Re: TW Firefox 151.0.4 - pushing World Cup Widget Ads to users??

On 6/16/26 8:44 PM, David C Rankin wrote:
> All, Devs,
> 
>    What on earth is going on with firefox in openSUSE? I updated TW 
> today to 20260615 and immediately upon switching to the newtab page I'm 
> hit with an ad for a World Cup widget that will automatically be 
> installed if I restart firefox. What on earth is going on with openSUSE 
> firefox?
> 
>    Searching a bit in the registry I run across new entries in 
> about:config at:
> 
> browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.sports.worldCup.matchesEndpoint
> 
> browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.sports.worldCup.teamsEndpoint
> 
>    Both are set to URLs similar to:
> 
> https://merino.services.mozilla.com/api/v1/wcs/teams
> 
>    Don't we sanitize firefox so the disto packages don't put out ads? 
> It's just tacky.
> 

All,

Just upgraded Tumbleweed to 20260623.

Mozilla did it again, and they changed the about:config endpoints to 
ignore prior disabling of world-cups ads. This is getting ridiculous for 
a distro package:

https://paste.opensuse.org/pastes/19efabc2a5a0

Top is the screenshot of the new 
browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.sports options that are pulling in 
this garbage.

The bottom is the ad displayed on the new-tab page.

I know this is flying under Wolfgangs radar and I'm not criticizing the 
packaging, but somehow Mozilla needs to give the openSUSE packagers a 
heads-up on how to turn off ads for distro packages. This is just creepy.


-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.