My home page is blank.
My search engine is duckduck go.

I only have adblock and noscript.

I want firefox to not access google - ever.
Right now it shows that it connects and maintains a connection permanently.

I find it infuritating actually.

You lost zero info for how you think it’s connecting…?

I'm not sure about in Firefox directly but if you use a local dns or similar you could have Google resolve to nothing

At your own risk, disable Safe Browsing. And add all Google domains to the blacklist of uBlock Origin. Or you can simply switch to LibreWolf and go on with your life.

How did you figure out you are establishing a connection to google? Wireshark or similar?

Does it happen specifically as you open Firefox, or what do you mean with keeping ‘a connection permanently’? Which endpoint is it trying to reach?

I feel these are important details before people can help you out.

Yes, Google Safe Browsing is probably the cause. Anyone curious can read more about it here, but that traffic at browser startup is probably going to Google's Safe Browsing API servers.

$ sudo apt install librewolf
[sudo: authenticate] Password: 
Error: Unable to locate package librewolf

DNS over HTTPS could be using the Google DNS services.

(https://librewolf.net/installation/debian/)

We have a repository for Debian-based distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, etc.), with which you can easily install and update LibreWolf. To add it to your system and install LibreWolf, run the following commands one by one:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install extrepo -y

sudo extrepo enable librewolf && sudo extrepo update librewolf

sudo apt update && sudo apt install librewolf -y

I don't want to have to "taint" my distro install by adding a repo. I want it to be available from my distro's official repo.

Adding a repo is not "tainting" an install. Adding a package to the official repo is not the responsibility of the devs but of Debian's package maintainers.

You could try the AppImage or the flatpak.

are you sure its librewolf that makes the call of whats in your distros official repo?

Nothing tainted about it. It's actually one of the easiest ways to get a package you want/need. I appreciate anyone who maintains my precious librewolf package.

https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian

Anyway, the bottom line is that if LibreWolf folks want more people to use their software, then one of them ought to become a Debian package maintainer for that package.

Of course not; it's the distro that makes the call. But I want the Librewolf folks to make the effort to get accepted by the distro.

The only relevant part in that link is this:

Some third-party repositories might appear safe to use as they contain only packages that have no equivalent in Debian. However, there are no guarantees that any repository will not add more packages in future, leading to breakage.

And you should be safe about this.

As I was saying, the devs are not responsible for including the package to the official repo. You are owed nothing and have plenty of other options to install it.

As for your bottom line remember the contributors are working on it for free, they are not selling anything. So they are not running after more users. It's good as it is, non technical people can use flatpack or AppImage and technical people can add a repo without issues.

And someday someone could add it to the official repo, it could be you.

LibreWolf can't be a convenient daily driver. Need tweaks and tweaking default settings may reduce privacy and security slightly.

f course not; it’s the distro that makes the call. But I want the Librewolf folks to make the effort to get accepted by the distro.

Hmm, I will try the LibreWolf - will also try disabling safe browsing.

Thanks for the info!

True

Hmm, I don't think so in this case. Although I will check tomorrow. Thanks for the tip!

Firefox is trying to connect to 34.160.144.191 at startup.
It continues the connection, perhaps to reuse it, or whatever.

Firefox should never talk to google. And if there is some database that google has that firefox needs, Firefox should duplicate that DB.
The fact that I have this thing talking to google anytime I do anything is gross.
Anyhow. Blah blah blah. I'm annoying! ;-)

I have a feeling it's the safebrowsing. Will find out later. And then will disable.

Yes, I've tried it multiple times, but, apart of the so-called "privacy features", I can't find a single reason to use it instead of regular Firefox. Well, I suppose that if you're really paranoid, or hate every single decision Mozilla makes with the force of a thousand suns, then it can be appealing.

Thats because it is so close to Firefox to not even be distinct, but the privacy settings are useful anyway. I've used it as a daily driver for a long time and have not yet found it lacking.

You're going to miss out on great software with that approach. Even for packages that have a Debian apt version, I find it much safer to get it from the maintainers official repos. Get the same version as the apt package if you must.

For years, just in case I've missed disabling some FF telemetry ... Every night I disable networking. Mornings I start FF up first, and (once my -local- home page is fully loaded) only then do I enable networking.

apart of the so-called "privacy features", I can't find a single reason to use it instead of regular Firefox.

Because it's supposed to be Firefox but private. That's literally the only distinction.

I've disabled all of the safe browsing via about:config

still talks to google. weird. also it still keeps the connection open either for re-use or, dunno.

Ok I have some news -

It's not safebrowsing - or probably not - maybe I just can't turn it off now or something.

So I

• "refreshed" firefox to get to original state
• disabled all of safebrowsing via settings and then via about:config -> "safebr*.enabled"
• disabled all telemetry that got turned on via refresh
• turned off fucking AI

Nothing worked.

Eventually got logs running with:
"export MOZ_LOG=timestamp,rotate:200,nsHttp:5,cache2:5,nsSocketTransport:100,nsHostResolver:100"

found out mozilla is doing fucking push notifications?? wtf. that resolves to google?
turned that off.

Anyway, it does a bunch of shit. All talking to google in the end.

I hate Firefox. I'm so over all of this.

When I start the browser, and it is blank, and I have done nothing, it should do nothing.
If it needs some base certificate updates, it should do this once a week. Or never. Let me decide.

Talking to google, even doing dns lookups every fucking time I open a browser. God. Who are these people. /rant

Btw, disabling Safe Browsing didn't do the trick.

I did download LibreWolf. I have bad news - it does exactly the same thing.

Sigh. Maybe if you are using it you should profile it on osx or windows - or ntop linux I think will do it.