Ask.com keeps being re-added to Firefox search bar after updates

[Peter Johnson]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

Firefox 3.x on Ubuntu 8.04 (and reported with 8.10).

Each time Firefox gets updated, "Ask.com" get restored in my list of search engines in the top-right mini-search bar.
Other search engines are unaffected, no other engines are modified in any way.

Please explain what is doing this? There are people commenting on it at the Mozilla forums, one user even says "If you're downloading from Ubuntu, then they may have added something in their distribution."

Is this the case? If not, what is doing it?
Just to clarify, this only happens when Firefox is updated.

Reference: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1166865&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
Reference: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy/+source/ubufox/0.5~beta2-0ubuntu1

me@me:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 8.04.2
Release: 8.04

me@me:~$ apt-cache policy firefox-3.0
firefox-3.0:
  Installed: 3.0.8+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.2
  Candidate: 3.0.8+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.2
  Version table:
 *** 3.0.8+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.2 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/main Packages
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.0~b5+nobinonly-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main Packages

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Changed to ubufox.
Alexander didnt we fix this in ubufox 0.8 as posted by the Launchpad link above?
I could swear there is another bug already reported on this.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

sounds like this is a firefox bug. Can you reproduce with a fresh profile?

[Peter Johnson (missinglink)]

Hi Alex,

Not easily sorry, my FF is currently up-to-date.

re: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy/+source/ubufox/0.5~beta2-0ubuntu1

 * new upstream release v0.5 beta2
   - includes ask.com as searchplugin

Is this related?

I suspect the problem is not with FF itself but with the 'Ubuntu Firefox Modifications' addon included in the update from Ubuntu.

Thanks,
-Peter

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

well, the plugin is shipped by ubufox, yes. But if you cannot remove it its a firefox bug; we just use the same way firefox uses to ship searchplugins.

So ... please test with a fresh profile first. (move your $HOME/.mozilla directory away)

[Peter Johnson (missinglink)]

Thanks Alex,

I am reluctant to remove 'Ubuntu Firefox Modifications' as I don't know what other functionality it offers.

Re: moving the profile, I really don't want to do that cause I have had major disasters with profiles before in FF and would be much happier removing the 'ask.com' every time I update FF rather than creating a fresh profile and possibly loosing all my password, favourites etc.

Sorry I wont 'take one for the team'.

Re: New Profile, I assume this would only work when FF is updated, so next time I update, I will disable 'Ubuntu Firefox Modifications' addon and update, then look for the 'ask.com' search plugin.

I will post the results.

Thanks for your time.

-Peter

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

i didnt mean to remove it from the ubufox extension. anyway. we actually should move the ask.com searchplugin to firefox-3.0 package again as we also edit a few others there.

In the end its a firefox bug that it reenables searchplugins on upgrade that are shipped by extensions. Lets use this bug to track that.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

havent tested my self, but i wouldn't be surprised if this is really an issue

[Peter Johnson (missinglink)]

Hi Alex,

Today a new FF update came out, and I can confirm the problem lies with the 'Ubuntu Firefox Modifications' extension.

I have taken screenshots of the process I took to confirm this.

1. http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/5117/screenshotc.png
This screenshot shows the Ubuntu Update Manager listing the new updates and, on the right, my Search Engine List.

2. http://img2.imageshack.us/img2/4876/screenshot1b.png
Before begging the update process, I went Tools->Addons and 'disabled' the 'Ubuntu Firefox Modifications' addon.
I then restarted FF as requested

3. http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/8049/screenshot2u.png
I ran the update (not pictured) and restarted FF afterwards (notice the FF update page).
My Search Engine List displays exactly the same Search Engines as before the update.

4. http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/4255/screenshot3z.png
I went Tools->Addons and 'enabled' the 'Ubuntu Firefox Modifications' addon again.
You will clearly see the 'Ask.com' Search Engine has been added to my Search Engine List.

Thanks,
-Peter

[Peter Johnson (missinglink)]

To further clarify, now I am running the latest FF if I go:

Tools->Addons and 'disable' the 'Ubuntu Firefox Modifications' addon
Restart FF

then:
Tools->Addons and 'enable' the 'Ubuntu Firefox Modifications' addon again
Restart FF

It does NOT add 'ask.com' to my Search Engine List

This bug only seems to affect FF updates.

[Peter Johnson (missinglink)]

Hi Alex,

re: "In the end its a firefox bug that it reenables searchplugins on upgrade that are shipped by extensions. Lets use this bug to track that."

This may be evidence of a greater issue, however I suggest that because the bug didn't occur until I re-enabled the addon, this may not be the exact problem.

