mayayana wrote:
> "Jeff Barnett" <jbb@notatt.com> wrote
>
> | If that is a serious suggestion I can only conclude one of two
> | possibilities: 1) FF is not ready for other than testing purposes or 2)
> | you are paranoid. Since I have no reason to conclude the second, lets go
> | with number one. Now days, FF and TB are trying to set speed records
> | with new version and subversion releases. It's happening quite
> | frequently and most of the consumers are not really very computer
> | literate. Backing up a profile would be an all-evening project for them
> | and restoring one a real adventure. If ordinary citizens are to use a
> | product, it must not make such demands on their computer competence.
> |
>
> I back up my history, bookmarks and prefs. With
> TBird I back up the whole works. It's Rube Goldberg
> software designed by committee. Whether you think
> that's sensible or not, if you don't want to risk loss
> then you need to back up.
>
>
>

"Mayayana" <mayayana@invalid.nospam> on Wed, 27 Jul 2022 07:58:56
-0400 typed in alt.windows7.general the following:
>"Jeff Barnett" <jbb@notatt.com> wrote
>
>| If that is a serious suggestion I can only conclude one of two
>| possibilities: 1) FF is not ready for other than testing purposes or 2)
>| you are paranoid. Since I have no reason to conclude the second, lets go
>| with number one. Now days, FF and TB are trying to set speed records
>| with new version and subversion releases. It's happening quite
>| frequently and most of the consumers are not really very computer
>| literate. Backing up a profile would be an all-evening project for them
>| and restoring one a real adventure. If ordinary citizens are to use a
>| product, it must not make such demands on their computer competence.
>|
>
> I back up my history, bookmarks and prefs. With
>TBird I back up the whole works. It's Rube Goldberg
>software designed by committee. Whether you think
>that's sensible or not, if you don't want to risk loss
>then you need to back up.

Back up first, then hack code.
--
pyotr filipivich
This Week's Panel: Us & Them - Eliminating Them.
Next Month's Panel: Having eliminated the old Them(tm)
Selecting who insufficiently Woke(tm) as to serve as the new Them(tm)

"Paul" <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote

| So as to "not scare the kids at home",

Why would I not want to scare them? :)

| you could probably
| find a single folder to ZIP up and store, if all you wanted
| was an "emergency resource for later".

I have a system. I use 2 mostly redundant disks.
I periodically back up the most important data and
backup to DVD, which includes app data backups.
Less often I back up things like disk images,
software installers, graphics, videos, etc.

"Aoli" <Aoli@Aoli.com> wrote

| So it would be easy and quick for you to write a program to do backup
| and restore.
| How about it ?
| Sure. As soon as I get your check. :)

I don't personally have a need for such things. I keep
things organized. I periodically copy app data to a second
disk and write that to DVD. Software backup would be
big and clunky. I keep disk images with all software
pre-installed and don't typically update software very
often. I don't need the whole program backed up.

I did write a VBScript, though, that I find handy. Windows
has never had a simple function to "copy to X only if copy
at X is older or nonexistent". By writing a script to do that I
can copy over things like app data quickly, because only
new/changed files will be copied.

For what it's worth, people can copy this to Notepad, save
as .vbs. When run, type folder A into input and folder B into
second input. For example, C:\stuff G:\Backup\stuff will copy
the contents of C:\stuff to G:\Backup\stuff. It then writes a log
of copied files to C drive.

'---------------------------------------------

Dim FSO, arg, sPath, sFol1, sFol2, s, TS
Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

On Error Resume Next
If WScript.Arguments.count > 0 Then
sPath = WScript.Arguments.item(0)
Else
sPath = InputBox("Enter Path of folder", "Folders-Files to copy")
End If

If sPath = "" Then WScript.Quit
If FSO.FolderExists(sPath) = False Then
MsgBox "Not a valid folder path.", 64
WScript.Quit
End If

sFol2 = InputBox("Enter path of destination folder", "Copy files to...")
If sFol2 = "" Then WScript.Quit
If FSO.FolderExists(sFol2) = False Then
MsgBox "Path not valid.", 64
WScript.Quit
End If

s = CopyNew(sPath, sFol2)

If s <> "" Then
Set TS = FSO.CreateTextFile("C:\FilesCopied.txt", True)
TS.Write s
TS.close
Set TS = Nothing
MsgBox "Done. Copied list is C:\FilesCopied.txt."
Else
MsgBox "Done. No files to copy."
End If

Function CopyNew(FolPath, Fol2)
Dim oFol, Fols, Fils, oFol1, oFil, sList, SubPath, s1, sPath2, Fol2Min
On Error Resume Next
Fol2Min = Fol2
If Right(Fol2Min, 1) = "\" Then Fol2Min = Left(Fol2Min, len(Fol2Min) -
1)
If FSO.FolderExists(Fol2Min) = False Then 'make sure destination folder
exists.
Set oFol1 = FSO.CreateFolder(Fol2Min)
Set oFol1 = Nothing
End If

