Firefox 40 and dev edition theme

I doubt many of you have heard about the developer edition version of firefox. Like the name suggests, it's intended for developers. It allows you to view a specific webpage in they eyes of different browsers for testing purposes and much more. I'm not here to talk to you about the ff dev edition. Ok, maybe just a little bit. Bundled with the dev edition are a couple of special themes, mainly dark and light themes.  Unlike the standard firefox theme, they feature squared tabs instead of rounded (ewww) ones.

So why should we care since most of us (me included) doesn't use the developer edition of firefox? With the release of firefox (stable) version 35, the themes were also available for use, albeit you had to tweak a few things to make use of them. In case you are running firefox 35 to 39, here are the steps you can use to enable the dev edition theme. Skip this part if you are only interested in how to enable dev theme in firefox 40.

1. Go to about:config. Enter it in the url bar (alt + d or F6 are two shortcuts to select the url bar)
2. If you get a warning sign, click on I'll be careful, I promise.
3. Search for browser.devedition.theme.enabled. If you can find it, then double click on the value where it says false, to make it true. You'll notice that the option turned bold. That means that the default value of said option has changed.
4. By default, the light theme is activated. If you want it to change to the dark theme, finnd devtools.theme, double click on light, and type in dark. Effects should be instantaneous. 
5. If you want to disable the dev theme, go to step 3 and change it from true to false.

With the release of firefox 40, mozilla decided to remove the themes (because of some stupid excuse). Don't bother doing the steps from above. It wont work.There is no easy way to fix this. Luckily, there exists an extension which lets us modify the look of any webpage and firefox itself.

Here is how you can enable the dev theme on firefox 40.

1. Install stylish. Reboot when asked to.
2. Install developer theme light or developer theme dark. Reboot when asked to.
3. If when you hover over a tab's close icon (the X), you see a strange image, use the following fix.
1. Go to about:addons.
2. On the left side click on User Styles.
3. Click on edit on the corresponding theme (usually only one in there).
4. Go to the end of the document and comment out (using the /* and */) the three lines below .tab-close-button. Picture for reference:
   
5. Click on save. Reboot if you can't see any changes.
4. If you ever want to get rid of the dev theme, simply remove it from the about:addons page and user style there in.

If they ever decide to bring up the dev themes in the stable version, I'll write up another post. In the mean time, enjoy your square tabs.

Windows 10 Privacy Concerns

Many of us were eager to upgrade to windows 10. After all, it's the first time that Microsoft distributes a major release for free (as in beer). For free? How is that possible? There's a famous quote by someone which goes something along the lines of, "If it's for free, then you are the product". That makes you think. Exactly how much have you had to sacrifice to receive your brand new shinny OS for free?

We've all come across this photo. What does it mean and how much of it is true?

All of it. Well, almost all of it. Disregard the propagandist photos.

I mean, just looking at the photos, to get a spy-free OS you need to jump through loots of hoops and disabled tons of options. Still, you won't be able to disable them since someone of them can't be changed (ie telemetry). Don't let me get started on cortana. She will collect your speech and typing history. Does she want my fingerprint as well to get the whole trio?


I know some of you are thinking why does it matter. Only Microsoft will have your data. I have nothing to hide, bla bla bla. Well, Microsoft is willing to share your information with 3rd parties. Read the EULA carefully. Better yet, do not install windows 10. It is not worth it.

Windows 7/8/8.1 might get telemetry

Microsoft recently launched windows 10. They didn't even bother hiding the fact that all versions of windows 10 (even enterprise at some extent) would be constantly spied on. Many who feared these features as Microsoft likes to call them, decided to stay on windows 7 or 8.1 (no reason to stay on 8, it sucks) and not upgrade. Microsoft couldn't have it. So they launch a series of optional/recommended updates on those platforms as well (mainly to spy on them as well). These are the list of updates/hotfixes and their descriptions.

• KB3068708 Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
• KB3022345 Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
• KB2952664 Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7
• KB2990214 Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 7 to a later version of Windows
• KB3035583 Update installs Get Windows 10 app in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1
• KB2971033 Description of the update for Windows Activation Technologies
• KB3021917 Update to Windows 7 SP1 for performance improvements
• KB3044374 Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to a later version of Windows

Checking all your windows updates for those eight pesky ones could be a bit cumbersome. Fortunately, we can use powershell to check for us.


Get-WmiObject -Class "win32_quickfixengineering" | Select-Object -Property "HotFixID" | Where-Object {$_ -match "KB3068708|KB3022345|KB2952664|KB2990214|KB3035583|KB2971033|KB3021917|KB3044374"} 

If you don't have any of the above mentioned updates, then it will not show anything. Otherwise, it will show the name of the update you have installed.

Hint: to open up powershell, you just open up cmd and type in powershell and then enter. 

 

In my case, it shows nothing. If you also get nothing, then you are lucky. In other scenarios, you will need to uninstall those specific updates.  

Control panel -> Programs -> Uninstall a program -> View Installed Updates

Find the corresponding updates in that huge lists and uninstall them.

Next up we must delete the corresponding services (if you had telemetry installed). Simply run these two commands in cmd:

sc stop Diagtrack 

sc delete Diagtrack 

Disable a couple of tasks in task scheduler.

Task Scheduler Library/ Microsoft/ Windows/ Application Experience - disable all 3 of the things in there. 

Next time you do a windows update, hide the above mentioned updates. (right click, hide update).

This should be enough for now to avoid telemetry in windows 7/8/8.1. If you are on vista, you are lucky.


Microsoft, why you gotta make our life so difficult?