Please keep me informed.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

This is a bug in ubufox not firefox.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

please dont invalidate firefox task when i said above that this is a firefox bug.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

> This may be evidence of a greater issue, however I suggest that because the bug didn't occur until I
> re-enabled the addon, this may not be the exact problem.

thats wrong. its a firefox bug because firefox doesnt treat searchplugins shipped by extensions properly. The fact that ubufox is disabled just hides it, because then there is no extension that ships a searchplugin. So still: this is a firefox bug like i said above.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Sorry didnt see that post at first

[Martin Konecny (martin-konecny)]

can confirm this. It happened again yesterday when with the firefox 3.0.9 update

[Peter Johnson (missinglink)]

Happened again today with firefox 3.0.10 update

[chili555 (wrweston)]

Confirmed. It's very annoying to have FF add things I don't want or need to my configuration.

[Peter Johnson (missinglink)]

Happened again today with firefox 3.0.11 update

[Aaron Kelley (aaronkelley)]

Why is the "Ask.com" search plug-in packaged differently than the "Ubuntu Package Search" search plug-in? The "Ubuntu Package Search" plug-in does not return upon every Firefox update if it is removed. I don't know which way is more proper to bundle search plug-ins with Ubuntu, but it makes sense to choose one way and use it for all of the extra search plug-ins that are included.

On another note, why is the "Ask.com" plug-in included at all? Do lots of people use this? Maybe there's a good reason for it that I'm missing. Seems to me, though, that if a user wants to be able to search "Ask.com" from the Firefox search bar, they can add it from the long list of search plug-ins available for Firefox that you can access through the "Manage search engines" dialog.

[Peter Johnson (missinglink)]

I agree Aaron, Kill Jeeves.

[PEM (pemvpc-)]

Hi !

First sorry for my poor english
I experience the same trouble this morning on a windows PC.
It was during a Themes update and it appears that some of them update the search box information during the update.
For me it was Aero Fox Silver theme update (I don't use it) .
When you go on the web site's theme : http://www.virtusdesigns.net/ you find that all the themes from this site update your search box and add and place ask.com search service as default one.

Maybe your theme is one of them ?

Anyway for me all this theme will be uninstall from my PC.

[Aaron Kelley (aaronkelley)]

Doesn't seem to be quite the same problem. The "Ask.com" search engine is included by default in Ubuntu, not by an extra theme. I don't have any extra themes installed to be updated and I still experience this issue.

[Courtney Bane (cbane)]

In looking into this, I discovered that the Ask.com search plugin is the only one shipped as part of an extension. All of the other default search plugins ship in the /usr/lib/firefox-addons/searchplugins directory. Since each new version of Firefox is looking in a different base directory for its stuff, it doesn't see the Ask.com search plugin as having been hidden after the upgrade. I've attached a dump of my ~/.mozilla/firefox/<profile>/search.sqlite database that shows the duplication due to changed paths.

[10111 (joachim-neu)]

I can confirm this too - happened on every update in the past!

[mohan (kaveraj)]

This is a extremely annoying bug. Gives the impression that your firefox got infected. I really hate Ask.com for this marketing strategy. If this is a political issue and not a technical issue, it is very serious.

[10111 (joachim-neu)]

I agree with him. I myself thought for a very long time that there might be an agreement between Canonical and Ask.com to include the search plugin in the Ubuntu Firefox.

Is there already a bug filed in the mozilla bugtracker for this issue?

[Aaron Kelley (aaronkelley)]

I don't think this is really a Mozilla issue. As per comment #23, this happens because the path to the Ask.com search plug-in changes each time Firefox is updated, so Firefox thinks that it is a new search plug-in that has been installed. This is a side effect of how the Ask.com search plug-in is included with the package. The fix to this issue is simple: if the Ask.com search plug-in must be included by default, it should be put in /usr/lib/firefox-addons/searchplugins with all the rest of the default plug-ins.

[10111 (joachim-neu)]

So we can just put the ask.com search plugin somewhere where the name isn't changed any time a new version of firefox is installed as with all the other search plugins shipped by default?

[Aaron Kelley (aaronkelley)]

Yeah. Of course, this change would have to be made by the packagers. If you just move the file yourself, it'll just get replaced at the next update.

[10111 (joachim-neu)]

Sorry, that's what I meant. Just to find out whether this is a problem that can be fixed by the packagers.

[Wikibugs (wikibugs)]

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.

[Hendrik Lönngren (hendrik0)]

sent upstream: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=516361

[Hskupin (hskupin)]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 490860 ***

[Hskupin (hskupin)]

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.

[Gavin Sharp (gavin-sharp)]

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.

[Wikibugs (wikibugs)]

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.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Hendrik:
thanks for the upstream bug. I added it to the tasks so we can better track it.
Alexander:
Can you please add info missing from upstream report if any.

[molecule-eye (niburu1)]

This happens to me with *all* of the default search engines. If I remove any of them, they reappear after an upgrade. It's happened again when upgrading from 3.5.4 to 3.5.5 on Karmic.

This bug has been around for quite some time. Any chance we might see it fixed in the near future? It's quite annoying.

[Martin von Wittich (martin.von.wittich)]

Same for me, I always have to remove all these crappy plugins every time because they are reinstalled with every update.

[Christoph Buchner (bilderbuchi)]

I observe the same behaviour as molecule-eye and Martin von Wittich.