Set oFol = FSO.GetFolder(FolPath)
If Right(Fol2Min, 1) <> "\" Then Fol2Min = Fol2Min & "\"

'--Get files in folder and compare their date to today:
Set Fils = oFol.Files
For Each oFil in Fils
If FSO.FileExists(Fol2Min & oFil.Name) = False Then
FSO.CopyFile oFil.Path, Fol2Min & oFil.Name, True
sList = sList & oFil.Path & vbCrLf & " -> " & Fol2Min &
oFil.Name & vbCrLf
End If
Next

'--Run the same routine For subfolders:

Set Fols = oFol.SubFolders
If Fols.count > 0 Then
For Each oFol1 in Fols
SubPath = oFol1.Path
sPath2 = Fol2Min & oFol1.Name & "\"
s1 = CopyNew(SubPath, sPath2)
sList = sList & s1
Next
End If
Set Fols = Nothing

Set Fils = Nothing
Set oFol = Nothing

CopyNew = sList
End Function

On Tue, 26 Jul 2022 07:33:22 -0500, swalker <sw@newsguy.com> wrote:

>
>Yesterday I open Firefox and was asked to update to a newer version.
>After doing so I had lost all my bookmarks, saved passwords, and
>anything associated with Firefox.
>
>Now I am wondering if I have been hacked.
>
>Anybody else experiencing issues?
>
>
>Thanks

Reading the replies it is obvious some people had a different
experience with the FF update than I did.

When I first opened FF it said I hadn't visited in a while and would I
like to refresh. I confirmed that and was immediately taken to a page
that wanted me to buy a VPN service.

Finally got out of that although I don't remember how and was on a
normal FF browser with no history, link or bookmarks.

Later in the day I opened FF again and everything was normal but the
version was 102.0.1

Time to update again I guess.

On 7/27/2022 9:03 PM, swalker wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Jul 2022 07:33:22 -0500, swalker <sw@newsguy.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Yesterday I open Firefox and was asked to update to a newer version.
>> After doing so I had lost all my bookmarks, saved passwords, and
>> anything associated with Firefox.
>>
>> Now I am wondering if I have been hacked.
>>
>> Anybody else experiencing issues?
>>
>>
>> Thanks
>
> Reading the replies it is obvious some people had a different
> experience with the FF update than I did.
>
> When I first opened FF it said I hadn't visited in a while and would I
> like to refresh. I confirmed that and was immediately taken to a page
> that wanted me to buy a VPN service.
>
> Finally got out of that although I don't remember how and was on a
> normal FF browser with no history, link or bookmarks.
>
> Later in the day I opened FF again and everything was normal but the
> version was 102.0.1
>
> Time to update again I guess.
>

Firefox has "incremental update capability". It can do
small updates or big updates.

If you see it download 50MB, that's basically a forklift replace
of the entire thing.

If a smaller MAR comes in, it might take you from 101.0.1 to 101.0.2.

They refuse to take the shortest path to being up to date.
They may do a small one first, followed by a big one, whereas
you would think just the big one would be sufficient.

The MAR files can be seen on the release server. They combine
these in an attempt to make a "from-->to" path to the desired version.

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/101.0.1/update/win64/en-US/

During the execution of one of those, maybe they slipped in a
VPN advert.

Not that many months ago, every update would have been 57MB.
Now they putter around.

As far as I know, Firefox is capable of making a new profile,
if there is an incentive to do so. If the original customer
profile was "corrupt" (for some value of corrupt), that
would be an excuse to do that.

Paul

"swalker" <sw@newsguy.com> wrote
| | When I first opened FF it said I hadn't visited in a while and would I
| like to refresh. I confirmed that and was immediately taken to a page
| that wanted me to buy a VPN service.
|

I would be very wary of that, keeping an eye on where
messages are coming from and what URL you end up at.
What you saw could have been a new low for Mozilla, but
it could have also been an attempt to install malware.

On 7/28/2022 8:22 AM, Mayayana wrote:
> "swalker" <sw@newsguy.com> wrote
> |
> | When I first opened FF it said I hadn't visited in a while and would I
> | like to refresh. I confirmed that and was immediately taken to a page
> | that wanted me to buy a VPN service.
> |
>
> I would be very wary of that, keeping an eye on where
> messages are coming from and what URL you end up at.
> What you saw could have been a new low for Mozilla, but
> it could have also been an attempt to install malware.

There is such an animal.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-CA/products/vpn/

And this gives some idea of the rebranding history.
An earlier version of the web page above (on archive.org),
admits to Mullvad. At the price charged, they could
afford to carry about 150GB of your data per month.
But it claims to be an unlimited service.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23571653

If I was the Moz Business Opportunity Manager, I
think my next project would be "fudge sales". That
always worked as a kid, right ?

Paul