305824 - Remove the obscuring of the autoconfig file.

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: AutoConfig (Mission Control Desktop), defect)

Description

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Currently we use the same method as mozilla to obscure the autoconfig file by 13
characters.

http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/search?string=obscure_value

This makes it painful to create autoconfig files.

We should default to no obscuring as Thunderbird does and if a company wants to
obscure it, they can by setting the preferences on their own.

Comment 1

[Tanner M [:Tannn3r]]

Reporter, can you still reproduce this bug in Firefox 10.0.2?

Please update to Firefox 10.0.2 or later, update your plugins, and retest in a new profile. If you still see the issue with the updated version of Firefox, please post here. Otherwise, please close as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME.

http://getfirefox.com/
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles

Comment 2

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Yes, this is still a valid bug.

Comment 3

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

O_o

What's the point in having an "obscured" file anyway?

Comment 4

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

> What's the point in having an "obscured" file anyway?

To prevent someone from changing it.

This is primarily used as a mechanism for deploying enterprise type customizations, so the idea was that you didn't want users messing with it.

Back then, a CFG file was required for the browser to come up (the default one was empty).

In the new world, since the config file has to be specified in a preferences file anyway, we might as well put the burden on the creator of the file to obscure it since it would be done in the same file.

Comment 5

[Martin Stránský [:stransky] (ni? me)]

Attachment: disable the obscuring

Disable the obscuring by default like thunderbird does.

Comment 6

[Martin Stránský [:stransky] (ni? me)]

Comment on attachment 644869 [details] [diff] [review]
disable the obscuring

Dao, I'm not sure who is the right reviewer for this, please reassign if I'm wrong. Thanks!

Comment 7

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Comment on attachment 644869 [details] [diff] [review]
disable the obscuring

What are the compatibility effects of this change? Will existing .cfg files stop working on upgrade? If so, could we autodetect whether the file is 13-shifted and support either form?

Comment 8

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

> What are the compatibility effects of this change? Will existing .cfg files stop working on upgrade? If so, could we autodetect whether the file is 13-shifted and support either form?

We've never encouraged people to obscure their files, although they might have. We've actively encouraged against it.

This would pretty straightforward to detect in the common case, though, since the first line of the file should be a comment. We could check for either a shifted space or forward slash.

Comment 9

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Comment on attachment 644869 [details] [diff] [review]
disable the obscuring

Well, it seems that unless somebody explicitly set the obscure_value to 0 that by default it would be obscured, and so making this change without autodetection might break people. So I think we should probably do the autodetection.

Comment 10

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

After thought on this, I don't think it's worth changing.

It's not creating any problems, it's just one extra line for folks to type.