[Brice Terzaghi (terzag)]

Happens to me too (happened a few hours ago when updating Firefox to 3.5.9): search engine list is reset, with some default engines back although I had previously removed them and some others being reorganized (e.g. Google being below in the list while I personnaly put it on top).

[Christoph Buchner (bilderbuchi)]

Is this still happening? I just updated to 3.6.9, and my search bar entries are still the same. Can anybody confirm?

[10111 (joachim-neu)]

I can confirm -- the latest update to 3.6.9 today left my search bars untouched.

[Peter Johnson (missinglink)]

Confirmed.
When Firefox gets updated, "Ask.com" NO LONGER gets restored in my list of search engines in the top-right mini-search bar.

[10111 (joachim-neu)]

So this bug seems to be fixed.

[Aaron Kelley (aaronkelley)]

Confirmed fixed here as well. I made sure to check it carefully during my upgrade to 3.6.9 after reading these comments.

[Christoph Buchner (bilderbuchi)]

since we got several confirmations, I marked as fixed. If problem occurs feel free to re-open. Couldn't set the status of the upstream bug

[davec (david-covell-plus)]

This problem has reappeared with "Ubuntu Firefox Modifications 0.9rc2" to Firefox 3.6.13 on Ubuntu 10.04. Disabling this add-on fixes the problem, else all users see Ask.com as the only search engine. I must agree with others that this is a very annoying bug, as it is not at all obvious how to fix it. Is there really enough value in this add-on to compensate for all the problems it appears to cause?

[10111 (joachim-neu)]

Reappeared here, too.

[davec (david-covell-plus)]

I forgot to add that the symbolic link for "common" in /usr/lib/firefox-addons/searchplugins needs to be changed to "en-US" instead of "." or there are no search engines available at all! (See bug #520682).

[Sebastian Rühl (sebastian-ruehl)]

This is spyware behaviour and I was really in rage since I thought my system was infected. This reminds me on ICQ on windows or all the other crapware that changes the default search URL and engines as well as adding useless toolbars. Sorry for this hard words but this is very unprofessional.

[jettero (j-launchpad-voltar-confed-org)]

@sebastian, it really is all of that. What really bothers me most is that I've been following this bug for more than a year now. Is there nobody at canonical capable of fixing minor bugs? Do they even fix bugs or do they just wait for them to roll in from Debian?

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

On Fri, 2011-03-11 at 13:02 +0000, jettero wrote:
> @sebastian, it really is all of that. What really bothers me most is
> that I've been following this bug for more than a year now. Is there
> nobody at canonical capable of fixing minor bugs? Do they even fix bugs
> or do they just wait for them to roll in from Debian?
>

Capable = yes, with enough time = no.

Note that you are commenting on an old bug with a well understood cause
that was fixed ages ago. That cause hasn't returned, so, whatever
symptom you're experiencing is almost certainly not this bug.

In addition to that, this is a minor bug that so far seems to affect 4
people. It doesn't affect me or anybody I know or work with for that
matter, and this significantly increases the amount of time it takes to
get to the bottom of the actual cause (yes, we have to figure out what
the cause is before we fix it, even for minor bugs like this).

In an ideal world with unlimited manpower, we'd fix every single bug
that ever existed (even those ones that only affect a single user, only
happens on the first Tuesday of the month between 4pm and 4.30pm when
it's raining, the wind is blowing south-easterly and there is a full
moon). However, manpower is limited and I have to spend what effort I
can on bugs with a much larger impact than this.

Regards
Chris

[jettero (j-launchpad-voltar-confed-org)]

@chris, fair enough. To be honest, I haven't seen the bug in years anyway. I simply removed "ubufox" and it was problem solved on my end.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

I've confirmed the recent regression as a problem with the new language packs in maverick-proposed (bug 732768)

[Sam Liddicott (sam-liddicott)]

My firefox now will ONLY offer me ask.com as a search provider - ubuntu 10.10

$ ls -l /usr/share/mozilla/extensions/\{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384\}/<email address hidden>/searchplugins/
total 4
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2389 2010-10-27 16:42 ask.xml

$ dpkg -S /usr/share/mozilla/extensions/\{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384\}/<email address hidden>/searchplugins/ask.xml
dpkg: /usr/share/mozilla/extensions/{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}/<email address hidden>/searchplugins/ask.xml not found.

So... I don't know where the rest have gone, or why ask.com hasn't gone with it.

Firefox won't give me the choice to add google back!

[Christoph Buchner (bilderbuchi)]

This bug is still occuring for me, in oneric, with firefox 9.0.1.
Is there a fix on the horizon? Should bug statuse be changed? Imo, this should be Affects firefox (ubuntu). The upstream bug is not relevant I think because they basically play the ball back to ubuntu as per comment https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=516361#c3

[10111 (joachim-neu)]

I confirm, Ask.com is still reappearing after updates even under Ubuntu 11.10.

[Christoph Buchner (bilderbuchi)]

Not only ask.com, also the twitter search engine.

[Gavin Sharp (gavin-sharp)]

*** Bug 855248 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***