516361 - search plugins shipped by extensions keep being re-added on each firefox update although hidden before

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

Description

[Hendrik Lönngren]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; eo; rv:1.9.0.14) Gecko/2009090216 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Firefox/3.0.14
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; eo; rv:1.9.0.14) Gecko/2009090216 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Firefox/3.0.14

This behaviour has been seen on Ubuntu for a long time, as the ubufox package (Ubuntu firefox modifications) ships a search plugin for Ask.com, which re-appears after every firefox update and thus has to be hidden again.

There is a long-standing downstream bug report at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubufox/+bug/355112, where in comment #23 you find an analysis of how this happens. The downstream bug is set to “Triaged”, but there seems to be no bug report for this here yet anyway.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install extension with a searchplugins subdirectory and a search plugin in it
2. Hide the extension from the search toolbar
3. Update firefox-3.0 package
Actual Results:  
The previously hidden search plugin reappears.

Expected Results:  
It should have stayed hidden.

Comment 2

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

Given the fact that it will happen for each extension which ships search plugins we should re-think the way how we handle it. Lets un-dupe from bug 490860.

Comment 3

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

It won't happen "for each extension which ships search plugins". It only happens if the extension's location on disk changes, which is relatively unlikely to happen outside of ubuntu's packaging setup.

Comment 4

[Hendrik Lönngren]

It does happen for a sort of minimal extension which I placed directly in
/usr/lib/firefox-addons/extensions. So its location on disk does not change.

Comment 6

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Extensions can no longer ship search plugins this way.